How did Washington beat UCLA?

This was no small victory. UW was hurting from its disappointing sweep at the hands of USC; UCLA was riding high after road victories against Long Beach State, Ohio State, Hawai’i, USC and WSU. Many at Hec Ed were hoping for a five-set match, assuming that’s what it would take to beat the Bruins.

Here, then, are the top five reasons the Huskies beat UCLA:

5. THEY CLOSED THE DEAL.

In Friday’s loss to USC, the Huskies let each of the three sets slip away at the end: The Trojans scored the final 4 points of set 1 (25-20), the final 2 points of set 2 (28-26) and 5 of the final 6 in set 3 (25-20). That’s a combined 11-1 collapse at crunch time.

Whenever both teams have reached at least 20 points, coach Jim McLaughlin wants his team to jump high and hit hard. Against USC, there were too many wasted out-of-system shots, and the Trojans made the Huskies pay. Toward the end of the crucial first set against the Bruins, UW pounded the ball at every opportunity, led by Bianca Rowland with 3 late kills, two on slides. During that first set, fans witnessed one of the most classic college volleyball sets in recent memory.

When the Bruins threatened late in the third set, it was Lauren Barfield and Krista Vansant who stepped up to seal the deal.

4. THEY KEPT ‘EM GUESSING.

Evan Sanders’ first set of the night was a backset to Summer Ross, good for a right side cross-court kill. The second kill came from Kylin Muñoz, the third from Vansant, the fourth from Rowland. For the match, Sanders’ distribution was about the same as the previous night, but she did a much better job disguising her targets, keeping the Bruins’ blockers and diggers guessing until the last moment. The senior transfer (Colorado State) could still get more balls to the right side and the back row, but she looked as if she’s more comfortable wheeling and dealing at a Pac-12 level.

3. THEY ELIMINATED ERRORS

The Huskies had 6 hitting errors in the first set, 4 by Vansant. From then on, the entire team committed just 4 hitting errors total —none at all in the second set. Those are eye-popping numbers, especially since two of the three errors in Barfield’s column were instances where she made an extra effort to save a poor pass, dig or set.

UW got many more kills than usual by tooling the Bruins (hitting off the block.) In particular, Muñoz was unafraid of UCLA’s long-armed blockers … and unwilling to send predictable shots cross-court to the waiting libero. For the match she had just one error with her 13 kills (.429). Rowland had 12 kills on just one error on 17 attacks … a dizzying .647 clip after hitting .080 the night before. Vansant (.182) added 10 kills, half of them in the first set.

Washington's Bianca Rowland (15) attacks against the block of UCLA's Priscilla Ezeji (24) and Sara Sage (4)
[Volleyblog Seattle photo by Leslie Hamann]

2. THEY PASSED NAILS

The Huskies, led by Jenna Orlandini and Kelly Holford, had just one serve receive error the entire match—just one. More important, their passes were on the mark, high enough and far enough from the net to give Sanders time and room to be creative.

Holford, a defensive specialist, has only seen limited playing time of late. But McLaughlin wanted to take some pressure off Vansant by pairing her with a more consistent passer. That meant that Muñoz did not play the back row.

By contrast, the Bruins’ passers made their setter, Lauren Van Orden, suffer all night. They sent her flat passes all the way to the net, forcing her to go time and again to her outsides, where the Huskies’ defense was waiting. UCLA’s Rachel Kidder had another big night on offense (16 kills on 30 swings), but was a major liability in the back row.

1. THEY SERVED BIG-TIME

Coach McLaughlin likes to say that most matches ultimately come down to serve and serve receive. After committing 10 service errors the night before (against 3 aces), UW was near perfect against the Bruins, one error (Sanders) and eight aces (3 by Vansant, 2 by Sanders.)

But aces and errors never tell the whole serving story. This season, McLaughlin’s core servers all use a jump float, producing a flat knuckleball that drives toward the shoulders of passers. Holford was particularly adept last night, with a five-point run in the first set, and a four-point string in the second. In that same second set, Ross had a streak of five and another of four. Vansant had a deciding seven-point run in the final set.

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