Michael Sealy said the Bruins are taking a different approach as the season winds down.
“At this point, traditionally you kind of loosen up a little bit because you’ve been going through a long season,” the coach said. “But for us it’s really locking it down. We’ve got a lot of work to do in two weeks.”
No. 25 UCLA women’s volleyball (12-11, 7-9 Pac-12) will travel to Arizona to face Arizona State (13-15, 4-12) and Arizona (19-9, 8-8) on Friday and Sunday, respectively. The Bruins swept both teams in October at Pauley Pavilion.
“I think we caught them during a really good phase for us,” Sealy said. “Every time we touched the ball we put ourselves in a good situation and I thought our dig to set to transition and attacking was really good. We just took care of the ball.”
However, the Bruins have suffered three straight losses and six out of their last seven overall. Four of those losses were by way of the sweep.
The Bruins’ most recent fall was a clean sweep against the Washington Huskies. In October, UCLA beat Washington in Seattle. Sophomore outside hitter Mac May said the Bruins are looking to bounce back from the loss in LA on Saturday.
“(Washington and Washington State) definitely gave us an awakening,” May said. “It’s not going to be easy and these teams are gonna fight in the Pac-12, so we’re gonna work hard and we’re gonna fight back. We’ve been really aware of that this past week.”
May said that to combat the looming issues that were apparent last weekend, the Bruins have been focused on their serve receive, passing and ball control in addition to coming together as a team.
They have also adopted an intense mentality honed in on coming out with the best possible result. But Sealy said the most important factor is a change in mentality.
“We’re definitely more serious,” Sealy said. “We’re talking about being a little more intentional, more engaged.”
After starting the season with five consecutive wins, Arizona State has dropped its last 10 games and is currently 11th in the Pac-12.
“Arizona State, for a team that is much better than their record, they have nothing to lose,” Sealy said. “Arizona’s always tough at home. They’re super blue-collared and gritty and they’re a tough one to beat.”
Arizona is 10-3 at home and is riding momentum off a win against Colorado.
With four regular season games left, senior middle blocker Kyra Rogers said the Bruins want to prove that they are a top-25 team.
“These next four games are really important for our tournament run,” Rogers said. “We really just want to go out and show people who we actually are because we’ve been struggling a little bit with getting some wins. We’re all just really excited and very pumped and focused and ready to go.”
