April 11, 2009
STANFORD, Calif. - A lethal all-around hitting performance highlighted Stanford's 30-24, 30-19, 30-19 sweep of BYU on Saturday and helped the Cardinal gain an important tiebreaking edge as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's volleyball season winds into its final weekend.
No. 5 Stanford reversed a five-set loss to the No. 6 Cougars from the night before and, by doing so, broke a tie between the two for fourth place. The top four teams in the MPSF play at home in the first-round of the eight-team conference tournament. Stanford (20-9, 13-7) now holds the advantage over the Cougars (16-11, 12-8) despite splitting their two-match season series at Maples Pavilion. The decider was that Stanford won a combined five sets to BYU's three in head-to-head play. Each has two matches remaining.
The stats seemed opposite of Friday night when BYU had 20.5 blocks, five service aces and Stanford hit only .202. On Saturday, BYU had only 4.5 blocks, zero aces and Stanford pounded its way to a .386 hitting percentage.
To Stanford's coaches and players, the turnaround was no surprise.
"Our success is based on our serving and passing," said junior All-American setter Kawika Shoji, who had 39 assists. "If we supply good passes, our offense is tough to stop, and they couldn't stop us tonight."
In contrast to Stanford's rough passing on Friday, precipitated largely by BYU's fine serving, Stanford controlled the play with superior passing and took the block away.
Stanford's serve-receive was so controlled and Shoji's passes so crisp, that on certain plays it seemed obvious a kill was coming even before the hitter made contact.
Spencer McLachlin (10 kills) hit .562 and Lawson .407. And middle blockers Garrett Werner and Brandon Williams hit a combined .722 with zero errors and 13 kills.
Stanford has now won 12 of its past 14 matches.
"Not only did we put ourselves in fourth place, but we continued our momentum," Shoji said. "And we came back from a rough night and put in a solid effort."
To that end, coach John Kosty was pleased as well.
"This is the Stanford way," Kosty said. "We have to play our game and we'll be really successful."
The task, however, is only half complete. Stanford plays host top No. 2 UC Irvine on Friday and No. 9 UCLA on Saturday, both at Maples Pavilion at 7 p.m. Stanford likely will have to beat both to gain the No. 4 seed. A loss might drop the Cardinal into a tie with USC, which plays two at 10th-place Hawai'i, and the Trojans have the tiebreaker advantage over Stanford.
"Home court would be great," Kosty said. "But we're just looking to build momentum going into the playoffs. We're going to have to win on someone's home court eventually."
Only the MPSF tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the four-team NCAA playoffs, and Stanford seems out of the running for the single at-large invitation. Therefore, it appears Stanford's only NCAA hope will be to win the MPSF tournament, which is why positioning and momentum are so vital.