LA JOLLA, Calif. – Consecutive kills by Kevin Rakestraw sealed the win for No. 9 Stanford 25-15, 25-22, 28-26 at UC San Diego, Saturday, in the MPSF finale for both schools at RIMAC Arena.
Stanford closes out the regular season at 13-12 overall and 8-10 in the MPSF, earning the No. 7 seed for the conference tournament. The Cardinal will travel to No. 2 seed BYU on Saturday, April 15 for an MPSF quarterfinal match to begin the postseason.
Rakestraw hit a season-high .750 with 12 kills on 16 errorless swings. He also notched three blocks and two aces in the win for the Cardinal.
Redshirt senior Gabriel Vega led all players with 16 kills to go with seven digs, two blocks and an ace. Redshirt junior Colin McCall added nine kills on .333 hitting and Clay Jones finished with six kills and seven digs. Freshman middle blocker Jacob Thoenen chipped in with four kills and two aces.
UC San Diego (7-19, 3-15 MPSF) was playing without junior opposite Tanner Syftestad, who leads the Tritons in kills, aces and points this season, who was injured in Friday's match against Pepperdine.
Freshman setter Paul Bischoff controlled the Cardinal offense, which hit .344, with 44 assists. He also collected eight digs, finishing two shy of a fourth double-double. Junior libero Evan Enriques also recorded eight digs in the match, while junior Kyle Dagostino had four.
Josh Schmidt led UCSD with eight kills on .412 hitting, while Ian Colbert and Bryan Zhu posted six kills each. It was the second time in a week the Cardinal earned a win over the Tritons, sweeping the season series.