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Bruin beach volleyball attempts to bounce back, beat ranked teams in Battle for LA

Feature image

Sophomore Alexa Fernandez holds her first up after scoring a point. The Friendswood, Texas, local finished with a 20-14 record last season, and she earned an MPSF All-Freshman Team selection in 2025. (Andrew Ramiro Diaz/Photo editor)

beach volleyball


Boise State
Friday, 10 a.m.

Mapes Beach
No TV info
No. 3 Cal Poly
Friday, 2 p.m.

Mapes Beach
No TV info
No. 11 Long Beach State
Saturday, 10 a.m.

Mapes Beach
No TV info
Pepperdine
Saturday, 2 p.m.

Mapes Beach
No TV info
Jaelyn Chung

By Jaelyn Chung

Feb. 25, 2026 11:57 a.m.

Mid-70s, slight winds and no chance of precipitation is the projected Los Angeles climate for the next few days.

And with the fluctuating weather conditions, another thing changed: the Bruins slipped from their No. 1 spot.

No. 2 UCLA beach volleyball (3-2) will face off against Boise State (3-1), No. 3 Cal Poly (4-0), No. 11 Long Beach (2-0) and Pepperdine (1-3) at Mapes Beach in the Battle for LA tournamentFriday and Saturday.

This tournament comes after a rigorous round of matchups against five ranked teams in the high winds and rainy conditions of Honolulu last weekend. UCLA went 16-8 in sets and only lost to then-No. 2 Stanford and then-No. 16 Hawai‘i.

“I’m really proud of the way our team rebounded from some tougher matches where we didn’t quite have the overall result we wanted,” said coach Jenny Johnson Jordan. “Super proud of them for resetting and moving forward instead of looking back.”

And UCLA will play on its home sand for the first time in 2026.

For Boise State, this weekend will mark its first matches against west coast squads, having only faced southeastern teams thus far. The Broncos are riding a 3-1 record from Florida, losing to the tournament’s only ranked team, but will not face three ranked foes.

Long Beach has only dropped two sets this season. 2025 Big West Pair of the Year Taylor Hagenah and Malia Gementera make up its court one duo, having set the record for the most career pair wins in program history.

Falling to Long Beach this past weekend, Pepperdine enters the competition on a three-game losing streak. Court two pair Gabriella Perez and Madison Snow hold a team-best 3-1 record.

But resilience is the underlying trait for all these teams.

“All the athletes that play beach life are resilient because you can’t make excuses,” said sophomore Sally Perez. “You do your best, … you control the controllables and you try to put one step in front of the other.”

(Andrew Ramiro Diaz/Photo editor)
Sophomore Sally Perez holds the ball and prepares to serve. Perez, partnering with senior Maggie Boyd on court one, notched a 4-1 record across her first five outings of the 2026 campaign at the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic in Honolulu from Feb. 19-21. (Andrew Ramiro Diaz/Photo editor)

And the Bruins may hope to control their side of the net against the third-ranked team in the nation.

Cal Poly has yet to drop a set after going 20-0 last weekend. Court one pair Ella Connor and Erin Inskeep pave the way for the Mustangs. The latter recorded a 28-7 record last season, good for the team’s second-highest winning percentage.

“(We are) trying to prove to everybody that we are still the number one team in the country,” said junior Ava Williamson. “Because we had a slow start, it’s good for us because it’s going to make us work harder.”

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Jaelyn Chung
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