On Sunday, #12 Stanford women’s volleyball fell to #1 Texas in straight sets 3-0 (18-25, 18-25, and 20-25). Logan Eggleston led the way for the Longhorns with 16 kills and 7 digs while Madisen Skinner and Molly Phillips each had 10 kills. Kendall Kipp (14 kills & 4 digs) was the top performer for the Cardinal. Texas improves to 4-0 overall while Stanford falls to 3-1.
“That’s a team that executes at a high level,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “They’re a bunch of players that have played at a variety of universities and at a high level and they have a lot of experience and they showed. They outexecuted us tonight for sure. They didn’t out physical us, necessarily. So that’s our takeaway is physically they’re very good, but it’s not like they’re just banging balls over us or blocked us off the court. It was more that they outexecuted us and that’s what we gotta fight for here.
“Going into the match I was curious to see how we would respond and it was nice to see some fight there in the third and try to fight back in that. Especially we started a little bit tentative in that beginning of the third. But, we got work to do. And that’s why we play this match so that we can kinda see what we need to work on because we have 24 more matches to get ready for the tournament and we’ll have this in mind. This team right now, we got Nebraska coming up, too and we got all these teams. We’re playing these teams so we know what we need to work on and we gotta use that as an opportunity to learn and so we will. And that’s just what we talked about here. Ok, losing sucks. And we gotta move on and we gotta be ready to go. Get better.”
The first set was tight early on as both teams were tied 8-8. Kipp had four kills and Stanford was playing with good energy, feeding off their home crowd. However, Texas started to gain separation shortly thereafter, winning six of the next eight points to go up 14-10. Stanford would then call for time and come out of the time out to score two straight points thanks to an attack error from Skinner and a service ace from Kipp. It was now 14-12.
Texas would then respond to once again score six of the next eight points to lead 20-14. From there, Texas would cruise to a 25-18 first set victory as Eggleston very fittingly secured the 25th point with an emphatic kill.
The second set got off to a very similar start as the first set as both teams were tied 8-8 once again. Texas would then slowly start to pull away up 15-11, winning seven of the next 10 points. Eggleston had two kills during the stretch as she was continuing to assert her dominance on the match. Stanford tried to put a dent in Texas’ lead, but instead the Longhorns pulled away further to lead 20-15. From there, it was the same story as the first set as Texas once again went on to win 25-18.
Now down by two sets, Stanford was in a real hole. The Longhorns had all the momentum and were playing like a team that was simply at another level. Their defense was stifling and they just found ways to keep points alive and get to balls that normally would result in points for Stanford.
Texas came out guns blazing in the third set to lead 4-0, forcing Stanford to call for time. That 4-0 lead evolved into a 7-1 lead as Texas had all the momentum in the world on their side. Stanford was on the verge of getting crushed in the final set.
“They’ve obviously got physical players, but I mean, we do, too,” Kipp said. “I think the big thing is that they just are on the details. We just talked about that. Like each ball, they’re on it. They’re doing the right thing, they’re executing. They don’t make a lot of errors. They’re just a good all-around team. We have to execute at a high level also to stay competing with them.”
To Stanford’s credit, they battled back and actually put up their best set of the entire match. Down 20-14, Stanford found a way to make it a 22-18 set, scoring four of the next six points. Stanford was rewarded by putting up a better result in the final set, but it was still a loss as Texas won 25-20.
“Yeah, I think we had been talking about things that we needed to adjust throughout the match that we hadn’t really yet and I think in the third set we finally implemented those changes we were talking about,” Kipp said. “We started digging balls, touching more balls on the block, serving tougher. And I think that helped us, but it wasn’t enough in the end.”
The effort was there for Stanford, but Texas was quicker, more physical, and just found a way to make plays whenever they needed to. Every time Stanford looked like they might make it interesting, Texas seemed to get the point by either getting a timely kill or a making a clutch block.
“They’re very physical and they got very good players running around,” Hambly said of Texas’ defense. “And they’ve done it a lot. They got a bunch of players that have played at a high level for a long time and so they’ve played at a lot of big matches and not so many of our guys have, so this is really good for us. We gotta expose them to what that is and how high of a level we have to execute. They’re just more comfortable in that.”
“It was a fun match, fun experience playing Texas,” Kipp added. “They’re a really experienced team, they’ve got old girls who’ve been playing together for years and I think we’re just still trying to find our rhythm. So, I think we’ll just learn that we gotta play with more consistency and execute on every ball. Not just making single stellar plays but every single play.”
For Stanford, this match was a bit of a reality check as Texas showed why they are the top team in the nation. They were hitting on all cylinders. While their offense was obviously amazing, it really was the defense that made the difference. Texas had 44 digs to Stanford’s 35 while also having 8 blocks to Stanford’s 7. Defense wins championships, which is why Texas is number one in the nation right now.
“We didn’t pick up hitters in the right spot on the block, we didn’t put ourselves necessarily in the best spot on defense, the spots that we wanted to,” Hambly said of what his team needs to work on.
“We didn’t handle the ball when things were kinda off schedule, when they’re off the net. Meaning that balls were kinda random and kinda sprayed them all over the place. Just ball control things. Setting could be a little bit tighter with everybody. Not just, it’s not calling out Kami. Everybody needs to set a better ball. We need to make better choices. I mean there’s like a million little details that we get to spend the rest of this year fighting for which is, it’s great. I’m excited for it.
“Hey, there’s a lot of opportunities for us to figure out who the top teams are and what we need to do to beat them at the end of the year. That’s all that really matters to us is how we are in December and it’ll be fun for this group to kinda fight and try to figure out how we can catch this team right now. We’ll see how we match up against the other teams as we move forward.”
Stanford also has to find ways to not overly rely on Kipp and get others going. Caitie Baird was the one other player who had a good match, but more players do need to get involved. It can’t just be those two players carrying the load.
“She’s one of the best players at her position,” Hambly said of Kipp. “She showed it. None of this is that surprising. I think there’s actually some better decisions she could make and things she could do that she would say the same thing. She could play at a bit higher level. We’ll get there.
“I think we relied on Caitie and her too much. Kendall had 30 and Caitie had 33. Caitie actually had more swings than Kendall and we passed well enough that we could do. So that’s more about Kami’s comfort. Like getting the people in hard spots and I think it’s part of growing up. Part of us figuring it out.”
“Just being a consistent, stable player,” Kipp said of what she’s working on. “Just being there on the block every time and then getting digs, serving tough especially is something I’ve been working on.”
Up next for Stanford is a trip to the Twin Cities to face #21 Penn State and #4 Minnesota. They’ll first face Penn State on Friday at 2:30 PM PT on the Big Ten Network before facing Minnesota on Saturday at 5:00 PM PT on Big Ten Network Plus.
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