No. 18 Bruins Drop Five-Setter at No. 24 Washington State
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PULLMAN, Wash. - The 18th-ranked Bruins recorded an outstanding comeback to win the third set, but No. 24 Washington State claimed the next two to win in five on Thursday at Bohler Gym. Set scores were 25-15, 16-25, 28-26, 15-25, 9-15.
Freshmen Kate Lane (26 assists, 11 digs) and Allison Jacobs (13 kills, 11 digs) each posted double-doubles, while senior Mac May led the Bruins with 16 kills to go with eight digs and three aces.
Freshman Iman Ndiaye had nine kills and just one hitting error in 16 attempts for a .500 hitting percentage, junior élan McCall posted seven kills and six digs and redshirt junior Emily Ryan tallied five blocks and four kills. Junior Zoe Fleck recorded 13 digs and junior Devon Chang had 15 assists. The Bruins hit .226 for the match.
Trailing 3-1 in set one, the Bruins (3-2) scored seven of the next nine to take an 8-5 lead. May had two kills during the run, Ndiaye and Jacobs chipped in one each and the Cougars made three attack errors. After Washington State got the next two, five in a row for the Bruins on a block by Jacobs and senior Sabrina Smith, a kill and solo stuff from McCall and consecutive Jacobs kills put UCLA ahead by half a dozen at 13-7. At 19-14, the Bruins scored six of the final seven points to win the opener by a score of 25-15. McCall started the run with a kill, which was followed by back-to-back May aces. A Jacobs kill sandwiched between a pair of Cougar attack errors gave the Bruins a 10-point win.
The Bruins scored the first two of set two, but the Cougars netted the next three and didn't trail for the rest of the set, eventually winning the second 25-16.
The third set was a back-and-forth affair, with a whopping 21 ties and 12 lead changes. UCLA held a 20-19 advantage before Washington State scored five in a row to earn four set points. It then turned into the May show, as she recorded a kill, a solo block and back-to-back kills in succession to even the score at 24. After a WSU sideout, a McCall kill saved a fifth set point. Following another Cougar sideout, a Jacobs kill thwarted a sixth set point. A May kill would give the Bruins their first set point, and they capitalized, as Ryan ended things in a 28-26 win.
Washington State (4-1) led wire-to-wire in the fourth and fifth sets, winning 25-15 and 15-9 to take the match.
The Bruins and the Cougars tangle again on Saturday at 11 a.m. The match will be live streamed, with the link on the UCLA women's volleyball schedule page.