UCLA Women’s Volleyball Defeats Missouri State, Faces Host Hawai’i Tonight

Five matches, five wins.

That’s what the UCLA Women’s Volleyball team wanted to accomplish as they went into last night’s match against the Missouri State Bears and they came out of it with a perfect 5-0 record so far this season.

As has been the case in several other matches, UCLA came out of the gate a little slow, falling behind 11-7 in the first set. That’s when the Bruins went on a 7-1 run that included three Reilly Buechler kills to make it 14-12 UCLA.

The first set seesawed back and forth and the teams were tied at 21-21. But, Missouri State scored the next four points to take the set.

The second set was almost firmly in control of the Bruins from the get-go. With the score tied 2-2, UCLA went on a 5-1 run and never looked back as the Bruins evened the match by winning the set 25-16.

The third set was very atypical for this year’s Bruins. They started the set off by going up 9-1 and led most of the way. Then, Missouri State mounted a comeback and got it to a one-point deficit to make the score 19-18 UCLA.

But, the Bruins put the Bears away by scoring the last six point to win 25-18.

In the fourth set, the Bruins were never even tied with Missouri State as UCLA led the entire game en route to a 25-15 set win to earn the win in the match.

Reily Buechler led the Bruins with 17 kills and 11 digs while Ryann Chandler posted her second straight double-double with 45 assists and 15 digs. Buechler wasn’t the only Bruin in double digits for kills. Four others Bruin seniors Jordan Anderson, Claire Felix and Jennie Frager all had 11 kills each. The Bruins’ hitting percentage for the match was .302.

Next up for the Bruins tonight is a match to host Hawai’i as UCLA looks to complete its second tournament of the season undefeated. Hawai’i also won their second match of the tournament by defeating Pacific in straight sets, to set up a match against UCLA in the final match of the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic tonght at 10pm PT.

Both live stats and live audio, courtesy of ESPN 1240 AM in Hawai’i, should be available online.

Go Bruins!!!