Team of the Year: UCLA Women’s Volleyball
Junior outside hitter Rachael Kidder (left) and sophomore outside hitter Kelly Reeves (right) cut the net with coach Michael Sealy after their victory over Illinois in the NCAA women’s volleyball championship game.
This article is part of the Daily Bruin's Graduation Issue 2012 coverage. To view more multimedia, galleries, and columns, visit http://dailybruin.com/gradissue2012
By Eric Peck
June 10, 2012 9:28 p.m.
The UCLA women’s volleyball team, eventual 2011 national champions, were at a low point by the end of the regular season.
They lost in four sets at home to USC in their final regular season match.
The prospect of winning six straight in the postseason for a national title seemed like a stretch, even for a group that had been previously ranked No. 1 in the country.
However, a timely pep talk from a former Bruin with championship experience helped correct the team’s mentality going into the NCAA Tournament.
Sue Enquist led UCLA softball to its first national championship as a player in 1978 and went on to coach Bruin softball until 2006.
She spoke to the volleyball team before the start of the postseason, and her influence was a crucial part of the Bruins’ championship run.
“Before Sue came in, we wouldn’t have made it as far as we did, because we were so stressed out and mentally frazzled by the last few matches. We were able to regroup and get our minds right,” senior libero Lainey Gera said.
Enquist told the Bruins to have fun, to imagine the added pressure of the postseason as playing volleyball in a formal dress.
The team took this to heart and rose to the occasion, embracing the spotlight of the NCAA Tournament and losing only three sets in six matches to bring home UCLA’s 108th championship.
Enquist also helped the Bruins see that all the pressure they felt came from inside themselves; this realization helped the team play confidently in the tournament.
“What I took away from what Sue said was that the game doesn’t need to be as serious as you take it,” Gera said.
“The postseason is playing with a party dress on, so we took that and tried to have as much fun as we could toward the end.”
What was fun for the Bruins was turning matches into nightmares for their opponents.
Tournament MVP, junior outside hitter Rachael Kidder, traumatized opposing defenses, and UCLA’s defense and passing were second to none.
The Bruins started the postseason in a familiar environment: the John Wooden Center, their cozy but dusty home court thanks to the Pauley Pavilion renovations.
There they defeated Maryland Eastern Shore and San Diego in the first two rounds.
Next, they dethroned four-time defending champion Penn State, ending the Nittany Lions’ 26-match win streak with a definitive 3-0 sweep.
Their next match was a shoot out with top-seeded Texas.
The Longhorns had the Bruins sweating bullets, but UCLA triumphed in four to advance to the National Semifinal against Florida State.
There, the Bruins put together another sweep that left the Seminoles scratching their heads.
UCLA capped the incredible run with a 3-1 championship win over Illinois, the first title for the Bruins since 1991. American Volleyball Coaches Association’s National Coach of the Year Mike Sealy was another undeniable factor in the team’s championship run.
“The issue was we had fallen off track and we didn’t know how to reset. In our minds, the season had gone awry and we couldn’t get it back. Sue poignantly and easily put us back on track,” Sealy said.
“We were able to let the past go and get excited about the future.”
Kidder spoke of the team’s patience and persistence as important characteristics throughout the season.
“We had a lot of good qualities. We were very patient which helped a lot because no matter what situation we were put in, we knew that if we stayed calm we’d be able to get out of it,” Kidder said.
“We really stuck together.”
