It didn’t matter if the stands were roaring and vibrating the entire place, or if you could hear a pen drop in the audience.

The Bruins came to play.

With cheers from both teams’ benches echoing throughout Pauley Pavilion, UCLA women’s volleyball (12-12, 6-9 Big Ten) swept Washington (18-7, 8-7) to put up the Bruins’ second 3-0 home victory of the season.

Though the Bruins clinched the win, each set proved to be a close contest, with the scores being tied 29 times throughout.

“I am thoroughly impressed with how these women keep showing up, coming to the table, trading optimism, discipline, and they just don’t give up,” said coach Alfee Reft. “That’s a really good Washington team that they handled in three sets. It’s not easy to do, and it’s certainly not easy to do after the amount of adversity we’ve faced this season.”

UCLA ultimately hogged the score sheet, recording higher numbers in kills and digs compared to Washington. The Bruins’ day was highlighted by 48 kills on a .256 hitting percentage.

The squad also successfully held the Huskies back, limiting them to a .182 hitting percentage with no set surpassing a .250 clip.

Leading the Bruin bunch was junior outside hitter Cheridyn Leverette, who posted a team-high 13 kills at a .241 clip, despite it being one of her lower-scoring nights this season.

Following closely behind was junior outside/opposite hitter Grayce Olson, who recorded her third double-double of the season with 12 kills and 10 digs. Freshman outside hitter Kiki Horne also contributed to the tally registering 10 kills, marking her first double-digit contribution since Oct. 17 during UCLA’s loss to Purdue.

“We are just a very competitive team,” Horne said. “I’m not going to do all that transitioning not to get a point and just having that competitiveness in practice. We’re like, ‘We are doing this and let’s have something to show for it.’”

Despite this edge, UCLA couldn’t match its opponent’s defense, mustering just two blocks compared to Washington’s six.

The third set saw the Bruins tally their highest hitting percentage of the night, finishing at a .323 clip with 14 kills.

“That’s (recovering quickly) one of the hardest things to do in the sport, is it comes in waves,” Leverette said. “If there was one play that wasn’t our favorite, we just kind of bounce back from that and we call it failure recovery in our gym.”

After the win over Washington, UCLA is back to .500 with five games left in the regular season.