Feb. 20, 2009
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. - In the case of the Stanford men's volleyball team, the numbers do lie.
Stanford hit .310 as a team, had no hitting errors in the decisive fourth set, and had 12 blocks. Normally, that's a formula for success.
Not on Friday night, when No. 7 Stanford lost in a slugfest to No. 4 Cal State Northridge, 36-34, 27-30, 30-21, 35-33 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation action.
"You look at those numbers and you wonder, `How do you lose?'" Stanford coach John Kosty said. "We hit well enough to win, we blocked well enough to win and we passed well enough to win.
"It was a great match, a great game and we're really bummed."
Stanford (8-7, 4-6) got 18 kills from Spencer McLachlin, 17 from Evan Romero and 15 from Brad Lawson.
However, Cal State Northridge (11-2, 7-2) countered with .355 hitting, 28 kills from first-team All-America Eric Vance and 22 from Tanner Nua. Stanford's Kawika Shoji had 49 assists and Northridge's Mark Stork had 81.
In all, Stanford had 155 attacks and Northridge 183.
"The stats are unbelievable," Kosty said. "Those are numbers you used to see in sideout scoring. I thought I'd never see it in rally scoring."
Kosty felt Nua was the catalyst for Northridge. Though Stanford hit well, Northridge created greater opportunities and had the higher quality swings.
"We were in the match," Kosty said. "We did everything we needed to do. It just came down to a play here and a play there."
Stanford continued its struggle on the road, dropping to 0-5 against ranked MPSF opponents on the road. But the Cardinal has a chance to get one back Saturday night when it plays at No. 13 UC Santa Barbara (4-8, 2-7).
Still, it may take a while for Stanford to get over the Northridge match.
"It was a battle," Kosty said. "I'm just disappointed we lost."