Box Score

Los Angeles, CA -- The LIU Brooklyn volleyball team fell to the defending national champions UCLA Friday night, as the #7 seeded Bruins beat the Blackbirds, 3-0 (25-13, 25-15, 25-12). With the loss, LIU's season comes to a close, with a final overall record of 25-8. The loss was the first for LIU since September 15 against Maryland.

Despite the score, the Blackbirds played one of their strongest matches of the season against the Bruins, keeping the sets close in the early goings. Set one opened with the two teams trading points back and forth. Capitalizing on a UCLA attack error, LIU took an early lead, 3-2. UCLA tied it up, and the two teams traded points until the Bruins went on a 4-0 run to take the lead, 10-5. From there, the Bruins maintained the lead. LIU used back-to-back kills from Tamara Ignjic and Annika Foit to close the gap to 13-10 and then 15-12, but a 7-0 UCLA run was too much to come back from, and the Bruins took the first set, 25-13.

Set two also had a close start, as a kill from freshman Mirjana Rajic tied the game up at 4-4, and Vera Djuric dumped the set to make it 5-5. UCLA scored five unanswered points to go up, 10-5, but LIU stayed in it. Kills from senior Bianca Muniz and Ignjic made it 12-8, and then kills from Ignjic and Rajic had it at 14-10. But UCLA continued to increase the lead, and eventually, a 4-0 run by the Bruins made it 24-13. LIU fought back against set point, scoring on a kill from Foit and a UCLA error, but the Bruins were able to end it and go up 2-0, with the 25-15 win.

The Bruins rode the momentum of the 2-0 lead into the third set, taking a quick lead on the Blackbirds. The Bruinds went up 4-0, and continued to chip away, increasing the lead to 10-3 before LIU called a timeout. Thought the Blackbirds would continue to battle, and Muniz had two huge kills for LIU, the lead proved to be too much to overcome. Again, LIU fought back against match point, with a kill from senior Jessica Rice, but UCLA took the third set, 25-12, and the match, 3-0.

Annika Foit led the Blackbirds on offense with 9 kills and six digs, while freshman Tamara Ignjic had eight kills and eight digs. Freshman Adriana Vinas Joy led LIU on defense with 12 digs, while sophomore Vera Djuric had 26 assists in the loss. Freshman Mirjana Rajic also added six kills and six digs in the final match of the season.

The loss marks the end of the 2012 season for the Blackbirds, who finish the year with a 28-7 overall record, including a perfect 16-0 record in the NEC, an NEC conference championship, and a program-record 19-match win streak.