Women’s volleyball braces itself for weekend’s Washington competition

For a UCLA women’s volleyball team that’s still weeks away from having to worry about midterms, the tests just keep on coming on the court.

A little over a week after No. 11 UCLA (10-2, 1-1 Pac-12) took on No. 2 USC, the Bruins will host another top-five team in No. 5 Washington (12-0, 2-0) on Friday. They will also play unranked Washington State (12-2, 1-1) on Sunday in the John Wooden Center.

At the conclusion of Wednesday’s practice, the decision of who will start at setter had still not been made. Freshman Zana Muno originally had the job, but redshirt sophomore Ryann Chandler did almost all of the setting in UCLA’s win last Sunday versus California.

When Coach Michael Sealy was asked who would get the start this weekend, he only said, “We’ll figure that out tomorrow.”

The lineup uncertainty did not seem to bother junior middle back Jennie Frager, who said both setters were “great.”

“(Muno and Chandler) have different strengths and different weaknesses,” Frager said. “Coach Sealy does a good job of using both of them to better the team as a whole.”

Regardless of who sets, the Bruins will be facing teams that have gone a combined 23-2. While only the Huskies are ranked, Sealy said that he does not expect either match to be easy.

“(Washington State’s) one (conference) loss was a five-set loss to Washington,” Sealy said. “So for me, both matches are exactly the same. The challenge is preparing for two teams at once.”

During practice this week, the team did tailor its practice drills for both Washington teams.

“We’re kind of taking it one game at a time, so we were focused mostly on Washington,” Frager said. “We ran their offense and worked on our defense against that.”

UCLA also spent much of this week turning its attention to its own side of the net, analyzing video to enhance its own play.

“Covering and off-blocker defense were the two big things we were working on this week, and I think we got a hundred percent better at both of them,” said senior libero Rachel Inouye. “We were looking at video of our game last weekend and identified that those were some of the things we needed to work on.”

With classes and conference play beginning practically simultaneously for the Bruins, Inouye called the change of pace “frantic,” while Sealy applauded his players’ ability to achieve balance.

“I think that volleyball is a great distraction from school and that school is a great distraction from volleyball,” Sealy said.

This weekend’s match against Washington will be the Bruins’ first game at Pauley Pavilion since falling in straight sets to USC. UCLA will be the underdog once again, as it attempts to climb its way out of a tie for fifth place.

“We’re ready to go, we’re excited.” Frager said. “We’re really excited to play at home again and kind of redeem ourselves after ‘SC.”