March 7, 2004
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The No. 12 ranked Stanford University men's volleyball team nearly upset the No. 1 UCLA Bruins, falling 3-2 Saturday night in Pauley Pavilion. Game scores for the matcher were 30-28, 28-30, 22-30, 30-24, 17-15, while taking two hours and 19 minutes. With the win, the Cardinal fall to 7-12 on the season and 4-10 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Play. The Bruins improve to 16-3 overall and 10-3 in MPSF play.
After dropping the first game to the Bruins, Stanford would rally in games two and three to take a 2-1 edge in the match. Stanford hit a respectable .317 en route to capturing game two and took advantage of 10 UCLA hitting errors in game three. In game three, the Cardinal held the Bruins to a .111 hitting percentage.
The Bruins responded in game four, hitting an impressive .457 to set up the dramatic game five. A kill by Vogel late in game five gave Stanford a 15-14 lead, but the Bruins tied the game at 15-15 on a bad set by the Cardinal, and took the lead on Jonathan Acosta's kill. The Bruins' Paul Johnson then served an ace to give the Bruins their 16th victory of the season and snap a two-match losing streak to the Cardinal.
The Cardinal again used a balanced attack as five players registered double-digit kills for the second straight night. Junior middle blocker paced the Cardinal with 16 kills, while sophomore outside hitter William Clayton added 15 kills. Junior outside hitter David Vogel and sophomore middle blocker Chris Ahlfeldt each hammered home 14 kills, while junior Pat Bomhack added 11 kills on the night.
Stanford dominated the nets all night, out-blocking the Bruins, 19.5-11. The duo of Ahlfeldt and Buell led the Cardinal as Ahlfeldt tallied two solo blocks and six block assists and Buell added two solo blocks and five block assists. Redshirt junior setter Kevin Hansen, Vogel, Clayton and Bomhack each registered one solo block and three block assists on the night. Hansen also handed out a game-high 66 assists. Vogel and Bomhack recorded 12 digs each, while Clayton added 10 digs.
The Cardinal take a couple of weeks off before returning to the court on March 26th and the 27th when they host UC San Diego and Long Beach State, respectively.