Bruins washed out by two straight losses

Wednesday, October 1, 1997

Bruins washed out by two straight losses

Huskies, Cougars spike UCLA’s hopes for victories; seasoned Cal,
Stanford up next

By Jennifer Kollenborn

Daily Bruin Contributor

On a cloud-covered journey to the rainy state of Washington last
weekend, the UCLA women’s volleyball team managed to get caught out
in the rain as they dampened their 5-2 record with two straight
losses. The only grateful thought the Bruins flew home with was the
hope of turning over a new leaf in their two home games against UC
Berkeley and Stanford this weekend.

"We need to work on our attack and eliminate our errors," head
coach Andy Banachowski said. "In the latter part of our games, we
have been getting the kills, and we have been doing well in the
conference as far as blocking, we are second, and we lead the
conference in digs. So, we’re doing a lot of good things; now, it’s
a matter of putting it all together. It’s being able to get those
kills at the right time, and not hurting ourselves by our own
attack errors."

The Bruins’ lack of offense combined with their attack errors
against the University of Washington, resulting in UCLA’s third
recorded straight loss against the Huskies.

UCLA (1-2 in the Pacific 10, 5-3 overall) lost, 3-0, to
Washington (3-0, 8-4) in three tough matches 16-14, 15-10,
18-16.

In a match that lasted one hour and 55 minutes, the Huskies
outblocked UCLA .184 to .099.

"In the match, we were not able to convert a lot of point
scoring opportunities for ourselves," Banachowski said. "We had
some opportunities on Friday night to win the games and we let them
slip away."

"(Washington) is a very strong blocking team. They have two of
the quickest and best jumping middles in the conference, Makare
Desilets and Leslie Tuiasosopo. With Tamika’s knees being very
sore, she was not able to move along the net.

"They ended up with a lot of double blocks against us when we
were only able to get one player up at the net."

Also, senior outside hitter Kara Milling was out of sync in her
play against Washington, only putting up 12 kills in 35 attempts
for a meager .171.

"(Milling) did not have the type of night that she has been
having," Banachowski said. "We should have given her a few more
opportunities to get some kills, but we ended up setting our left
side more – Celeste Peterson and Tanisha Larkin, who both notched
14 kills each. And I think that hurt (Milling) because usually even
when she’s down for awhile, she’ll come back and get her kills, but
she just needed a few more opportunities to get some swings."

No. 19 UCLA continued its losing streak on Saturday with a 3-1
loss to unranked Washington State.

The Cougars defeated the Bruins, 3-1, in front of a crowd of
2,635, lowering the Bruins’ record to 5-4. The Cougars remained
undefeated.

One factor that contributed to UCLA’s disappointing loss was the
loss of starting middle blocker Tamika Johnson.

"We had to put Tanisha Larkin in the middle because Tamika was
hurting from Friday night’s performance," Banachowski said. "Her
knees were just too sore to allow her to play in another game which
was back-to-back. But, we came out and played hard, and that’s a
good sign."

The Cougars outhit the Bruins .306 to .197 and outblocked them
13.5 to 11 in two hours and six minutes.

Although Washington State appeared to dominate the game in both
attack and defense, each team racked up more than 10 service
errors.

The intensity of the match was also reflected in the number of
yellow cards awarded by the referee to both teams. UCLA suffered
two yellow cards, one to No. 16 Kara Milling and one to the
assistant coach. On the other side of the court, the head coach for
Washington State picked one up.

UCLA’s head coach also believes that the statistics were
recorded incorrectly.

"I think our attack is better than what they are giving us
credit for in (Washington State’s stats)," Banachowski said. "We
played a better match all the way through, so I was pleased with
our effort. Washington State has a good experienced group, and they
play very well together."

Looking ahead to this weekend, UCLA has two difficult matches
against Berkeley and Stanford, who both have more experience than
UCLA.

"We have a lot of youth out there on the court," Banachowski
said. "We have some experience, and as the season progresses, we
can get a lot better."

Daily Bruin file photo

Kara Milling during a game last year against Washington.

"We’re doing a lot of good things; now, it’s a matter of putting
it all together."

Andy Banachowski

Women’s volleyball coach