Novel partnerships can elicit triumphs.

And redshirt sophomore Kaley Mathews and redshirt junior Ensley Alden have shown what a budding tandem can accomplish.

No. 1 UCLA beach volleyball (18-3) competed at the Texas Invitational on Friday and Saturday in Austin, where the squad bested No. 12 LSU (13-13) 5-0, No. 17 North Florida (12-12) 5-0 and No. 16 Florida Atlantic (13-11) 4-1, but lost to No. 6 Texas (16-6) 3-2. Across the weekend, Mathews and Alden went undefeated to bolster their unblemished 10-0 record on court two.

“They’ve really found a great connection with each other, not only volleyball-wise, but energy-wise and emotionally too,” said coach Jenny Johnson Jordan. “They are two players who can be similar at times, but also can be very different. But their level of play is very high, and when you get them together, they just feed off of each other.”

Although the Bruins dropped their second contest of the tournament to the Longhorns after senior Maggie Boyd and sophomore Sally Perez fell in the match-clinching bout on court one, Mathews and Alden helped ignite a comeback attempt.

UCLA lost the first two dual matches on courts four and five, falling behind 2-0 against Texas. But the redshirt duo downed Texas’ Anna and Kacka Pavelkova in three sets to knot the team score at two apiece.

The set one defeat to the Pavelkova siblings marked the only one Mathews and Alden lost throughout the competition, as they swept the three other duos they faced.

Both players said that the competitive intensity they bring to the court has brought about their individual and collective successes.

“She (Mathews) gets super fired up and has such great energy on the court,” Alden said. “To balance that out, I too want to be fired up in those times, but sometimes I try to keep it a little more mellow and consistent to keep the energy more neutral. It’s a lot about the energy that we put out on the court that kind of fuels our performance in our game.”

The new partners made their debuts on court two this season despite each spending at least two years on the team prior to this season.

And although Jordan has shifted the starting lineups at courts three, four and five throughout the 2026 campaign, she has seemingly solidified the court two pairing alongside the top court duo of Boyd and Perez.

But Mathews said she prioritizes winning rather than focusing on the court she occupies.

“I don’t really care where I’m playing, what position I’m in, what number, anything, as long as I’m able to get wins for the team, that’s all that I really care about,” Mathews said. “No matter where I am, I’m going to give the other team a dog fight.”

The Bruins’ pairs on courts four and five, despite falling to the Longhorns, responded Saturday to boast a 4-0 combined tally against North Florida and FAU.

Redshirt junior Kenzie Brower and freshman Mallory LaBreche played together on the final court across all four games. Jordan substituted freshman Jesse Dueck for sophomore Adelina Okazaki, who started on court four Friday, for the tournament’s last day of competition.

Shifting pair assignments has become a defining attribute of Jordan’s program, which has helped breed team camaraderie while fueling a team-first attitude.

“It’s pretty apparent that we’ve done more switching around this year than we have in previous seasons,” Alden said. “We’re trying to fully use that to our advantage. Every point is just a point on the board. No matter where you’re playing, you’re going to feel some kind of pressure to win for your team.”

The Bruins will next compete at the Best in the West tournament in Laguna Beach, California, on April 3 and April 4, where they are slated to face a slew of top-10 programs.

UCLA will face No. 4 Cal Poly and No. 2 Stanford on the invitational’s first day before playing against No. 3 USC and No. 10 Long Beach State to wrap up the tournament outing.

The Bruins will likely use these high-leverage matchups to refine themselves before postseason play, which begins in late April.

“Everything is preparing us for nationals,” Jordan said. “We schedule tough matches every weekend because that’s what we’re going to see at the end of the year, and we want our team to be ready for that kind of high-level play in all of their matches.”