STANFORD, Calif. - The Stanford women's volleyball team notched its first sweep in nearly two weeks against visiting Utah on Friday night, dominating the Utes 25-19, 25-15, 25-18 at Maples Pavilion. The Cardinal (20-6, 14-4 Pac-12) is now 12-1 all-time against Utah (10-19, 4-14 Pac-12), and has won 39 out of 41 sets against the program since its addition to the Pac-12 Conference in 2011.
Even with star freshman Haley Hodson having, by her lofty standards, an off night, the Cardinal didn't miss a beat. Senior outside hitter Brittany Howard picked up the slack, smashing 12 kills on 20 total attacks, 10 digs and two blocks for her ninth double-double of the year. Her .550 hitting percentage was just shy of her season-high of .565 at Oregon earlier this month.
"I thought the game didn't come very well to [Brittany] yesterday," Stanford head coach John Dunning said. "I think as players we all understand that sometimes the game comes to you and it's easy and sometimes it's hard. I thought yesterday was hard, and today she decided to do something about it, and did a great job. I thought she blocked some good balls and attacked very aggressively the last two sets."
Stanford fell behind early against the Utes, struggling to get the ball past the front line of Berkeley Oblad, Adora Anae and Breanna DeYoung. A 3-0 run by the Utes forced the Cardinal into a timeout trailing 9-4. Merete Lutz fired a kill out the break, but Utah responded and ran its advantage to 15-9 before Dunning called time again. Eliza Katoa's kill gave Utah a 16-10 lead, but Stanford had woken up. Consecutive kills from Hodson and Madi Bugg, and a Lutz block spurred a 9-0 Cardinal run, part of a 15-3 run to close out the first set. Bugg stuffed the stat sheet with four blocks, and two executed sneak attacks, three assists and three digs in her team's 25-19 win. Tami Alade provided energy off the bench, recording two blocks along the front line and helping hold Utah to a -.083 hitting percentage.
"Utah was really excited," Dunning said. "They had a great win at Cal yesterday, and I think that carried over to the game here. They're a young team and they're getting better every week, and I thought they played really well at the start. They served great, and it took us out of it. And halfway through we woke up, and then from there on out we scored lots of streaks of points, and that's really good for us."
The second set belonged to Howard, who tallied seven kills and three digs as Stanford surged to a 25-15 victory. Utah called two timeouts trailing 12-6 and 20-9 to stem the Cardinal tide, but Howard and Co. were simply too much, improving their hitting percentage more than 300 points to .400 while continuing to serve well. Hodson, Jordan Burgess and Halland McKenna all recorded aces; a kill from reserve Sidney Brown gave Stanford its largest lead of the set at 23-12 as the team cruised to a 10-point victory. The Cardinal limited the Utes to eight kills, again holding it below its kills per set average of 12.51.
It was truly a back-and-forth third set, with neither side able to gain control early. There were 13 ties and nine lead changes as Stanford looked to close things out and the Utes fought to stay alive. The turning point was a 3-0 Cardinal run trailing by one at 16-15, which gave it a lead it would not relinquish. Two kills by Carly Trueman brought Utah to within one a 19-18, but Stanford scored the set's last six points, three on Howard kills, to finish off the sweep 25-18. Hodson paced the Cardinal with five kills in the third, and Lutz picked up two more blocks to hold Utah to .122 hitting percentage.
Adora Anae lead the Utes with nine kills, but had 39 total attempts, and 14 digs. Trueman poured in eight kills on 29 total attempts as Utah hit just .043, 140 points below its season average.
Stanford next plays Cal in the Big Spike on Wednesday at Maples Pavilion (first serve at 8 p.m. PT), and finishes out its conference slate next Friday at UCLA. Wednesday's match is Senior Night. Both matches will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks.
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