The number 100 is often associated with perfection – getting a 100 on a test or hitting 100% of free throw attempts.
For Devon Newberry, 100 took a new form Thursday.
After the graduate student and her partner, senior Peri Brennan, defeated their adversaries, the former clinched 100 career wins donning blue and gold. With the win, No. 1 UCLA beach volleyball (29-5, 1-0 Pac-12) defeated No. 9 Loyola Marymount (22-13) on Thursday morning before falling 4-1 to No. 2 USC (29-4) in the afternoon.
Newberry said the feat is special, but she has larger ambitions.
“I really don’t care about numbers,” Newberry said. “Nobody cares if you get 100 wins if you don’t win the national championship, so that’s all I’m focused on right now.”
Graduate student Jaden Whitmarsh celebrated 100 wins of her own March 30, and the two are the only two Bruins to achieve the feat.
Coach Jenny Johnson Jordan said she appreciates being able to celebrate moments like these.
“It’s important to celebrate even, quote unquote, smaller victories along our journey,” Johnson Jordan said. “That is a great accomplishment for a player in college volleyball, especially at a competitive program like ours.”
The duos of graduate student Lexy Denaburg and sophomore Maggie Boyd and junior Jessie Smith and redshirt freshman Kenzie Brower won their matches against the Lions to help push the Bruins to a 3-2 victory.
After falling to LMU’s Vilhelmiina Prihti and Michelle Shaffer last week, Denaburg said the pair learned from its shortcomings.
“We knew that if we go into that game just controlling our side and playing good defense and disciplined, we knew we were going to win,” Denaburg said. “We came out and did that.”
The Bruins secured just one victory of three three-set duels against the Lions – Brower and Smith’s victory over their opponent’s senior-sophomore duo.
Meanwhile, Whitmarsh and senior Tessa Van Winkle fell in three to LMU’s duo, and junior Natalie Myszkowski and redshirt freshman Ensley Alden managed to clinch just one of three sets in their bout.
Johnson Jordan said they have to only work to control what their own play.
“That’s the blessing and the curse, right?” Johnson Jordan said. “The blessing is that we know we can control a lot more things on our side of the ball, our side of the net, and that will probably produce a different result at the end of some of these matches.”
The Bruins’ afternoon duel against the Trojans was the teams’ fourth matchup in 2024 and the former’s first loss of the season since March 8.
Denaburg and Boyd were one of four Bruin pairs to fall to the Trojans.
“I’m not obviously happy with the result,” Denaburg said. “But I’m really happy with some takeaways that we can take back into practice this week. That was a positive if we choose to look at it that way.”
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