Swept By Oregon, UCLA Women’s Volleyball Looks to Regroup Against Oregon State

The UCLA women’s volleyball team was swept at home last night by the Oregon Ducks. That’s bad enough, but

Last Time Out

Last night, the UCLA women’s volleyball team hosted the Oregon Ducks at Pauley Pavilion and, despite the fact that the Bruins were ranked higher and at home, the Ducks swept the Bruins in three sets. Overall, UCLA hit a dismal .145 for the match while the Ducks had a .231 hitting percentage.

In the first set, the teams battled early and, after 28 points, the set was tied 14-14. That’s when the Ducks went a critical 8-4 run that UCLA could not fight back from. The teams split the last six points and Oregon won the set, 25-21.

The Ducks jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead in the second set and didn’t look back as the Bruins just could not pull any closer than two points down as the Ducks easily took the set, 25-18.

UCLA actually took an early 1-0 and 2-1 leads before Oregon went a 7-0 run that pretty much ended any hope the Bruins had to win a set in this match. UCLA did manage to chip away at the Ducks’ lead and they finally got it to just a point at 24-23, but, then, Taylor Borup killed the next volley and the Ducks wrapped up the set and the match.

While the Bruins managed to slow down the tandum of Lindsey Vander Weide and Ronika Stone, Borup led both teams with 13 kills while Mac May was the only Bruin in double-digit kills with 10.

The Bruins are just making too many mistakes to beat a top 20 team like the Ducks. They’ve been playing like this all season and it’s time for Michael Sealy to step up and fix this team before it gets any later in the season.

Oregon State Beavers

The Beavers come to Pauley Pavilion without a Pac-12 win yet this season, despite being 10-7 overall. So far, Oregon State has lost all five Pac-12 matches they’ve played.

That should mean that this is the right prescription to help Michael Sealy finally get this team playing as well as they are capable.

Outlook

If UCLA loses tonight, the rest of the season will likely be very long and it may be getting to the point where the goodwill Sealy built up with his sole national championship may no longer be able to save his job, especially with beach volleyball coach Stein Metzger winning a national title in May. It may be time for Dan Guerrero to turn over the reins of both programs to Metzger.

This is your UCLA women’s volleyball vs. Oregon State Beavers open thread.


Go Bruins!!