March 9, 2007
The Cardinal dropped to No. 12 Long Beach State Friday night in three games 31-29, 30-27, 30-25. The win improves Long Beach's record to 8-9 and 5-8 in conference. Stanford drops to 2-18 overall and 1-14 in MPSF.
In game one, Stanford started a run when they were down 14-18. After two unforced errors by Long Beach, Stanford was behind by one at 19-18. With Kawika Shoji at the serving line, the Cardinal tied the game at 21. A huge block on the rightside gave Stanford momentum, however Long Beach answered with two kills from the middle. Long Beach took a timeout at 23-22 and Stanford answered with a kill by Evan Romero. Another kill by Romero tied the game at 29. A long serve from the Cardinal gave Long Beach game point and they finished with a block on the outside, 30-29.
Both teams exchanged leads in game two with consistant sideout play. At 26-24, Long Beach had a kill from the middle then served long at 27-25. The 49ers finished the game 30-27. Stanford's Brandon Williams hit .750 ingame two.
Long Beach jumped out to an early 8-3 lead in the third game. Stanford took their first time out when they were down 9-14. Matt Ceran served three points for the Cardinal at 16-19, however that wasn't enough to outlast the 49ers. Long Beach won game three on a kill by Paul Lotman. The final score of game three was 30-25.
Long Beach hit .389 for the night, having three players hit .500 or above. Paul Lotman finished with 16 kills and Dean Bittner came in with 11. Conner Eaton had 43 assists for the night.
Stanford finished the match hitting .276 as a team with Kawika Shoji leading with 17 kills. Setter Miki Groppi landed 39 assists and Brian Lindberg added 10 digs.
Stanford will return play tomorrow against UCSD at 7PM in Maples Pavilion.