Women’s volleyball continues losing streak with second sweep by Stanford
Sophomore outside hitter Mac May recorded a double-double in the Bruins’ loss to Stanford on Sunday, with a team-high 15 kills and 10 digs. May posted a .256 hitting percentage on the night. (Jenna Nicole Smith/Daily Bruin)
Women’s volleyball
| No. 2 Stanford | 3 |
| No. 20 UCLA | 0 |
By Dylan Dsouza
Oct. 29, 2018 12:04 a.m.
One month later and the same result.
No. 20 UCLA women’s volleyball (11-8, 6-6 Pac-12) was kept scoreless by No. 2 Stanford (20-1, 12-0) at home Sunday afternoon with 2,868 people in attendance. The Bruins were swept at Stanford on Sept. 26.
“I thought we were consistent as far as our energy,” said coach Michael Sealy. “You could never know what the score was by looking at our faces.”
The Bruins started the first set off on a 7-2 run, prompting a timeout by the Cardinal. Stanford eventually tied the set at 17 apiece, and at 21-21, the Cardinal took four of the last five points to win the set 25-22.
Stanford outside hitter Kathryn Plummer came into the game ranked second in the conference in kills per set at 4.87. She had seven kills from 16 attempts in the first set for the Cardinal.
“(Plummer) has always been the big dog on the court,” said sophomore outside hitter Mac May. “She is the person we always focus on and I was trying to battle back against her on offense.”
After seven ties and two lead changes in the first set, the Bruins never gained the lead in the second.
Stanford notched a 71 percent sideout rate in the second set. UCLA mustered only 10 kills with six errors from 41 attack attempts in the set for a hitting percentage of .098.
Neither team managed to get separation early in the third set until Stanford went on a 8-3 run to take a 19-14 lead. While the Bruins fought back and had set point at 24-23, the Cardinal took the next three points off a kill from Stanford middle blocker Holly Campbell and two attack errors by UCLA.
“I think it was just a lapse,” said redshirt freshman outside hitter Alexis Light. “We’re still working on trying to figure out what exactly is causing us to back off. We need to continue to push the pace instead of getting laid back.”
May notched a double-double with a team-high 15 kills for a .256 hitting percentage, along with 10 digs. Senior libero Zana Muno recorded seven assists and a game-high 27 digs.
“Everyone on Stanford hit below their season averages so we obviously did some good things,” Sealy said. “We were looking at matchups and trying to find situations that were good. They just have a lot of very good rotations.”
This was UCLA’s third consecutive sweep defeat, the first time all season they have lost three matches in a row.
UCLA will travel up the coast to take on Oregon (15-7, 8-4) and Oregon State (11-13, 1-11) this weekend for the second time since the start of conference play.
