NCAA VOLLEYBALL / SOUTH REGIONAL : UCLA Overwhelms Duke to Advance

When the NCAA volleyball tournament reaches the final 16, matches are usually very competitive. Third-ranked UCLA, however, made sure its contest with Duke Thursday night was an exception as the Bruins used a balanced attack to defeat the undersized Blue Devils, 15-3, 15-3, 15-4, in a South Regional semifinal before 232 at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. Five Bruins had six or more kills.

UCLA (30-3) will play Houston, a 13-15, 15-6, 15-11, 15-4 winner over Florida, in the regional final tonight at 4:30 PST.

“We played well, there’s no question,” UCLA Coach Andy Banachowski said. “Our hitting percentage as a team is well above what we’ve been doing through the season. We had an outstanding offensive night.”

The Bruins finished with a .476 hitting percentage. Senior outside hitter Alyson Randick posted 10 kills and no errors in 12 total attacks to finish with an .833 percentage.

Banachowski said the offensive performance was somewhat surprising.

“I thought we were bigger, quicker and more powerful than Duke,” he said. “And I thought we would be able to do some things offensively. I didn’t think that we would put up the numbers like we did tonight.”

UCLA opened up leads of 7-0, 5-0 and 10-0 in the three games and never was seriously threatened. The first game set the tempo as Randick, senior outside hitter Annett Buckner and freshman outside hitter Kara Milling had three kills apiece.

Buckner finished with 12 kills and is now 35 short of breaking the school record for kills in a season, set by Patty Orozco with 627 in 1983.

Sophomore middle blocker Kim Krull finished with nine kills, and junior outside hitter Jenny Johnson contributed eight. Sophomore setter Kelly Flannigan had 33 assists.