The UC Irvine Women’s Volleyball team (15-8, 8-5) made a quick 3-0 (25-22, 25-9, 25-21) sweep against the UC Riverside Highlanders (4-18, 2-11) at the Bren Events Center on Nov. 4.
A defining aspect of this match between UCI and UCR was how one-sided the second and third sets ultimately became.
UCI started strong, beginning the first set of the match with a few good digs to make it a 3-1 lead. Freshman outside hitter Kendra MacDonald added to the lead with a light tip into UCR territory, 4-1.
UC Riverside didn’t go down without a fight and made it a close set with a couple of forced errors, bad digs and tight tips into UCI to force an 11-10 score. UCR senior middle blocker Isabella Scarlett, junior outside hitter Delaney Tate and sophomore middle blocker Anya Green all led their team in kills, but were not able to carry their squad over the hurdle that was UCI.
The rest of the set was competitive. UCI junior outside hitter Joy Umeh, who led her squad with 17 overall kills this match and an unmatched .452 scoring percentage (17-3-31) in her squad, began to control the court. UCR, unwilling to take this lying down, got points from a few missed digs, some UCI balls being hit out of bounds, a few good aces and some good blocks, eventually landing the two teams at an even 20-20 match point.
Near the end of the first set, the Anteaters went on a 5-2 run which began with MacDonald accidentally hitting the volleyball backwards and out of bounds, narrowing the gap. UCR then hit the ball backwards and out of bounds themselves to give UCI back their point advantage, 23-21. Umeh then served a nasty ace into UCR territory to make the set a 24-21 matchpoint scenario.
Despite prolonging the set by slamming the ball straight into the net, UCI secured the set as sophomore outside hitter Marianna Bertolone finished with a kill of her own. UCI won the first set, 25-22.
The entirety of the second set looked nowhere near as competitive as the first one, with UCI’s offensive prowess and UCR’s attack and ball-handling errors defining most of the set. UCI put up a strong 9-2 run at the beginning, with Umeh getting four kills and MacDonald getting two of her own.
Both points scored by Riverside in the beginning of the set came from errors on UCI’s part, while on the flip side Irvine forced quite a few errors out of UCR. Umeh hit the ball into the UCR defensive hold and was able to score a kill from one of their players hitting the ball into out-of-bounds territory. In another instance, Umeh also made a good defensive show with a block that bounced the ball into Highlander territory. By the 19-8 score in the set, UCI was in firm control of the ball and the set. UCR could not bounce back and continually hit more balls out-of-bounds, made quite a few attack errors and let more UCI kills go unanswered, letting the score gap increase further. UCR scored one more kill in the second set before ultimately hitting the ball into the net to grant Irvine their second set, 25-9.
The third set of the game began with the Highlanders flinging the ball out of bounds three times in a row, placing them at an immediate disadvantage. The Highlanders then made three more errors to cap a 1-8 deficit, continuing the same trajectory that dominated the previous set.
UCR freshman outside hitter Jessica Dean put a quick stop to the momentum the Anteaters were building with a kill of her own to make it an 8-2 game, still a major deficit but indeed a large morale booster for the Highlanders.
The ‘Eaters quickly responded. Courtesy of a few attack errors by UCR, another kill by Umeh and a kill by junior middle blocker Onye Ofoegbu, UCI pushed their lead further to a 13-5 series.
However, UCR did show some signs of life in the third set, with a few good kills and some forced errors by UCI to eventually make it a 22-16 match.
UCI scored two more kills to make it a 24-16 match point, but at the very end tensions began heating up as the Highlanders retaliated and UCI made three attack errors of their own, putting the match at 24-21.
Freshman outside hitter Keelan Williams slammed the door on UCR at the end with a kill of her own to end the series 3-0 with UCI on top.
The UCI Women’s Volleyball team advanced their standings in the Big West to 8-5 with this victory, and faced the UC Davis Aggies at the Bren Events Center on Nov. 5. The Anteaters ultimately fell to the Aggies in a close 3-2 game loss, which put UCI at 8-6 in the Big West standings.
Phillip Lemus is a Sports Intern for the fall 2022 quarter. They can be reached at plemus1@uci.edu
