Freshmen Play Big Role as UCLA’s Volleyball Team Starts Fast : Women Go Undefeated in First 21 Games Following Banner Recruiting Year

When fall quarter classes began at UCLA in late September, freshmen Jenny Evans and Elaine Youngs were missing.

They were on a road trip in Texas with Coach Andy Banachowski’s nationally top-ranked volleyball team.

Evans, an outside hitter, and Youngs, a middle blocker, have been starters for Banachowski since the season began--a rarity for freshmen in college volleyball but not unexpected at UCLA.

Youngs, an All-Orange County selection in volleyball and basketball at El Toro High School, and Evans, the CIF-Southern Section 5-A player of the year at Newport Harbor High, are members of an elite group.

They are part of what Banachowski says is the best collection of recruits he has had in 22 years as UCLA’s head coach. The other top newcomers are middle blocker Rachel Norris of San Gabriel High School, outside hitter Laurie Jones of Huntington Beach High and setter Jennifer Gratteau of Marina High in Huntington Beach. With veterans Ann Boyer, a two-time All-American setter; All-American junior middle blocker Daiva Tomkus, junior outside hitter Jenny Crocker and sophomore outside hitter Samantha Shaver, Evans, Youngs and the other freshmen may turn out to be part of the best UCLA team that Banachowski has had. And he’s had some great ones, including four that won NCAA championships.

Boyer, Tomkus, Crocker and Shaver are having excellent seasons, and Youngs and Evans are playing as if they had been around as long as the veterans.

Last week UCLA raised its record to 21-0, the best start in team history, by defeating Colorado State and Brigham Young, both in three games, in the Pacific 10 Conference Challenge at Pauley Pavilion.

Against Colorado State, Shaver had 14 kills, 9 digs and 1 block, and Evans had 11 kills and 8 blocks. In the win over BYU, Youngs had a career-high 21 kills and added 2 blocks, and Tomkus had 14 kills and 3 blocks. Youngs, Tomkus and Boyer were named to the all-tournament team.

The Bruins have certainly been acting like they’re the best team in the nation. They’re the country’s only undefeated squad and are 11-0 in Pac-10 play. If they keep it up, they will be the first team to have an undefeated season since USC (38-0) did it in 1977.

Neither Evans nor Youngs thought they would be starters right off the bat, and Youngs, an outside hitter in high school and a U.S. Volleyball Assn. All-American with her club team, had no idea that she would be playing middle blocker, a new position for her. Neither expected that practices would be such hard work.

Said Evans: I felt at the beginning of the first week that the harder we worked the worse we got. I would sleep 12 hours, and it wasn’t enough.”

Youngs said that the first week “was hell. I was so tired that I couldn’t sit down, couldn’t walk up the stairs.

“I was expecting to play a lot, but I wasn’t expecting to play every day.

“I was an outside hitter, but now I’m a middle blocker--and I pretty much learned the position in two weeks. At the beginning it was frustrating, and I guess when I got here I was really mad.”

She said that in early practices she was considering shanking a few balls so that coaches would conclude she couldn’t play the new position and put her back at outside hitter. But she said that other girls on the team talked her out of trying that ploy.

“There’s no glory for middle blockers,” she said. “It’s the hardest position because you have to think on every play. Hitting is the easy part.”

Youngs must have been doing some heavy thinking. She and Tomkus form a blocking duo that has been averaging 7.5 kills, 2.1 blocks and 4.8 digs a game. They have a combined .370 hitting average.

Banachowski said he shifted Youngs from hitter to blocker “sort of from necessity” because Stacy Buck, Tomkus’ partner last year at middle blocker, had graduated and also because freshman Norris, the only middle blocker he recruited this year, dislocated a kneecap in practice and was sidelined for six weeks.

“Middle blocker was definitely our weak area,” he said, “but Elaine is a such a good athlete it was easy for her to make that transition. She also found it challenging and took to it very well.”

Evans, whose sister Julie was a star volleyball player at Pepperdine and is a graduate assistant coach at her alma mater, has also adjusted well to college volleyball. She has had outstanding matches: against Texas she had 17 kills and 15 digs.

Not that everything has been gravy for them.

“They have had some consistency in their performances, but they haven’t always come out and been prepared to play hard every night,” Banachowski said.

“They are not used to the caliber of the opponents. Everyone is good, and they may not realize that they have to come up with their best performance on the court every night. They didn’t always have to do that in high school.

“It is much more competitive, much more intense and faster on the college level. Those are things they have to adjust to here.”

Evans and Youngs say they realize how much tougher college volleyball is than the high school game.

They say they know they have to keep working at the game, that they can always improve and that, if they become too self-satisfied, the team’s veterans will let them know they shouldn’t be.

“Here, everyone understands that the harder you work, the more you play,” Evans said. “Ann Boyer brings an intense attitude to the game that makes everyone better.”

Youngs said that their teammates let the pair know “by the little things they do that they don’t want our heads to get really big.”

Evans said that “when you start to get a lot of attention, they tell you right away you’re not that good.” She said that Boyer “is the leader of the team on the court” and that Tomkus “watches over us more.” The team’s success has been something of a surprise to Banachowski and his freshman starters

Youngs, who will turn out for basketball after the volleyball season, said that the perspective that she and Evans have of the team may be fuzzy because neither has “been on a losing team in our lives. If this is a rebuilding year for UCLA, we may look back and realize how great a team we were.

“I expected to come on to a good team, but I didn’t think we would be 21-0.”

Banachowski thought “we could be a really good team, but I didn’t expect to have this much success so early. I thought we would be struggling.”

Well enough to win another NCAA championship? It’s a good possibility, he said. He thinks Stanford will supply the chief opposition, but he added:

“We certainly have the talent to (win the national title). If we can stay injury-free, we’re certainly capable. . . . It remains to be seen whether we are mentally tough enough.”