If the box score said it all, No. 11 UCLA women’s volleyball would have been on the right side of a 3-2 victory over crosstown rival USC.
But despite out-hitting the No. 21 Trojans (9-3, 1-0 Pac-12) and trumping them in nearly every statistic, the Bruins (7-3, 0-1) couldn’t pull out the win at home in their conference opener. It was just UCLA’s second five-set match of the year – the other was against Hawai’i on Aug. 27.
The Trojans and Bruins rallied back and forth for much of the first set, but a mid-set run put UCLA in a hole it couldn’t completely get out of.