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News
Volleyball: Wildcats upset Bruins on road


By James Kelley
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday October 13, 2003

Too bad the Arizona volleyball team only has three road trips to the Los Angeles area.

The Wildcats (7-10, 1-6 Pacific 10 Conference) got rid of the zero in the win column of their conference record by upsetting No. 8 UCLA (13-3, 5-2) 3-1 for their second big upset in the Los Angeles area in as many trips. The Wildcats previously beat then No. 5 Pepperdine 3-1, earlier this season.

On Saturday, the UA lost to No. 1 Southern California (16-0, 7-0) in straight sets, but the un-beatable Women of Troy, who have lost only one game all year, to UCLA, might have played their best match of the year.

The Bruins' only previous losses were to the Trojans and No. 2 Hawaii, whom the Wildcats play this weekend.

"It was by far the best weekend of the year," said head coach Dave Rubio. "I was pretty pleased because we carried over how we practiced these last few weeks."

Sophomore outside hitter Kim Glass had a match-high 24 kills against the Bruins, her ninth 20-plus-kill match of the season, and had a team-high 13 digs. Her left-side mate Jennifer Abernathy had 13 kills and nine digs, while junior middle blocker Jolene Killough had seven blocks.

Arizona outhit UCLA .255 to .133 on the night and held the Bruins to a .000 attack percentage in games one and three.

Last week, Rubio was concerned about the confidence of his young but talented team.

"Winning always helps confidence," Rubio said.

Setter Kelly Griffin-Halfaker, the UA's only senior, spelled starter Stephanie Butkus in game one and had a match-high 43 assists. Rubio said Griffin-Halfaker's performance, particularly since she, playing the volleyball equivalent to the quarterback position, hadn't had many reps with the first team, was "really quite remarkable."

Griffin-Halfaker transferred to the UA last semester to battle for the starting setter job but went down with a knee injury in early season practice.

"It's a credit to her," Rubio said. "She struggled the first part of the year because of her knee injury and wasn't really competing for the starting job."

In the other weekend match, the UA really had no chance, falling to USC (30-15, 30-21, 30-17). USC had a school-record .595 attack percentage and only three attack errors, tying a school record as no Trojan hit below .389.

USC sophomore Bibiana Candelas had an eye-popping .917 hitting percentage with no errors. Rubio thought USC could be the best team he had seen in his 12 years at Arizona and his playing days.

"SC was smoking," Rubio said. "I think the only problem USC has is who's going to get playing time."

Arizona returns home this week to host the Oregon schools, with Oregon State in town Friday at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on Fox Sports Net. Arizona was to take on Oregon Thursday at 7 p.m., but the match has been rescheduled to Saturday at 7 p.m.

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