WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS : UCLA Advances to Title Match

Elaine Youngs and Lisa Hudak reached for the ceiling, blocked the ball back into Florida’s side of the court, and brought the UCLA women’s volleyball team to the brink of making history.

The top-ranked Bruins defeated fifth-ranked Florida in the semifinals of the NCAA Division I women’s volleyball tournament before 6,661 in New Mexico’s University Arena.

The scores were 15-12, 15-12, 15-10.

The victory brought the Bruins to within one match of their goal of an unprecedented third consecutive national championship. Also, if UCLA finishes the season undefeated, it will be the second undefeated team in women’s volleyball history. The first was the 1977 USC team.

In the other semifinal, second-ranked Stanford defeated third-ranked Cal State Long Beach, 15-10, 15-12, 6-15, 15-9.

UCLA (33-0) will play Stanford (30-2) in the final on Saturday at 6 p.m.

UCLA took almost two hours to defeat Florida (34-2).

Natalie Williams, Youngs and Jenny Evans each had season highs in kills for UCLA. Williams led with 31, Youngs had 26 and Evans had 15.

“We just, I think, decided out there that we weren’t going to give up any games,” UCLA Coach Andy Banachowski said.

UCLA has won all but four of its matches this season in three games, losing only six games all season. The Bruins have won 43 consecutive matches dating back to a loss to Stanford last season.

Long Beach finished its season 30-3, its only losses coming to UCLA and Stanford.

The 49ers’ strength all season was their hitting, but they never got into a rhythm offensively against Stanford.

Danielle Scott ranked No. 1 in the nation in hitting percentage last week (.467), but hit .241 against Stanford.

“I’m very disappointed in myself and in the way I played,” Scott said. “We usually have very few hitting errors. I had way too many and that hurt the team.”

Scott led Long Beach with 24 kills in 58 total attempts. She also had 10 hitting errors, the most she has had in her Long Beach career.

Long Beach struggled offensively at the beginning of the match.

In the fourth game, Stanford Coach Don Shaw switched setter Carrie Feldman and hitter Cary Wendell in the rotation, moving outside hitter Bev Oden closer to Feldman. The switch seemed to throw Long Beach off balance.

Wendell, who said that she played one of her best matches of the season, had 21 kills, a career high.

Stanford advances to the final for the first time since 1987, when it lost to Hawaii.

Stanford’s only two losses this season were to UCLA. The Cardinal won the Mideast Region championship at Illinois to advance to the final four.

“(UCLA) is a great team,” Wendell said, “but I think that playing good teams and winning on the road has shown us that we’re also a good team and that if anyone has a shot that we do.”