Four days after the Oregon football team went down to Pasadena, California and beat the UCLA Bruins 42-30, the Ducks’ volleyball team was unable to emerge from Southern California with a similar result against UCLA.
Oregon, playing a rare Wednesday match, fell behind early to the Bruins and were unable to mount much of a comeback, thus settling for a 3-1 loss to the No. 19 Bruins.
The Ducks, ranked No. 10 in the country, have now suffered consecutive defeats for the first time all season and watched their overall record fall to 14-3 while being 4-3 in the Pac-12. Oregon’s three losses have now come to the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 19 ranked teams in the country, not a good sign for the Ducks considering their next three matches are all against nationally-ranked opponents.
It wasn’t for a lack offense that Oregon fell to the Bruins as the team hit .330 in the match, .460 percentage points higher than its season average. The fact of the matter is that UCLA just hit better, accumulating a .441 hitting percentage, and was led by Karsta Lowe with a match-high 33 kills.
A good sign for the Ducks is that freshman Frankie Shebby seemed to break out of her recent slump by hitting .259 with a team-high 12 kills and Martenne Bettendorf continued her hot ways with 12 kills on a .500 hitting percentage.
Shellsy Ashen dished out a team-high 27 assists while Maggie Scott added 16 assists, both combining to give six different attackers at least double-digit opportunities.
The first and second sets were very similar as neither Oregon nor UCLA were able to pull away in the beginning but towards the latter half of each set and as the scores got higher, the Bruins were the ones getting the more timely kills and sideouts, eventually leading to 25-18 and 25-21 victories.
The Ducks emerged from the break with a renewed confidence and it showed as they jumped out to an early lead. The Bruins fought back but a late 4-0 run by Oregon proved to be the difference maker as the Ducks took set three by a score of 25-20.
In the fourth set, both teams were playing evenly until UCLA got a quick 4-0 run and that proved to be the difference as the Ducks had to play catch up the rest of the way but were unable to do so and suffered the 25-19 loss.
The match was played at Crossroads High School in Santa Monica, California because Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins’ home court, is still under going renovation after the court was flooded over the summer due to a broken water main near campus.
Oregon won’t have much time to dwell on the previous losses as it returns to action Friday night at 7:30 to face to No. 18 USC at 8 p.m.
Follow Ryan Kostecka on Twitter @Ryan_Kostecka