April 3, 2010
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - No. 1 Stanford regained sole possession of first place, by percentage points, in a tight Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's volleyball race Saturday night with a 30-26, 30-28, 30-23 victory over No. 10 UC Santa Barbara.
Stanford (16-5, 13-5) got a team-high 14 kills from Brad Lawson and nine apiece from Evan Romero and Spencer McLachlin to rebound from a loss at No. 5 Cal State Northridge on Friday night.
Stanford (.722) leads BYU (14-6, .700) at the top of the standings and clinched a berth in the eight-team MPSF Tournament, which determines the conference's sole automatic berth in the four-team NCAA playoffs.
The Cardinal shared the lead with Pepperdine, but the Waves were upset in five sets by UC Irvine. Now, three teams are within a half-game of the lead and five within a game, with two weeks left in the regular season.
"The league is so tight right now," Stanford coach John Kosty said. "It's a dogfight."
The match against the Gauchos (11-14, 8-11) swung for good late in the second set, when Stanford setter Kawika Shoji fooled the UCSB defense on the transition. With the defense committing to either the quick set or a dump, Shoji instead passed to Spencer McLachlin, who knocked down the kill without any block at all for a commanding 28-24 lead.
"Our passing was our strength tonight," Kosty said. "That's what allowed us to win."
The regular-season winner receives the No. 1 seed in the MPSF Tournament and strong consideration when the lone NCAA at-large berth is determined, if it fails to win the conference tournament.
But the next immediate goal is to secure homecourt advantage for the MPSF Tournament, which can be achieved by finishing among the top four.
Stanford next plays host to No. 2 Pepperrdine on Friday and No. 6 USC on Saturday, both at 7 p.m., in its final home regular-season matches.
"Getting homecourt advantage would be great," Kosty said. "We definitely want to be at home. But no matter how we finish, we're going to play somebody tough in the first round."