Feb. 5, 2009
LOS ANGELES - Stanford was unable to maintain a two-set lead and eventually fell to No. 8 UCLA, 34-36, 26-30, 30-21, 30-27, 15-11 at Pauley Pavilion on Thursday night.
The No. 6 Cardinal had a chance to win in the fourth set. But despite holding a 26-24 lead, Stanford was outscored 6-1 the rest of the way, with four points coming on Bruin blocks.
"We let it slip away," Stanford coach John Kosty said.
The Cardinal (7-4) dropped to 3-3 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play heading into a potentially more difficult match at No. 3 UC Irvine tonight.
Evan Romero had a Stanford season-high 28 kills and Kawika Shoji tied his collegiate best of 70 kills, but all went for naught against the No. 8 Bruins (5-5, 3-3), which extended their home winning streak over the Cardinal to six matches.
Kills by Brandon Williams and Evan Romero broke a 34-34 tie in the first set to enable Stanford to jump out to the early lead.
But the momentum shift may have come near the end of the second set, after Stanford bolted to a 9-0 lead and cruised to the finish and the Bruins worked to close the gap.
"They subbed a lot of guys to see if anybody could give them a spark," Kosty said. "They did. And they took a little of the momentum away."
In the decisive fourth set, Stanford overcame deficits of 11-7 and 15-11, finally tying the score at 19-19 on a kill by Brad Lawson. Stanford took the lead, but faltered down the stretch and was unable to recover for Game 5.
"We had opportunities to win, but didn't take care of business," Kosty said. "And UCLA played really really well."
The Bruins had 19 blocks to Stanford's five, and hit .357 as a team, though the Cardinal countered with a solid .329 hitting percentage of its own.
The difference, Kosty said, was that Stanford's serving faltered after the first two sets. Just as pitching and defense win baseball games, serving and passing are what Kosty feels are the keys to winning in volleyball.
"We had our opportunites, but we couldn't capitalize," he said.