Video by Logan Newman | Sports Reporter
For the fourteenth time this season, No. 22 ASU volleyball played a match that went to the fifth set. For just the second time in November, the Sun Devils (19-12, 9-10 Pac-12) came away victorious against UCLA, which just might have saved its season.
“It’s nice to be on the winning side of a five-gamer,” ASU coach Jason Watson said.
After trading off the first four sets against No. 17 UCLA (21-25, 25-20, 16-25, 25-20), the Bruins (19-11, 10-9 Pac-12) started strong in the fifth. They went ahead 7-4 and ASU seemed to be playing without urgency. UCLA maintained a three-point lead until the score was 13-10.
ASU retaliated with kills from both sophomore outside hitter BreElle Bailey and senior middle blocker Mercedes Binns, and then forcing an error on UCLA sophomore middle blocker Claire Felix.
ASU then forced UCLA senior outside hitter Karsta Lowe into an error before their own stud outside hitter, Macey Gardner, came in with the game-winning kill to take a 16-14 victory.
“We’ve just learned over the course of this season how much each point matters,” she said. “When it’s that one-point game, where that one point literally means the match, that when we have an opportunity to swing away to score a point that we’re going to take it.”
Those two plays symbolized a key reason ASU was able to come away with the win: Gardner was more efficient than Lowe. The UCLA hitter was forced into 15 errors, which Watson called “uncharacteristic” of her.
“We put together what I thought was one of the better game plans that we had put together,” he said.
He said the team dialed in on her in the film study and focused on her tendencies. One of them was to attack the back row where junior setter Bianca Arellano manned, and Arellano defended well, coming away with 17 digs.
“She was really good, she dug some shots,” Watson said.
Arellano said they “tried to manage toward right back” in an attempt to force Lowe to receive the hit. By doing this, it would be difficult for her to get in position to make the attack.
Junior middle blocker Whitney Follette said the defense reached toward her more and “(dug) into the court.”
UCLA went to Lowe a lot, as expected. The main Bruin passer, on the other hand, was not who ASU anticipated it would be.
Senior setter Julie Consani sat out in all but two of the points. Against Oregon State last week, she played in only one set. Today, she did not appear to be injured, and while warming up during halftime, she dove for balls when needed and seemed to be ready.
UCLA head coach Michael Sealy said the team has “been running both setters on and off all year,” and did not give a specific reason why Consani was held off the court for the large majority of the match.
The setter today, senior Megan Moenoa, has been “off” more than “on” this season. Coming into the match, she had played in 34 sets and had 188 assists as opposed to Consani’s 1,058 assists in 92 sets.
Nevertheless, ASU junior setter Bianca Arellano said that though UCLA’s system probably makes it tough to switch out setters, Moenoa played well. She had 53 assists but wasn’t aggressive on setter attacks.
“I give all credit to Moenoa,” she said. “She runs a fast offense over there and we know she’s going to push to Karsta (Lowe), anyone else would.”
The game plan to overload Lowe also helped Follette have an efficient night offensively.
“We wanted to stay in front so that we could get two up on Karsta all the time,” she said.
She said she was comfortable in the front and in the “three zone," and it showed. She had 10 kills and only two errors on 18 attempts. She hit a team-high .444. Follette stood out defensively as well with a solo block and seven assisted ones. She made two assisted blocks against Lowe and made two assisted blocks late in set five against freshman outside hitter Olga Strantzali.
Redshirt freshman setter Madison McDaniel also made an impact defensively. She came into the match during the fourth set in place of sophomore outside hitter Kizzy Willey, who injured her right shoulder diving for a ball against Washington State last weekend.
Though McDaniel had only two digs and no blocks, her impact went deeper than that. Watson said that she receives serves with her hands and puts pressure on the server with the fact that she doesn’t allow the serve to go deep on the court. The UCLA servers began to serve away from her.
McDaniel’s impact also was a step up over the struggling Willey. Defensively, Willey looked taken by surprise a couple times, was slow to move her feet and often made poor passes from serve receipts. Her shoulder was likely a factor in this, and it also hurt her offensively.
Willey had three kills and five errors on 16 attempts, and McDaniel had one kill on nine attempts, but made no errors.
Barring an external upset, this pushes ASU into the NCAA tournament.
“As we look at post-season implications, I think for us as a potential bubble team that that helps us,” Watson said. “Getting this one certainly takes a little bit of pressure off going into Friday’s against Arizona."
Gardner was more outspoken about her optimism.
“Now we can just go into U of A open-minded, ready to go, ready to work, not have any pressure on our side of the court, cause we’re going to the tourney.”
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @Logan_Newsman
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