(Yeah, this match happened last night, but I have to sleep a little!)
Hooray for live Pac-12 volleyball! The Pac-12 is the clear class of the nation, with five of the top ten teams (indeed, five of the top eight) in the most recent AVCA Coaches’ Poll. At the very tip-top of that poll? #1 UCLA, and #2 USC. It’s the second time the teams meet as the top two teams in the land (the last was in 1984, when UCLA won 3-2), and they have split their last ten head-to-head matches 5-5. They were also two of last year’s Final Four (UCLA won the national title).
Both teams lost exhibition matches to a team from Jiangsu, China back in August. USC entered tonight’s match undefeated in regulation play. Curiously, the #1 team carried a loss, to fellow powerhouse Nebraska (currently ranked #3 in the land, with one loss themselves). But as the conference opener for both teams, this match carried immense importance. Whoever won tonight would control their own destiny with regards to the conference championship, and quite possibly the #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Both teams enter with setter issues. They both graduated veteran setters after the NCAA tournament last season. UCLA has two setters on their roster, Becca Strehlow and Megan Moenoa, but with Moenoa sustaining a concussion recently in practice, the freshman Strehlow was to run the Bruin offense for the entire match. The women of Troy also have two primary setters, Hayley Crone and Emily Young, though Young curiously doubles as an outside hitter and is primarily brought in for blocking rotations. Both are sophomores. USC has a tremendous advantage at the libero position, with junior Natalie Hagglund running the defense. UCLA lost their starting libero from last season to graduation. The UCLA website lists four players on their roster as liberos, three freshmen and one junior (Meg Norton) but the player who suited up in white to her teammates’ blue tonight was Bojana Todorovic, who is listed as an outside hitter.
Veteran hitters are the big team leaders on both sides, with Rachael Kidder, Most Outstanding Player at last year’s NCAA tournament, leading the way for the Bruins and Katie Fuller likewise for USC. Another standout player for Southern Cal is freshman outside hitter Samantha Bricio, who despite being only 17 years old has already seen time with her national team (she’s from Guadalajara, Mexico).
It’s kind of a curious thing about telecasts. Multi-camera setups are designed to give you the best possible view of every moment, but it can be disorienting as well. A fixed point of reference makes things a little bit easier to understand, at least for a sport that takes place in such a relatively small physical area as volleyball does. Nothing beats being there live and in person.
In a fun little quirk, the same night #1 and #2 play each other, #3 and #4 also squared off. Fourth-ranked Penn State knocked off #3 Nebraska in four sets after dropping the first, kicking off Big Ten play for both teams.
We’ve got Karch Kiraly on the call! What a treat. Doin’ any scouting, coach?
All in all, the match was as absurdly competitive as you’d expect from the top two teams in the nation. In the first set, UCLA took an early 6-2 lead mainly behind Kidder. She was hitting hard and hitting smart. USC rattled off a run of their own to knot the score up at 6, with the setter Crone sending it over on two with a left-hand dink. This move worked far too well on both sides all night long — neither side seemed able to see it coming or defend against it at all.
USC took a two-point advantage at 10-8 after some Bruin hitting errors, but after a few sideouts they found a good strategy in serving Bricio. This got the spunky young hitter to the ground, which made it all the harder for her to elevate for swing attempts, leading to easier swings to defense. Though she did a few nice kills, Bricio’s hitting percentage for the first set was only about .200, as there were a few errors mixed in as well. Another of them brought the set to 15-12 in UCLA’s favor, and a TV timeout (what a concept).
Mariana Aquino and Tabi Love showed some great strength at the net as the match came back from timeout, with blocks both together and solo to preserve UCLA’s lead for a time. USC drew to within a point a few times, but it wasn’t until a service ace (on a let) from Bricio got us to 22-22 that the match was even. She followed the ace with a serve that was dreadfully long, though Kiraly made an good point that serving the ball long is better than serving short. If you serve the ball into the net, there’s no possible way you can score, but if you at least get it over the net, you never know if it might touch somebody on its way going long. USC’s Sara Shaw ended the long rally on 23-23 with a long hit, giving UCLA the first set point, but Fuller successfully staved it off with a soft shot. Then USC got their chance to put it away at 25-24, but the Bruins stayed alive. The women of Troy finally put it away 28-26 after a swing from Bricio went out but was ruled to be off the block (UCLA’s coach was evidently hoping for a replay — not in the Galen Center!) and then a Bruin hitting error to end it.
