{"id":254716,"date":"2026-04-06T22:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/254716\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T22:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T22:33:09","slug":"ucla-beach-volleyball-finishes-best-of-the-west-tournament-3-1-falls-to-stanford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/254716\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA beach volleyball finishes Best of the West tournament 3-1, falls to Stanford"},"content":{"rendered":"

A challenging regular season can replicate postseason play.<\/p>\n

And the Bruins are embracing their strenuous schedule.<\/p>\n

No. 2 UCLA beach volleyball (21-4) bested No. 6 Cal Poly (21-5) 3-2 but lost to No. 1 Stanford (27-2) 3-2 Friday before sweeping its Saturday slate with a 3-2 victory against No. 4 USC (23-6) and a 5-0 triumph against No. 10 Long Beach State (18-10) at the Best in the West tournament in Laguna Beach, California. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be tough from here on out,\u201d said coach Jenny Johnson Jordan. \u201cTeams are better, so we expect tough matches every weekend. The interesting thing about our sport is that it could be a different team winning it for us every dual.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Bruins played each of their opponents at least once before the weekend competition, and the squad added to its unblemished season records against Cal Poly, USC and Long Beach State. <\/p>\n

But the Cardinal trumped the Bruins\u2019 potential to take the advantage in their season series. <\/p>\n

Senior Maggie Boyd and sophomore Sally Perez, who went 4-0 on court one across their weekend outing, claimed the top court victory in three sets, but the court four pairing of junior Ava Williamson and redshirt junior Kenzie Brower fell in the game-clinching match. <\/p>\n

\"(HoldenSenior Maggie Boyd serves the ball. The Flower Mound, Texas, local has played alongside sophomore Sally Perez on court one for the second-straight season. The duo boasts a 22-2 dual-match record in 2026. (Holden Yung\/Daily Bruin)<\/p>\n

UCLA has sustained two of its four losses against Stanford this season, and the Westwood bunch last lost to the Palo Alto, California, crew in its fourth game of the 2026 campaign. <\/p>\n

Still, redshirt sophomore Taylor Ford said the team prioritized playing quality opponents over achieving an eye-popping record against weaker competition. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the toughest schedule in the country, and we do that year-by-year, and it\u2019s really good because it sets us up for the postseason,\u201d Ford said. \u201cWe\u2019ve played all the top teams many times. We know a lot of their tendencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford played in just four matches ahead of the tournament. <\/p>\n

Yet, she won both of her dual-match outings in Laguna Beach against Cal Poly and Long Beach State, respectively.<\/p>\n

This included reuniting with redshirt sophomore Kaley Mathews on court three against the Beach. <\/p>\n

The duo won the AAU National Championship when Mathews and Ford were in high school, and they were partnered together last year as well.<\/p>\n

Ford said that she faced multiple people she knew from high school at the competition who cheered her and Mathews on.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our girls we played growing up were coming up to us and saying, \u2018I love this partnership,\u2019\u201d Ford said. \u201cEven though we\u2019re locked in on our own team, it\u2019s such a great sport in that we\u2019re all super close, and we can still cheer each other on and hope for the best for each other while also still competing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(HoldenRedshirt sophomore Taylor Ford leans to her left side as she attempts to hit the ball. Ford played just two matches last year, but she has competed in six contests this year thus far. The Danville, California, local has an perfect 6-0 record across her 2026 outings. (Holden Yung\/Daily Bruin)<\/p>\n

The Bruins responded on the tournament\u2019s second day after going 1-1 on the first.<\/p>\n

UCLA faced USC, a program that has boasted six \u2013 the most \u2013 national championships, to begin Saturday\u2019s slate. <\/p>\n

The affair was another tightly contested one, as the court-four matchup dictated the game\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Adelina Okazaki and freshman Mallory LaBreche lost 21-12 in the first set but clawed back with a second-set triumph and edged out the Trojan pair of Kyra Zaengle and Calinda Kok 15-13 in the third set to earn the Bruins their first court-four victory on the weekend. <\/p>\n

Comeback victories against elite competition often require trust in the team and the training plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing that we did was trust each other and fall back on our training,\u201d said redshirt sophomore Harper Cooper. \u201cThat\u2019s all a credit to how hard we work in practice. We practice how we want to compete, and we constantly tell ourselves that, whatever the level of play we have in practice, that needs to be equal to \u2013 if not more than \u2013 how we want to play in the game.\u201d <\/p>\n

UCLA will continue its season next weekend at the Center of Effort Challenge in San Luis Obispo, California, against California, Cal Poly and Arizona State. <\/p>\n

And Jordan said her team is excited for another challenging weekend ahead of the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201c(We\u2019re) looking forward to going into hostile territory and playing under that kind of pressure to help us better prepare for the playoffs,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A challenging regular season can replicate postseason play. And the Bruins are embracing their strenuous schedule. No. 2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-254716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}