On Sunday at 1:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks, #12 Stanford women’s volleyball will take on #1 Texas in their home opener. Both teams come in at 3-0.

Last time out: On Tuesday, Stanford defeated #13 Florida 3-2 (31-29, 25-22, 16-25, 22-25, 15-10) in Gainesville. Caitie Baird (15 kills) and Sami Francis (12 kills) each had 17.0 points for Stanford while Kami Miner had 47 assists to go along with 3 kills and 5.5 points.

RECAP: #12 Stanford WVB wins five-set thriller at #13 Florida

On Texas: The Longhorns come in as the top ranked team in the country having defeated #7 Ohio State back-to-back nights in Columbus (3-0, 3-1) before defeating #4 Minnesota at home 3-1 (25-21, 25-18, 23-25, 25-22). They’ve been playing against the best teams in the country and have been dominating so far.

The Longhorns are led by senior outside hitter Logan Eggleston, who is averaging an eye-popping 5.0 kills per set. She’s one of the top players in the nation and is a major reason why the Longhorns are off to such a hot start. Sophomore outside hitter Madisen Skinner is also doing her job, averaging 3.0 kills per set, second best on the team.

In addition to having a lot of power, the Longhorns are also playing really clean, averaging just 1.9 service errors per set while their opponents average 3.6. They don’t make a lot of mistakes and also know how to bring the heat. That’s a really tough combination to stop.

Keys to the match: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is contain Eggleston as much as possible. If she has a big afternoon, Texas is almost certain to win with ease. If Stanford can find a way to reduce her number of kill opportunities and get her out of her normal rhythm, that more than anything will give them a chance to win this match.

The second thing Stanford needs to do is not overly rely on Kendall Kipp. Kipp is averaging a team-high 3.73 kills per set, but at times she’s being asked to do too much. Francis, Baird, and others have to get rolling and take some of the pressure off of her. If you’re going to beat the number one team in the nation, you have to get a complete team effort.

Third, Stanford needs to play cleaner. Against Florida, they had too many service errors. That’s the reason the match was as close as it was. If Stanford doesn’t give away as many points, that’ll be huge.

Finally, Stanford needs to feed off their home crowd. Maples Pavilion will be rocking in this match and they need to take advantage of that. If they can get up early and get the crowd going, that could tip the scale in their favor.

Prediction: I think this is a match that Stanford absolutely can win since they’re at home and they also played against Florida quite well, even with the service errors. That said, Texas appears to be playing at another level right now given how much they dominated Ohio State and Minnesota, two teams that are ranked higher than Stanford. Plus, Texas defeated Stanford 3-0 last year in Austin.

Looking at all that, I’m going to predict Texas to win this match in four sets. If Stanford can exceed that prediction and even just take Texas to a fifth set, that alone would be huge.

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