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Women's Volleyball - UCLA vs Oregon State - Preview and Game Thread

When: Friday, October 17, 7:30 PM PT

Where: Crossroads School Gym, Santa Monica, CA (Free Admission)

Audio: Bruin Live Audio

Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast

Official Preview: Here

(Note: Bruinette88 has recruited me to provide match previews for the women's volleyball team until she returns.)

The #19 women's volleyball team plays its final "home away from home" game in its second-choice "home away from home" venue (a local K-12 gym) tonight when it hosts the Oregon State Beavers. One thing that Dan Guerrero's athletic department forgot to do when they advertised these Crossroads School matches was to broadcast an address for the K-12 school. Apparently they just realized that boo-boo today--too late for Wednesday's match against Oregon, unfortunately. But how would they get that information to fans? At a morning brainstorming session, our AD first proposed a series of sandwich boards placed around town adorned with arrows and the words "this way." He also proposed a trail of doughnut crumbs from Westwood to the Crossroads School Gym. Finally, some clever member of staff came up with the bright idea of tweeting the address:

Mission accomplished! That qualifies as a busy but successful day of "athletic directoring" by the guy currently in charge at UCLA.

By the way, the attendance for Wednesday's match at the Crossroads School was 326, which is a bit smaller than the 1512 attendance for the same fixture last year played at Pauley Pavilion. However, it was a bigger turnout than UCLA had for what Morgan Center billed as a "Sunday matinee" at our "home away from home" at Firestone Fieldhouse. That match drew only 287 fans, down slightly from the 321 fans that attended the Utah match last Friday. For reference, the corresponding match with Utah last season (at Pauley Pavilion) drew 840 fans. It seems that free admission and free swag isn't boosting attendance quite as much as the athletic department figured.

All of which is a shame since the women's volleyball team has had some good moments this season. For example, on Wednesday the Bruins knocked off the tenth-ranked Oregon Ducks in four sets (25-18, 25-21, 20-25, 25-19). The Ducks aren't the first highly-ranked teams the Bruins have upset this season. In fact, UCLA has tended to play better against better competition.

The big worry tonight is that the Bruins have a habit of splitting their weekend matches. Fortunately Oregon State is a below-average Pac-12 opponent, giving UCLA the chance to sweep their home games against the Oregon schools and open a small gap in the standings between themselves and the lower half of the conference. In other words, this is a very important match if UCLA wants to finish above the .500 mark in conference play.

Since Olga Strantzali didn't play against Oregon and Claire Felix played sparingly, it's evident that both players are still recovering from injuries. Against Oregon, Haley Lawless (replacing Strantzali) and Jennie Frager (in place of Felix) performed substantially better than they did against Colorado. However, once again Karsta Lowe led the Bruins, setting a new career high with 33 kills. Julie Consani finished one assist shy of 60, and Reily Buechler continued her strong freshman campaign with a double-double (13 kills, 13 digs).

If the Bruins can find some consistency, they should be able to wrap up a victory tonight against Oregon State in 3 or 4 sets. Anything short of that result will be a pretty strong indication that the Bruins don't have the mental toughness necessary to contend in the conference.

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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