April 11, 2003
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Stanford University recorded its fourth Mountain Pacific Sports Federation road win in the last eight nights with a 30-23, 30-26, 30-26 victory over UCLA on Friday night at Pauley Pavilion.
Tenth-ranked Stanford, which has won eight of its 10 conference road matches this season, improved to 16-11 overall and 13-8 in the MPSF, while the Bruins lost for the fifth time in their last six tries to drop to 14-14 and 9-12.
Senior Curt Toppel (Pacific Palisades, CA) had a team-high 12 kills, five digs and three blocks for Stanford, senior William Strickland (Malibu, CA) chipped in 11kills and a .429 hitting percentage (11 k-2 e-21 ta) and redshirt sophomore setter Kevin Hansen (Newport Beach, CA) had 35 assists, a match-high 11 digs and three blocks. Senior Paul Bocage (Princeton, NJ) contributed seven blocks for the winners.
Stanford, which avenged a 3-0 (30-27, 30-19, 30-26) loss to the Bruins on The Farm on Feb. 22, out-hit the hosts .278 (41-16-90)-.183 (44-24-109). The Cardinal closed out all three games on Bruins service miscues, and the Bruins finished the night with 22 service errors.
Jonathan Acosta paced UCLA with 12 kills, three digs and three blocks.
The Cardinal can clinch homecourt advantage in the MPSF Quarterfinals with a win at UC Irvine in the regular season finale for both teams on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. The top four teams in the MPSF host quarterfinal matches on Saturday, April 19, and the Cardinal currently leads the fifth-place Anteaters (19-9, 12-9) by one game in the conference standings.