April 16, 2005
Stanford, Calif. - The Stanford Cardinal fell to the BYU Cougars 1-3 (27-30, 32-34, 30-28, 9-9) dropping them to 11-14 (10-12 MPSF). With the loss the Cardinal drop to eighth in the MPSF standings and will travel to Cal State Northridge for the MPSF Tournament Play-In Match on Wednesday, April 20.
Stanford was led by Kevin Hansen's 48 assists and Craig Buell's .630 hitting percentage on 20 kills. David Vogel led Stanford with 10 digs. The Cardinal was out-blocked by the Cougars 7-14.5 with BYU's Michael Burke stuffing eight. Ivan Perez and Victor Batista combined for 40 kills.
In game one the Cougars jumped out to an early four-point advantage behind Victor Batista's strong serve. Stanford inched back but was kept at arms length by the Cougars through the halfway mark. The Cardinal inched within one off of a pair of BYU errors before the Cougar bench called for a timeout. Out of the break Craig Buell stuffed a BYU attack to lock the score 27-27. The Cougars' Michael Burke scored the next two points followed by a kill from Batista to close the game one 30-27.
Buell heated up at the onset of game two, putting away three kills and a block in the first 10 points. The Cougars still managed to beat the Cardinal to the midpoint with a 15-12 advantage. The Cardinal quickly made up the margin on David Vogel ace and a pair of BYU errors. Ivan Perez won the ball back for BYU and led them on a three-point run before Nick Manov entered to ignite the Cardinal with an ace. The Cardinal continued to roll on, claiming a two point lead. BYU answered with two kills by Batista to lock the score 25-25 prompting head coach Don Shaw to call Stanford's first timeout. The teams traded points through 32 with the Cardinal feeding Buell for a number of big kills. A big block by BYU's Casey Patterson gave the momentum to the Cougars as they closed out game two 34-32.
Down two games, the Cardinal jumped out to a 9-4 lead in game three, causing an early Cougar timeout. Vogel came out of the break, blasting an ace to put the Cardinal up by six. Stanford continued to lengthen its margin to as many as nine before BYU chopped the lead to 26-25. Will Clayton notched three of the last four Stanford kills to put the match away 30-28, forcing game four.
The teams traded points up to nine when BYU went on a 4-0 run, broken by a Cougar service error. The Cougars maintained a three-point lead into the television timeout, and widened the margin to seven prompting a timeout by the Stanford bench. The Cougars ran away out of the break, spreading the distance between them and the Cardinal before closing out game four 30-20.