Pacific Looks for Revenge in Volleyball Against UCLA

Practices were going badly before UCLA’s women’s volleyball match last Tuesday against University of the Pacific, the defending national champion. So badly, in fact, that Bruin captain Lori Zeno hastily called a team meeting.

“She told us that in order to beat them, we’d all have to have career-high games,” said UCLA middle blocker Stacy Buck, a 6-foot 3-inch senior from Tarzana.

Such is Zeno’s influence on the team that the players did just that. The fifth-rated Bruins upset the top-ranked Tigers, 10-15, 17-19, 15-11, 15-10, 15-11, in Stockton. The win by UCLA (12-3) ended a 34-match winning streak for Pacific and set up a dramatic possibility for revenge in the National Invitational Volleyball Tournament, which begins tonight at 6 p.m. at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion.

Not only will Pacific (10-1) have a chance to avenge its loss, UCLA also will have a chance to avenge a loss to Loyola Marymount. Last season, Loyola defeated UCLA in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Bruins’ earliest departure ever from the tournament.

Joining the three teams in the two-day tournament are No. 3 Brigham Young, No. 14 UC Santa Barbara, No. 17 USC, and unranked Fresno State and Texas Arlington.

The Bruins hope the home-court advantage and their new-found team unity will combine to give them another victory.

“Our win over Pacific showed us we are capable of beating the top teams,” Buck said. “Obviously, beating the No. 1 team goes a long way to doing that. I know the next time we play Pacific, we will know a lot more.

“Having the NIVT coming up is very important. We’ve never won it in my four years here. We also want to prove this is not a fluke.”

NIVT Notes

There are four quarterfinal matches tonight. At 6 p.m., USC vs. UC Santa Barbara and BYU vs. Fresno State. At 8 p.m., UCLA vs. Loyola Marymount and Pacific vs. Texas-Arlington. Saturday’s semifinal matches are at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., the third-place match is at 6 p.m. and the championship match is at 8 p.m. All are at Pauley Pavilion. . . . BYU won this tournament last season. UCLA has won it six times, the last in 1980. USC won in consecutive years, 1976 and 1977.