A night after Minnesota out-blocked Rutgers 11-2, UCLA came into Jersey Mike’s Arena and out-blocked it 17-6.
For two sets, that was the whole match. Then the third went 31-29, the official play-by-play logged UCLA’s match-winning ace at 26-28 before the point was changed to a service error, and Rutgers saved three match points and won the set on its sixth set point.
It still lost. UCLA beat Rutgers 25-15, 25-12, 29-31, 25-22 on Saturday night at Jersey Mike’s Arena, and the Scarlet Knights finished
a three-match homestand against Indiana, Minnesota and UCLA without a win, losing all three in four sets.
Rutgers hit .147 with 52 kills and 30 attack errors on 150 swings. UCLA hit .341 with 58 kills and 14 errors on 129. UCLA had 17 blocks to Rutgers’ six and five aces to two, out-dug Rutgers 52-45 and sided out at 72.8 percent against Rutgers’ 56.3. Across four sets UCLA scored 104 points and Rutgers scored 80.
The serving was even, 11 errors apiece. The attacking was not.
Thirty attack errors. Fourteen. That is the match.
A 15-5 Finish & a .000 Second Set
Rutgers led the first 5-2. Malia Romes killed off a Lily Bolen set, stuffed Maggie Li with Imani Howell, and Howell and Addison Wiemann added three kills between them, two of those off Bolen, inside the first seven rallies.
It was the last time Rutgers led by more than one. Brooke Baldwin missed a serve, Hazel Alevok and Jordyn Johnson stuffed Howell, Marianna Singletary stuffed her again solo at 6-6, and the teams traded to 10-10 through six ties and four lead changes. Mija Bendziute aced Rutgers to put UCLA up 10-9, missed her next serve, and Skylar George missed the one after that.
From 10-10, UCLA scored 15 of the last 20 points. Johnson killed three times in six rallies, and Li served four straight from 12-15 to 12-19 on a Bendziute kill, a Johnson and Bendziute stuff of Wiemann, a Johnson and Bendziute stuff of Aspen Maxwell and a Wiemann attack error. Maxwell killed twice after a Rutgers timeout, but Eliana Urzua gave UCLA set point at 15-24 and Bendziute aced Kaila Kalama-Bajet to end it 25-15.
Rutgers hit .054 in the set with 10 kills and eight attack errors on 37 swings. UCLA hit .346 on 26.
The first was the good set.
Rutgers led the second 1-0 on a Romes kill off Bolen and never led again, two ties and one lead change, all of it done by 2-2. Then Johnson stuffed Howell solo, stuffed Wiemann solo on the next rally, Howell hit an attack error and Bendziute and Johnson stuffed Maxwell, four straight UCLA points from 2-2 to 2-6, three of them on blocks.
Rutgers called timeout at 3-8 after a Maxwell attack error, and UCLA kept coming. Ava Sarafa served three straight from 4-9 to 4-12, starting with a George attack error, Bendziute and Singletary stuffed George at 5-13 and George missed a serve at 6-14. It was 7-15 at the media timeout.
Rutgers finished the set with nine kills and nine attack errors on 33 swings, which is .000, and five of the nine errors came on UCLA blocks. UCLA hit .444 with one error. Li killed twice for set point at 11-24, Romes saved one, and George missed the serve that ended it 25-12.
Then the third set happened.
Snatched From the Jaws of a Sweep & Four Points Short of a Fifth
Caitlin Schweihofer changed three starters for the third, with Karis Willow, Zharia Harris-Waddy and Avery Jesewitz in for George, Wiemann and Howell, and the first point of the set was a Jesewitz ace on Kat Lutz.
The set had 15 ties and six lead changes, and for most of it Rutgers was the team in front. Alleigh Dutton aced Lutz too, at 12-9 out of a UCLA timeout. Willow killed off a Jesewitz set going into the media timeout at 15-11, and Jesewitz’s kill off Baldwin made it 18-14. Bendziute sided out and served UCLA to 18-17, Rutgers called timeout, and Bendziute missed her next serve.
Willow killed off Bolen for 23-21 and a UCLA timeout, and Jesewitz killed off a Dutton set for 24-21.
Rutgers had three set points.
Bendziute killed. Alevok and Singletary stuffed Jesewitz. Rutgers took a timeout, and Jesewitz hit the next ball for an attack error, 24-24. Willow made it 25-24, Howell’s attack error tied it, Howell’s kill off Bolen made it 26-25 and Urzua tied it again. Five set points, all gone.
Then Bendziute went to the line and aced Rutgers for 26-27 and UCLA’s first match point. She served again. It appeared that the match had ended, as the players celebrated and the official play-by-play briefly logged a second ace and the words “MATCH UCLA” at 26-28. Then the point was changed to a Bendziute service error, and it was 27-27.
For one rally, Rutgers had been swept.
