Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

Photo

<p>Junior Brittany Ringel, seen here against USC, led the Bruins
Tuesday night with 23 kills.</p>

Junior Brittany Ringel, seen here against USC, led the Bruins Tuesday night with 23 kills.

W. volleyball: Waves defeat Bruins

The Bruins fought until the end, but came away empty handed, losing at Pepperdine 3-2 (32-34, 30-18, 32-34, 30-20, 15-7).

The No. 7 UCLA women’s volleyball team was attempting to pull an upset in its last game of the season by beating the No. 4 Waves, and got off to a good start, but allowed long scoring runs in the fourth and fifth games which hurt them.

The Bruins were up 5-3 early in the fifth, but allowed eight points to suddenly find themselves down 11-5.

UCLA had to fight hard to win the third game, needing to win three Pepperdine game points.

But after that, Pepperdine went on a long scoring run, taking an early 7-1 lead in the fourth game and never looking back.

A similar run occurred in the second game, when after being up only 14-11, Pepperdine (23-4, 14-0 WCC) won 10 of the next 12 points to take a 24-13 lead.

UCLA (21-8, 12-6 Pac-10) will find out its postseason fate Sunday, when the NCAA tournament brackets are released. The Bruins and coach Andy Banachowski have been pushing to host a regional. The tournament begins on Thursday, Dec. 4.

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