MINNEAPOLIS – For the 16th time, Stanford will play for the NCAA women's volleyball championship.
The Cardinal used a 10-point run in the first set to take command on the way to a 25-15, 25-15, 25-18 victory over BYU in the semifinals on Thursday night, reversing its only loss this season.
Stanford (33-1) will play Nebraska (29-6), a five-set winner over Illinois, in the final on Saturday at 6 p.m. PT. Stanford is in search of its eighth title and second in three years. The Cardinal also will play for Stanford's 118th NCAA team championship – the most of any school – and extend its record-streak of academic years with at least one title to 43.
Kathryn Plummer had a team-high 12 kills, but the defensive players of the match were libero Morgan Hentz (20 digs) and middle blocker Tami Alade (14 blocks).
Hentz's acrobatics in getting to the ball and covering the court was only part of her game. The rest was her precision and accurate passes off of those dives and reaches, feeding the Cardinal offense and keeping the team in system on its way to dissecting the BYU defense.
Alade was a virtual wall, contributing 10 blocks in the first two sets alone. It all added up to a minus-.026 hitting percentage for BYU, which came into the match as the nation's top hitting team, at .315. By keeping the Cougars (31-2) off balance with serving and defense, Stanford was able to control the match even without its best hitting day.
"My block was amazing tonight," Hentz said. "I was able to set up around them. And they made my job so much easier. I think our whole team did a great job of scrapping. I thought our scrappiness was key."
The match turned quickly. With BYU holding a 13-12 lead, Stanford bulled its way to 10 consecutive points, beginning with a Plummer kill. Stanford's attack caused havoc with the Cougars who never recovered.
"We started to communicate with each other," Hentz said. "We said it over and over again, stay patient, stay in the rallies. I think we did a good job of that."
Plummer had five kills in that set, and Audriana Fitzmorris had 11 kills overall. But others were big as well. Holly Campbell closed the second set with a kill off the slide and the team increased its hitting percentage in each successive set, from .188 to .276 to .371.
"It took a while for us to find ourselves," Stanford coach Kevin Hambly said. "Once we got comfortable, our offense started clicking."
Stanford's only loss was a five-setter to the Cougars in Provo on Aug. 31. But there was another source of motivation as well. Last year, Stanford lost in this same round to Florida in five, preventing a chance at a repeat title.
"This was more about a redemption match than us finding ourselves, because we felt like we just didn't show up the first two sets last time against Florida," Hambly said.
But that was last year. Now, it's on to the final.