Oct. 20, 2002
CALGARY, Alberta, Canada - Stanford University claimed its first-ever Husky Dino Cup Championship with a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over the University of the Pacific in the gold medal match on Saturday night at Jack Simpson Gymnasium. The game scores were 17-25, 25-22, 17-25, 26-24, 15-11 as Stanford avenged a 3-0 loss to the Tigers on Friday.
The Tigers controlled the opening set winning 25-17, but the Cardinal evened the match with a 25-22 win in the second set.
Pacific took a 2-1 lead with a 25-17 win in game three, but Stanford won the fourth set 26-24 on back-to-back kills by seniors Paul Bocage (Princeton, NJ/St. Joseph's) and Billy Strickland (Malibu, CA/Harvard-Westlake HS).
In the fifth set, Stanford took the lead for good at 6-5 and never looked back. On match point, Strickland hammered a kill off a Pacific blocker after a long rally to give the Cardinal the victory. The Cardinal hit .444 in the fifth game, and did not commit a hitting error (8 k-0 e-18 ta), while the Tigers hit .211 (9-5-19).
Bocage earned Tournament Most Valuable Player honors after hitting .550 with 14 kills (1 e-20 ta) and five blocks. In four matches, Bocage had 35 kills and 14 blocks. Bocage also earned tournament all-star honors along with Strickland, who had 15 kills and seven digs in the championship match. They were joined on the tournament all-star team by Sean Rodgers, Nils Daubers and Chris Tamas of Pacific along with Calgary's Kelly Cherniwchan.
The Cardinal also received 12 kills and six digs from senior William Curtis (Whittier, CA/Harvard-Westlake HS) in the championship match, while freshmen Chris Ahlfeldt (Manhattan Beach, CA/Mira Costa HS) and Ben Reddy (Waukesha, WI/Waukesha South) had eight kills apiece and redshirt sophomore setter Kevin Hansen (Newport Beach, CA/Corona del Mar HS) added 63 assists, five digs and three blocks.
Aaron Watchfogel and Daubers led Pacific with 18 kills apiece.Stanford was making its sixth all-time appearance at the Husky Dino Cup. The Cardinal's only previous trip to the final came in 1994 vs. USC.
This was the only intercollegiate event of the fall for the Cardinal, though it will not count in its regular season record. The Cardinal hosts its annual alumni game on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. at Burnham Pavilion.
Stanford begins the 2003 portion of its schedule on January 10-11 (Friday-Saturday) at the UC Santa Barbara Tournament.
In the bronze medal match, the University of Calgary defeated the University of Regina 29-27, 25-20, 25-21.