2010-2011 Women's Volleyball Off to a Great Start

by BruinIslander on Sep 7, 2010 4:04 PM PDT

Senior Dicey McGraw recorded her 13th-career double-double at the game against St. Mary's on Friday. (Photo credit: UCLA Athletics)

After the retirement of long-time coach Andy Banachowski, the winningest Division I women's volleyball coach in history, the UCLA women's volleyball team could have faltered. But the hiring of Mike Sealy, a former Bruin player for legendary Al Scates who had spent the last four years as an assistant at Hawai'i, one of the best programs in the country, boded well. And Sealy has not disappointed. UCLA started off the season with a 5-1 record, including a sweep at the SJSU/SMC Tournament last weekend (and a three-set sweep of Kansas State in the season opener).

The Bruins play their first home game of the season on Wednesday, September 8th at 7 pm at Pauley Pavilion.

This year's team is a relatively young team, with just two returning seniors. One of them is Dicey McGraw, named to the All-Pac-10 Conference Honorable Mention team after leading the team in kills and points per set. A promising freshman class includes 6'-3" middle blocker Mariana Aquino, who was selected to the Brazilian National Junior Team multiple times, and 6' outside hitter Kelly Reeves, who played on the U.S. Women's Junior National Team this year.

After starting the year ranked #16, the Bruins have edged up to #13. Their only loss has been to #6 Hawai'i, at the Chevron Rainbow Wahine Invitational in Honolulu.

The Bruins will face Pepperdine at the home opener on Wednesday, then go on the road to face CSU Bakerfield, CSU Northridge, Penn and UC Irvine at the ASICS Challenge, #8 USC, then WaSu and #9 Washington until finally coming home to host #10 Cal and #2 Stanford on October 8-9. The game against USC at the Galen Center will be televised on Fox Sports Net on a tape-delay basis (per the UCLA Athletics site). You can also listen to live broadcasts on uclabruins.com.

Let's cheer the Bruins on to another winning season!

Go Bruins!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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So how good is this team?

Can they compete for a national title? Pac-10 title? Are they not quite that good, but can make a Sweet 16 appearance in the tourney? Curious what reasonable expectations are with the program starting in a new direction.

For everything UCLA baseball, visit my UCLA baseball twitter.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Sep 7, 2010 4:05 PM PDT reply actions

Didn't we lose the #1 recruit?

From what I can recall, she left after the end of last year to play for her father (coach of Nebraska?). I thought that would set us back; she may have left the program as a result of the changes to the program.

by UCLAngels on Sep 7, 2010 7:18 PM PDT reply actions

The team suffered 2 major losses

First, our star (and i believe freshman all american?) setter Lauren Cook got homesick and returned to Nebraska to play for her father. Then, our absolutely dominating Sophmore Middle Blocker Amanda Gil transferred to Washington, which is sad because it is believed it is so that she could follow her boyfriend that was kicked off of the football team last year by RN.

With those two players gone, the graduation of Kaitlyn Sather, the bruins were predicted to finish #7 in the conference, the lowest I believe they have ever been predicted. At least while I had followed the team the last 4/5 years, the strength of UCLA had always been in its setters and middle blockers, while the weakness was in not very powerful Outside Hitters. With UCLA losing key players that once were strengths, UCLA came in with lowered expectations, but still #16 in the nation (though the have moved up to #13 I believe, shows the strength of the pac-10 nearly across the board)

It’s a little early to tell how far UCLA will progress this year, we will have a better idea once Pac-10 season gets underway and UCLA plays some stiffer competition, as UCLA has played only 1 elite team in Hawaii, and lost in 4 games. I along with many in the band/band alumni will be attending the game at the galen center for the 3rd straight year, so I am looking forward to that very much.

The future should be bright with coach Sealy, as I think the team needed a new direction at head coach, but for this season, it’s hard to tell what to expect

by truebluebruin24 on Sep 8, 2010 1:10 AM PDT reply actions