Arizona too much for Anteaters

Barry Faulkner

Though thoroughly proud of the destination it had reached, the UC

Irvine women’s volleyball team came away from Friday night’s

first-round NCAA tournament loss to Arizona with a startling

realization that there remains a vast separation between the

Anteaters and the sport’s elite.

The Wildcats, led by 6-foot-2 junior outside hitter Kim Glass,

5-11 junior outside hitter Jennifer Abernathy and 6-5 senior middle

blocker Jolene Killough, hammered away at the Anteaters’ confidence,

experience and resolve to earn a 30-19, 30-17, 30-18 victory at the

University of San Diego’s Jenny Craig Pavilion.

The lopsided verdict not only ended the Anteaters’ season, it

provided disappointing closure to the career of four UCI seniors who

have helped lift Coach Charlie Brande’s program from obscurity onto

the national landscape.

“I thought we did not give our best performance tonight, but

nothing should erase what these four seniors have done,” Brande said

as his voice cracked with emotion after the Anteaters’ third NCAA

tournament match in the last two seasons.

UCI seniors Kelly Wing and Ashlie Hain, with tears still welling

in their eyes, also acknowledged it was not the way they had hoped to

close their distinguished careers. Wing, the program’s first

All-American, having earned third-team laurels as a junior, joined

Hain, Sami Cash and Dana Kurzbard in improving from a 4-21 freshman

campaign to back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances, including last

year’s first-round triumph over Missouri.

But Arizona had other ideas and, except for a brief UCI surge at

the start of the second game, the Wildcats (19-10), ranked No. 21 to

end the season, emphatically demonstrated their superiority.

“Obviously Arizona was very, very physical,” Brande said. “We felt

we could create some situations that would give them some problems.

But we didn’t execute as well as we should have and Arizona took

advantage.”

Wing, the school’s career leader in kills (2,267), aces (171) and

digs (1,280), was disappointed with her own collegiate finale. She

collected eight hitting errors and seven kills for a negative .024

hitting percentage.

UCI (18-11) hit just .039 as a team (26 kills and 22 errors), as a

combination of Arizona blocking and shaky Anteater passing combined

to derail any offensive momentum UCI might have hoped to build.

“If there was one thing that stands out in my mind, it’s our

defense,” said Arizona Coach David Rubio, whose team has won 11 of

its last 14 and posted its 16th sweep this season.

“All I saw [on kill attempts] was arms,” Wing said.

Arizona had 10 blocks to the Anteaters’ one while Glass (16 kills)

and Abernathy (13 kills in 18 attempts) led the hitting attack.

Abernathy and Glass also led their team in digs with 17 and 11,

respectively.

“I think everyone was pretty content with the way we played

tonight,” Glass said.

Rubio was also smiling over his team’s dominant display.

“We knew Wing was a terrific player, because we recruited her,”

Rubio said of this season’s Big West Conference Player of the Year.

“When you’re No. 1 kid isn’t putting up numbers, you’re going to

struggle [as a team]. We’ve had a few of those matches ourselves this

season.”

Cash led the Anteaters, who lost five of their last six matches,

with eight kills. She hit .250, nearly half of her .447 clip

previously this season, which ranked No. 3 in the nation.

Hain collected 22 assists to lift her school-career-record total

to 5,698.

Arizona led the entire first game and scored the first point of

Game 2. But UCI took leads of 3-1, 7-5, 9-7 and 10-9, before

Dominique Lamb, a 6-1 freshman, earned a kill on an off-speed shot to

tie it. Killough (seven kills and a team-high six block assists)

followed with a stuff block to put Arizona in control.

UCI’s only leads in Game 3 came at 1-0 and 2-1 as the Wildcats

pulled away to terminate the match in 87 minutes.

Brande attributed his team’s consecutive NCAA tournament

appearances -- after a 15-year absence -- to hard work, concentration

and a grasp of the game’s finer points. But he acknowledged that, in

order to continue to progress, it must get better athletically.

“These [four seniors] have done things by developing a great

understanding of how to play and a desire to grow,” Brande said. “But

for us to continue to build, we need to become much more physical.”