Taking Bruin-Trojan rivalry to heart

  Kristee Porter is a junior outside
hitter on the UCLA women’s volleyball team. The Bruins play
USC on Friday.

It’s never hard for us to get up for the “˜SC match
because we’re crosstown rivals, and the intensity is
automatically there. We’re excited to play them. The first
time we played them (on Oct. 6), we came out a little sluggish at
the start and this time it’s a little bit of revenge for us.
It determines our Pac-10 standings and we want to be at the top, so
this game’s really important to us.

I don’t have any friends on “˜SC’s team. I
don’t really want any friends on “˜SC’s team.
That’s pretty much it. I didn’t know about “˜SC
before coming here and then it was just automatic that I would hate
them.

I’ve never felt anything like this. The emotion that runs
through you when you even think about “˜SC is tremendous. Just
hate; you just want to go out and beat them. In Texas, I never
dreamed of anything like this. We had crosstown rivals in high
school and through clubs, and it never felt quite as intense as
this.

My freshman year, I really didn’t know anything about
“˜SC. I knew that we wanted to beat them really bad. But when
they blew the whistle, all of a sudden it hit me that I wanted to
kill them. That was an awesome game for us. We lost in five, but we
were mostly freshmen.

This year’s freshmen understand. They haven’t talked
about it so much, but you can tell by the way they practice and the
emotion that they put into the game ““ especially a couple
days before the match, you can see the determination in
everyone’s eyes.

As a freshman no one had to say anything to me. It was obvious
that we wanted to win this more than anything else in the world.
“Just kill them.” That’s all I tell them to
do.

We’ve played them once already, so they understand how it
is now. We feed off each other to fuel the fire. There’s no
coaxing involved now. It’s just an intense motivation to
win.

I like the crowd when we play (at USC) ““ close. It gets my
adrenaline rushing a little bit more. I don’t think
it’s an advantage for them. It could be an advantage for us
if we used it a little bit more.

Their crowd, it was saying a lot of different things.
Eventually, it got to the point where you wanted to prove them
wrong and you just wanted to show them that you are the best. And
that’s what it came down to toward the end: our desire to win
and push through the game.

Our team, is really not about trash talking, it’s about
getting the job done. I occasionally throw a few phrases there
““ but that’s just me. Ella (Harley) is the funniest,
especially at the net. Erika (Selsor) will just give you looks,
intimidating looks that chill the spine. I’ve been on the
opposite end of that plenty of times. Erika gets pretty intense
when it’s time to play ‘SC. She’s in
everyone’s face, which is needed sometimes. She definitely
changes a bit.

Seeing (USC) on our floor, it’s just a tremendous rush. It
makes you want to go out and play harder than you ever have before.
We have competition between Stanford all the time, but it
doesn’t feel anything like the ‘SC match.

I started thinking about this game right at the end of the last
one. I was thinking we have another chance and we want to beat
them.

Before this match there’s a little bit more swagger in
everyone’s walk. You can see it in our eyes, we’re
fired up and ready to play. There’s nothing you can say to
motivate us anymore than we already are.

Interview conducted by AJ Cadman, Daily Bruin Senior Staff.