UCLA strikes down No. 2 Stanford to hand it its first shutout in 4 years
UCLA women’s volleyball junior outside hitter Mac May collected 12 kills and 10 digs for a double-double in the team’s sweep upset over No. 2 Stanford on Friday night. (Daanish Bhatti/Daily Bruin)
By Coral Smith
Oct. 25, 2019 11:06 p.m.
The Bruins did what no other unranked team has done against the Cardinal this season: win a set.
And then they just kept going.
UCLA women’s volleyball (11-7, 6-3 Pac-12) took down reigning national champion No. 2 Stanford (13-4, 7-2) in three sets at home Friday night.
The Bruins’ 25-22 first-set victory marks the only set the Cardinal has lost to an unranked team since Nov. 2, 2018, and the match is the first time since December 2015 that Stanford has been swept by any team – ranked or unranked.
“The whole time, there wasn’t a point where it was dead silent; we were talking the whole time” said redshirt sophomore middle blocker Emily Ryan. “The amount of energy we carried throughout the whole game was amazing. … We haven’t been that energetic in a long time.”
The first set was the closest, but it was also the only one in which UCLA led wire-to-wire. The Bruins built up their lead to a set-best three points with two straight aces from redshirt sophomore middle blocker Sabrina Smith – just her second and third aces of the season – to make it 10-7.
“We battled in the first set, back and forth,” said coach Michael Sealy. “We just kind of played our game and let (Stanford) make some mistakes here and there and that was the difference.”
Stanford went up early in the second set, but two kills in a row from redshirt freshman outside hitter Lexi Hadrych put UCLA up 7-6.
An 8-2 run later in the set gave the Bruins a five-point lead at 21-15, and while the Cardinal fended off three attempts at set point, UCLA was able to seal the deal on a kill from junior outside hitter Mac May to win the set 25-22.
While Stanford took the initial lead 4-2 in the third set, a four-point run for UCLA gave the Bruins back the lead, and a 10-of-12 spree put them ahead by a set-best nine points at 19-10. From there, Stanford was only able to get within five points, as UCLA secured the sweep upset with a 25-18 third set.
The Bruins held the Cardinal to a season-low 35 kills, and none of Stanford’s players were able to record double-digit kills.
In addition, the Cardinal never went on a run of more than three points in a row, something Sealy said was critical to UCLA keeping Stanford’s offense contained.
“If they did score a point, we refocused,” Sealy said. “There were a few situations where they maybe missed some serves and let us off the hook, but I was confident in all of our rotations that we could side-out.”
Five players for UCLA recorded a kill, including three who collected double-digit kills. Ryan – who had three blocks and a season-high 11 kills – said having no one player carry the offense was critical for the Bruins to win in every area of the match.
“It was extremely important that it was a team effort,” Ryan said. “Even if one person was on fire, we were still a team effort with energy.”
May said that, coming into the match, UCLA knew Stanford’s specialty was consistency, so the Bruins’ needed to match that in order to get the advantage over the Cardinal.
“We did an unreal job of (being consistent),” May said. “We were so consistent, just energy-wise, playing-wise, we did not dip the entire game, which is amazing.”
UCLA will face another ranked Pac-12 foe on Sunday afternoon when No. 15 California comes to Pauley Pavilion.
“We told the team that one night doesn’t define us,” Sealy said. “We say it after a loss; you’ve got to say it after a win, too. This was one night on a Friday night where we played really well, and that has nothing to do with Sunday.”
