What’s Bruin: UCLA Women’s Volleyball Earns #15 National Seed

While the Bruins Nation is celebrating the hiring of Chip Kelly, there’s plenty more celebrating to do as many teams saw wins over the weekend.

UCLA Women’s Volleyball

On Saturday, UCLA swept Southern Cal, 25-18, 28-26, and 26-24. On Sunday, the team earned the #15 national seed in the NCAA Tournament.

In the first set, all it took was two Southern Cal errors for UCLA to regain the lead and the set. Reily Buechler recorded seven kills while Madeleine Gates and Jenny Mosser each had three. Sarah Sponcil had seven digs with 11 assists and Savvy Simo had four digs. In this set, the Bruins out-hit the Trojans .222 to .020. Southern Cal led the second set until the Bruins went on a 5-0 run on top of a service error from Southern Cal. When it came to hits, the Bruins were out-hit by the Trojans .250 to .154, a big difference from the first set. In the last set, the Bruins were once again out-hit .262 to .250 but came back to win it all. But thanks to some costly mistakes by Southern Cal, UCLA took the set and swept the match.

Last night, the Bruins learned that, in addition to being the #15 national seed, they will host the first and second rounds this weekend. UCLA hosts Austin Peay on Friday. The winner of that match will face the winner of Friday’s Denver-Cal Poly match on Saturday.

UCLA Women’s Soccer

UCLA advanced to the NCAA College Cup after defeating Princeton 3-1.

The first half was all Bruins. Most of the action took place in the Tigers offensive third and, if it weren’t for Princeton goalkeeper Natalie Grossi, the score would have been heavily lopsided in UCLA’s favor.

It took all but 90 seconds for UCLA to take a 2-0 lead in the first half. Hailie Mace opened the scoring with a header after a cross from Mackenzie Cerda. A minute and a half later, Olivia Athens netted her first collegiate goal thanks to a pass in the box from Anika Rodriguez. Princeton cut the deficit in half after an early second-half goal on a counterattack. The Bruins responded with another goal by Mace, who scored her 15^th goal of the season.

With the win, UCLA makes its way into the College Cup for the 10th time. They will face Duke at 4:30 pm PT on Friday in the National Semifinal.

UCLA Women’s Basketball

The Bruins won both of their games in the South Point Thanksgiving Shootout.

UCLA faced off against Kansas State on Friday in a game that was a little bit sloppier than Coach Close would have liked. The Bruins just didn’t look sharp. They only shot 38% from the field. Despite that, the Bruins came out on top 64-55.

The Creighton game had a bad start. UCLA trailed Creighton until the last two minutes of the second quarter. At the half, the Bruins only lead by a point. UCLA finally pulled away towards the end of the third quarter. They put the game to rest in the fourth defeating the Bluejays, 72-63.

The two games weren’t the best the team has played. They looked sloppy and a little sluggish. But these kinds of tests define the good teams from the great teams. And UCLA was not a great team over the weekend. They will need to fine tune before their game against UC Riverside on Tuesday.

UCLA Football/BN Community

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And that’s What’s Bruin this Monday morning!


Go Bruins!