Bricio really came alive in the second set. She led USC to an early 6-1 lead in the set with two powerful kills, and they never relinquished the lead. She stayed in most if not all of the set, getting kills from from both the front and back row. She wasn’t perfect, as a hitting error on 13-8 got the Bruins about as close as they were to come in set #2 at 13-9, but she was still the undeniable force of the second set. Her hitting percentage for the match improved from under .200 in the first set to a high water mark of .310 in the second (it was .260 for the whole match).
Setter dinks kept working on both sides, time after time. UCLA drew to within three at 16-13, but could come no closer, as the damage of the early run fueled largely by Bricio was done. Anytime the Bruins got that close, it seemed like Bricio was always there to side out again. Bricio’s third service ace of the match and second of the set got us to 22-17, and from there the two teams simply traded sideouts to the end of the set, giving it to USC 25-20.
The third set was even more hotly competitive than the first two. The first two-point lead was UCLA’s at 9-7, and USC took timeout when it extended to 10-7. UCLA, still without a service ace to this point in the contest, finally showed a little more strength in serving. They still didn’t score any aces, but they were able to effectively disrupt USC’s serve reception and, accordingly, their offense, leading to easy opportunities back on the Bruin side (what Kiraly called making USC play ‘out of system volleyball’). Bricio and Fuller kept USC close, but from the time UCLA first took the lead in this third set they never gave it up. On 19-18, USC brought in their ‘blocking setter’ Young but it didn’t much matter as the point ended on a wide hit from the other side to tie it up. UCLA got the first opportunity to take the set at 24-23. After a couple of sideouts, Aquino showed some fine know-how and reaction time as the serve came harmlessly back to the UCLA side off the valiantly diving USC libero Hagglund, leaving Aquino wide open. She didn’t miss the opportunity. A hitting error from Bricio (who despite her international experience seemed to show a little inexperience in this match) gave it to UCLA 26-24.
Kiraly noted between sets that USC practically gave set three to the Bruins, committing five hitting errors and three service errors. You get the other team a third of the way there with your own mistakes, that’s not an advantage many teams are gonna fail to capitalize on.
Another competitive, back-and-forth first few points opened up set number four. Kiraly suggested that when Bricio was in her back-row rotations, she should concentrate less on trying to score and just lay the ball in there, and force UCLA to run their offense (rather than risk hitting it long, which she did early in the set). Far be it from me to question Karch Kiraly, but she got several back-row kills earlier in the match. I guess it’s a risk/reward thing.
The star of the fourth set was definitely USC’s Fuller. She had seven kills in the set and only one hitting error, ending the match hitting a very impressive .444 (21 kills, 5 errors, 36 total swings). UCLA’s Kidder was not her usual self in this last set, committing three of her five errors with just four kills. She hit a perfectly acceptable .283 for the match (18/5/46) but she was not very effective when it was most needed.
The fourth set was mostly competitive at first — USC’s 10-8 lead was the first two-point advantage. The women of Troy slowly built that lead up to 15-12 when they went on the best run of the night for either team. Back-to-back kills from Fuller were answered with one from Bricio, giving USC a likely-insurmountable 18-12 lead as the Bruins called time. But it didn’t end there. Back from timeout, a hitting error from UCLA southpaw Karsta Lowe and a service ace pushed it to 20-12. The teams traded sideouts the rest of the way, ending the fourth set (and the match) 25-17 to USC’s favor.
#2 USC d. #1 UCLA (28-26, 25-20, 24-26, 25-17)
Other than that one run, it was about as ridiculously even-matched as you could ever imagine. And USC should be the unanimous #1 team in the country now. They’re undefeated and they just knocked off the previous #1 team. But I’m sure Penn State will still get a few votes.
Great match, and it has me looking forward to more live action later in the season.
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