DAVIS, Calif. — Freshman
Amara Aimufua finished with a team-high 15 kills and hit .313 on the day, while sophomore
Demari Webb added 12 more and hit .375 for the match, as the UC Davis women's volleyball team went toe-to-toe with the No. 17 team in the nation, but visiting UCLA fought off a tenacious Aggie squad for a, 21-25, 26-24, 27-25, 25-21, victory on Sunday afternoon at the UCU Center.
UC Davis hit a season-high .302 against the Bruins as Aimufua logged her second double-digit kill performance of the year with a career-high total, adding a pair of digs and three blocks. Webb, meanwhile, doubled her season kill total on Sunday, committing only three errors in 24 swings, digging a pair of balls and adding a pair of blocks.
Freshman
Olivia Utterback added nine kills, three aces, and five blocks, while also digging seven balls, while junior
Josephine Ough added eight kills, hit .500 for the match, and added seven more blocks to her team-best total. Sophomore
Shira Lahav tied her season high with 18 digs.
The Aggies led wire-to-wire in their opening set win, leading by as many as four points for most of the set before the Bruins bounced back to tie the match at 18-all. Kills by
Megan Lenn and Aimufua around an ace by Lahav sparked the finish as UC Davis scored five of the next seven points and clinched the set win on a kill by
Lana Radakovic.
UC Davis then made UCLA work overtime to win the next two sets as the Aggies didn't shrink from the spotlight against nationally ranked opposition. Both teams went back-and-forth in the second, trading points to forge a 14-all tie midway through the set. A 6-0 run by the Bruins allowed the visitors to pull away, but the Aggies reeled UCLA back in as an Utterback kill jumpstarted a rally that saw UC Davis score six of the next seven points and close to within a point at 21-20.
A block by Ough and Webb, along with another Utterback kill put UC Davis ahead 23-22 and force a Bruin timeout, but UCLA answered with a kill by Mac May and a May ace to force the first set point. May's next serve went long to tie the set once again, but Elan McCall found the floor for a kill and an error by the Aggies gave the second set to the Bruins.
The third set looked a lot like the second, with neither team getting too far out of reach of the other. UCLA eventually built an early five-point lead, but back-to-back kills by Radakovic helped UC Davis score five of the next seven points, making it a two-point contest. Neither team led by more than that the rest of the set, with the Aggies fighting off two more set points before a service error and an ace lifted UCLA to a 2-1 lead.
UC Davis opened the fourth set on fire, scoring the first three points and six of the first eight to grab an early lead and continued to turn the Bruins away with each rally. With the Aggies leading by four, UCLA went on a 5-1 run to tie the match at 18-all, and added four straight points after a Radakovic kill to take a 22-19 lead.
A kill by Webb and a service error brought UC Davis back to within a point, but the Bruins closed strong, getting back-to-back kills from Shelby Martin and May and a solo block by Lexi Hadrych to end the night.
UCLA hit .282 on 16 more swings than the Aggies, while UC Davis held the advantage at the net with 11 total blocks to just six for the Bruins.
The homestand continues next weekend with five more matches at the UCU Center as the Aggies welcome Nevada, Santa Clara, and San Francisco, for the 2021 Aggie Invitational. Play begins with UC Davis taking on the Wolf Pack on Friday (Sept. 3) at 11 a.m.
ABOUT UC DAVIS
Centrally located between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, over 700 student-athletes across 25 teams enjoy an unrivaled undergraduate experience at the fifth-ranked public school in the country.
Ranked annually in the nation's top 10 in diversity and students' social mobility, UC Davis and its innovative Aggie EVO System helps student-athletes develop passions, connect with a comprehensive network of alums and industry leaders, gain real-world experience and thrive as a young professional following a successful launch to full-time employment or graduate school.
