The Bruins will have another stab at capitalizing on the regular season’s success in the postseason – this time with a more experienced, deep roster.
No. 1 UCLA beach volleyball (30-3) has one more regular season duel before heading into the Pac-12 and NCAA championships. Despite being ranked in the top five over the past two seasons, the Bruins have never brought home either title.
“(It’s the) leadership and experience,” said coach Stein Metzger. “The athletes we have now are the same ones we had three years ago, four years ago.”
UCLA went undefeated in the Stanford West Coast Classic a week ago to win its 25th straight duel, breaking a school record it set last season.
“(Juniors Megan McNamara and Nicole McNamara and senior Elise Zappia are) playing further into their careers and they just understand the game better,” Metzger said.
However, for sophomore Savvy Simo, the current momentum does not bury last year’s empty-handed return from the postseason.
“We’re doing well right now,” Simo said. “But what matters is how we do at the end of the season, so the win streak doesn’t mean much to us.”
Despite a then-program record of a 24-game win streak during the regular season last year, then-No. 2 UCLA fell to then-No. 1 USC in the Pac-12 Championships. The Bruins were also upset by then-No. 3 Pepperdine and then-No. 4 Florida State in the NCAA Championships.
“If we can keep the momentum going, awesome, we’d love it,” Simo said. “But we try to keep our heads down and not think too much about how we’re doing now just because we have the next two weeks to get a lot better.”
Two of the Bruins’ three losses this season have been against lower-ranked opponents, however both were at the beginning of the season when they struggled to play through strong winds.
“We ran into some wind last year, (but) this year we’ve had a lot more training and time in the wind,” Metzger said. “So I’m feeling a lot more comfortable about those elements (this year). Every year at nationals there’s been at least one day with 20 mph wind.”
UCLA experienced troubling wind for two weekends in February, which Metzger said contributed to the team’s early losses to top teams such as then-No. 5 Hawai’i, then-No. 1 USC and then-No. 5 Pepperdine.
Should the Bruins win their last regular season duel against No. 6 Long Beach State next week, UCLA will have about two weeks to prepare to enter the postseason as the No. 1 seed for the first time in program history.
“I think that we’re all super excited to have this momentum going into postseason – going into Pac-12s and nationals,” Nicole McNamara said. “So we just want to keep riding this out for the rest of the season.”
