Senior setter Kyle Caldwell unlaced his shoe and snatched it from the ground, only to hurl it back in frustration.
Beside him, sophomore outside hitter Gonzalo Quiroga placed his head on the floor, unable to grasp what had just happened.
Other UCLA players remained sitting on the court, as well, with blank facial expressions.
This image was taken just after No. 1 UCLA came up short in a heartbreaking five-set loss to No. 2 UC Irvine in the team’s first home loss of the season.
It was the decisive fifth set that the Bruins will lose sleep over. UCLA’s own miscues cost the team several points en route to the 15-11 set loss that gave Irvine the match.
The Bruins committed three service errors and four hitting errors in the set to seal their fate.
“You can’t afford to make little mistakes down the stretch, especially in the fifth set, where it’s a crapshoot and every point matters,” Caldwell said. “It’s 15 points. … You miss one thing, and that can cost you the game. We just kind of fell apart early in that set and tried to struggle back.”
The critical set was characteristic of UCLA’s entire night as the team was never able to establish a consistent rhythm.
One main factor was the Anteaters’ aggressive serving; Irvine leads the nation in service aces per set.
“They took us out of our passing rhythm (with the serving), and once we got out of our passing rhythm, we kind of lost our fire, and they kind of jumped on us,” Caldwell said.
The Bruins, though, had their opportunities in the waning plays to make a final run.
Down 11-13 in the fifth set, UCLA had four kill attempts sent back as the UCI block responded to the challenge.
Each block evoked the growing anxiety of the crowd as the Bruins were unable to put the ball away. Ultimately, the Anteaters capitalized to take the point, and the air out of the building.
“We couldn’t finish it, we couldn’t tool the block, and we couldn’t set it out. It (was) all our problem,” Quiroga said on the play.
Coach Al Scates told his team it can fix these problems and improve its game, whereas UCI’s game has peaked.
“We can get a lot better,” Scates told his emotional team in the postgame huddle. “Irvine is as good as they’re going to get.”