Oregon volleyball has been plagued with lack of belief and lack of confidence throughout the season and their head coach Matt Ulmer has not been shy about calling his team out.
Despite a four-set (25-21, 14-25, 16-25, 25-27) victory this match proved to be no different.
After a dominate set two victory against the No. 22 UCLA Bruins (12-9, 7-7 Pac), the No. 16 Ducks (16-8, 9-5 Pac) found themselves trailing 6-1 in set three, which forced Ulmer to take an early timeout early on in set three.
“I was pretty intense and just trying to call people out,” Ulmer said. “We needed more from certain individual.”
Two of the Ducks’ leaders stepped up and begin a rally for Oregon.
Lindsey Vander Weide, Ronika Stone and August Raskie led the charge taking Oregon on a 5-1 run that brought them back into the set.
Ulmer was not please with Willow Johnson in the beginning of the match but Ulmer put Johnson back into the rotation late in set three. Ulmer’s words fueled Johnson and she came up with huge kills in the third set. Johnson finished her day with 11 kills on 29 takes, averaging a .207 hitting percentage.
Oregon capped off an emphatic comeback with a 25-16 set three victory.
“We’re the ones on the court and the ones that need to buy in,” junior middle blocker Ronika Stone said. “For us to be able do that even while we are down, shows how much we’ve grown.”
The Ducks dominated early on in set four but let the Bruins rally and tie the set at 13. Brooke Van Sickle led the Ducks offensively down the stretch in set four and ended her day with 11 kills on 28 takes, hitting a .357 hitting percentage. Ronika Stone led the team defensively with an astounding 11 blocks, the team in total had 15.
“I thought Ronika in particular was really special with her block, 11 blocks in a four set match, that’s beautiful,” Ulmer said.
Stone’s biggest block came at the last point of the set and match.
UCLA was mounting a comeback but after back-and-forth in the set, Oregon found themselves on the verge of victory leading 26-25. Stone and Van Sickle teamed up to put a roof over the UCLA offense and end the match. The last block almost blew the roof off of Matthew Knight arena in front of a crowd of 2,298 in attendance who let themselves known they were there.
“I loved it,” Stone said. “As a team we are high energy but when the crowd brings it with us too then it just makes it want to finish it even faster for them. We don’t want to disappoint our fans.”
Despite Oregon’s strong defense performance that held the Bruins to a .077 hitting percentage and a comeback that showed nothing but confidence and belief, Ulmer still thinks there is space to grow, but time is running out.
The Ducks will fly down south this weekend to take on No. 2 Stanford and Cal.
Follow Gabe Ornelas on Twitter @gabe_ornelas