UCLA Women’s Volleyball Sweeps WVU, Looks to Beat Undefeated Hawai’i

The UCLA women’s volleyball team has now won five straight and all five wins have been sweeps. That will likely come to an end tonight when the Bruins face the Hawai’i Rainbow Wahine at 10 pm PT. That’s because #18 Hawai’i is still undefeated so far this season.

Last Time Out

The Bruins swept West Virginia last night for UCLA’s fifth straight win and fifth straight sweep. The first set was kind of ugly. How ugly? Football team ugly. Except UCLA was playing the role of Oklahoma last night.

The Mountaineers actually scored the first two points of the match. They then led again at 3-2. That was their final lead of the set.

UCLA went on a 7-1 run to jump out to a 9-4 lead, but the Bruins didn’t stop there. With the score 11-7, UCLA went on a 9-0 run which became a 13-1 run to take a commanding 24-8 lead. West Virginia held off the first set point to make it 24-9, but Emily Ryan wrapped up the set on the next point.

West Virginia put up more of a fight in the second set as the Mountaineers held the lead at 8-6 and again at 10-9, but the Bruins finished the set strong. An 11-3 UCLA run put the Bruins ahead for good and made it 20-13. The Mountaineers made a valiant effort to hold back the Bruins, but they just couldn’t do it and UCLA went on to win the second set 25-18.

After the break, the Bruins began the third set strong with an 8-2 run. For the remainder of the set, West Virginia chipped away and chipped away until they finally tied the set 24-24, fighting off three UCLA match points. UCLA took the lead 25-24, but West Virginia came right back to tie it again. Mac May wasn’t about to have any of that, though, as she scored the final two points to close out the match.

May led UCLA in kills again with 18, but the star last night was Devon Chang who picked up a double-double with 21 assists and 11 digs. Hawley Harrer added 15 assists while Kelly Barry and Savvy Simo had 15 digs and 10 digs, respectively.

Overall, UCLA outhit the Mountaineers .344 to .143 for the match, even though West Virginia actually outhit the Bruins in set three .344 to .323.

Hawai’i Rainbow Wahine

The Rainbow Wahine enter tonight’s match a perfect 8-0. San Diego and Washington are the two best volleyball programs that the Wahine have beaten so far this year.

Looking at tonight’s match realistically, I don’t see the Bruins winning this one, but the team has made progress since they dropped their first two matches a few weeks ago. I think UCLA will lose tonight three sets to two, but a few weeks ago, they might have gotten swept.

I do hope I’m wrong and maybe they can show some fortitude and pull out a 3-2 win to hand Hawai’i their first loss, but I’m not sure this team is there yet.

This is your UCLA women’s volleyball vs. Hawai’i late night open thread.


Go Bruins!!!