They still had two more match points to survive. Jesewitz missed her serve for 27-28, and Willow tied it at 28 off Bolen. Li killed off Sarafa for 28-29, and Romes tied it at 29 off Bolen. Jesewitz went back to the line, Rutgers won the next rally for a sixth set point, and Willow ended it 31-29 off a Romes set. Rutgers hit .304 in the set, UCLA hit .361 and lost it anyway.
The fourth started like the first two. Howell hit an attack error on the first rally, Bendziute and Singletary stuffed Romes on the second, Singletary aced Rutgers at 3-7, and UCLA led by six at 5-11, 6-12 and 7-13.
Rutgers trailed 11-16 when Kate Duffey missed a serve, and Bolen went to the line. Romes killed off her set, Howell stuffed Johnson solo, and Alevok and Johnson hit back-to-back attack errors. It was 16-16, five straight Rutgers points and the first tie of the set. UCLA called timeout at 18-18, and Rutgers took its first lead of the set at 19-18 on a Duffey set error with Jesewitz serving. Romes made it 20-19 and Willow made it 21-20, both off Bolen.
Rutgers led 21-20, four points from a fifth set.
Romes missed her serve.
Li stuffed Harris-Waddy solo for 21-22 and a Rutgers timeout. Bendziute missed a serve to tie it at 22, her fifth service error of the night, and then Li took over, killing for 22-23, killing for match point at 22-24 and, after Rutgers’ last timeout, killing off Duffey to end it 25-22. UCLA’s last four points were all hers.
Six ties, two lead changes, and UCLA committed seven attack errors in the fourth, its most in any set. They hit .250, which was enough, because Rutgers hit .176.
Stats Breakdown
Willow was the best player in Scarlet, and she did not play until the third set. She finished with 13 kills on 22 swings and two attack errors, .500, eight of them in the third, plus two block assists for 14 points, the most on the team. Bolen set nine of the 13. Willow also had three of Rutgers’ 11 service errors.
Romes played all four sets and took 31 swings, finishing with 11 kills and six attack errors for .161, a night after hitting .538 against Minnesota. Three of the six came on UCLA blocks. She also had two assists, one of them the set Willow put away at 31-29.
Below those two, the attack went nowhere. Wiemann, Maxwell, Howell and George combined for 17 kills and 18 attack errors on 68 swings, minus-.015. Maxwell hit .038 on 26 swings. Howell hit .000 on 17 but was in on four of Rutgers’ six blocks. Wiemann hit .000 on 13 and George minus-.167 on 12 with three service errors, and neither played after the second. Harris-Waddy was the efficient one, five kills and one error on nine swings for .444, and Jesewitz finished with three kills, three errors, an ace and five digs.
The setting split was Bolen 27 and Baldwin 13, with Dutton adding three and Romes two. Bolen and Dutton led Rutgers with eight digs apiece. The serving line read two aces, both in the third and both on Lutz, against 11 service errors, two in the first, two in the second, five in the third and two in the fourth. Of UCLA’s five aces, the box charged only one to a Rutgers passer, Kalama-Bajet on the last point of the first set.
Li led UCLA with 16 kills on 40 swings and two errors, .350, for 18 points. Bendziute had the match-high 19, with 12 kills, four aces and six block assists, against five service errors. Johnson hit .533 with 10 kills on 15 swings and was in on nine blocks, two of them solo, and Singletary was in on seven. Urzua added seven kills without an error, .412. UCLA split its setting too, Duffey with 26 and Sarafa with 22, and Lutz dug 14.
What Didn’t Work (and One Thing That Did)
The attack, and it was not close.
Thirty attack errors on 150 swings, eight in the first set, nine in the second, eight in the third and five in the fourth, and more than half of them came straight back off UCLA hands. Rutgers took 21 more swings than UCLA and finished with six fewer kills.
The block is the thread, and it is now two nights long. Minnesota out-blocked Rutgers 11-2 on Friday. UCLA out-blocked Rutgers 17-6 on Saturday. That is 28-8 across back-to-back home matches, and Johnson alone was in on more blocks than the entire Rutgers roster on Saturday.
The serve, for once, was not the difference. Romes’ miss at 21-20 in the fourth and Jesewitz’s at 27-27 in the third came at the worst possible moments, but UCLA missed 11 too.
The one thing that did work was Willow.
Yes, Karis Willow.
She has been the subject of nearly every one of these pieces, usually for the stretches where she goes on a very hot and very cold streak at the same time. On Saturday she sat for two sets, came on for the third and was the best attacker on the Rutgers side of the net, with the kill that saved UCLA’s second match point at 27-28 and the kill that ended the set. The three missed serves are the other half of the same pattern. The swings were the half Rutgers needed, and it needed more of them than it got. It seems as if benching her for the first two sets has actually done Rutgers more harm than good.
Rutgers is 10-8 and 1-5 in the Big Ten and heads to the West Coast, at Washington on Friday at 10 p.m. and at Oregon on Sunday at 4 p.m. on BTN.
The homestand ended 0-3, every loss in four sets.
For one rally on Saturday, the play-by-play had Rutgers swept. It was wrong, and Rutgers made it wrong, which is more than it could do about the block.
