On Friday, #5 Stanford women’s volleyball defeated Cal 3-0 (25-22, 25-11, 25-14) on Senior Day to get the Big Spike sweep over Cal. Kendall Kipp led the way for the Stanford with 15 kills. Stanford finishes out the regular season 24-4 overall and 19-1 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 7-22 overall and 0-19 in the Pac-12. Stanford finished the regular season on an 18 match win streak and ranked #5 in the AVCA Coaches Poll.
“I don’t really have much thought on it to be honest,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match when asked about the winning streak. “Every match is a match and I think we’re figuring out, I really only care about winning six here, now. You know, that’s all, the whole year is about winning these last six and hopefully getting into these last six and try to win a title. We only celebrate championships here. I don’t know if you pay attention to the walls, so we don’t really care about Final Fours and all that stuff.
“It’s can we continue to win and can we take the things that we’ve learned throughout the year and go one match at a time and focus on that. I feel like that’s what we’ve done this whole time is just one match at a time and that’s how you learn how to win is you can’t win in one moment. You figure it out match to match.”
Because it was Senior Day, graduating senior Selina Xu got the start at setter in place of Kami Miner. Xu did a good job bringing energy at the start, though Miner came in at finished the set as expected.
Cal got off to a 5-2 lead in the first set after a kill from Peyton DeJardin. After it was a 7-5 lead for Cal, the Golden Bears went on a 4-0 run to lead 11-5 after back-to-back attack errors from Kipp. After a kill by Sydney Lilomaiava, it was a 15-7 lead for Cal. Stanford was in a real hole and called for time.
Coming out of the time out, Stanford went on a 5-0 run to make it 15-12. Four of the five points were errors by Cal, but one point came off a service ace by Elena Oglivie. Cal would bounce back to win two points in a row as Lydia Grote got a service ace and then a kill. It was now a 17-12 lead for Cal.
At this point, Stanford really turned on the jets, winning eight of the next 11 points to tie it up 20-20. Kipp and Rubin each got a couple of kills during this stretch while Miner added a kill of her own. It would get to 22-22 before Stanford went on a 3-0 run to win the set 25-22 thanks to an attack error from Cal and back-to-back kills from Rubin.
“I think they were just doing what they needed to do,” Kipp said of Cal’s effort in the first set. “They were serving, they were attacking well, and I think we weren’t all in on the details right away. So, they were just outplaying us from the start.”
The second set was tight early on as both Stanford and Cal were tied 5-5. However, Stanford then went on an 8-0 run to lead 13-5. Caitie Baird had three kills during this run while McKenna Vicini had two. From there, Stanford cruised to a 25-11 set victory as Kipp got the set-clinching kill.
“Yeah, we just kinda shifted our focus,” Kipp said. “We weren’t really on the details at the beginning and that’s kinda always our, what we’re talking about and always our goal, so we were just saying let’s be on the details, everyone do your role and we’ll be fine and we just kinda shifted our focus to that and then it started working out in our favor.”
The third set was one-way traffic for Stanford as they pounced on Cal to lead 8-1. Baird had a kill during this stretch as well as two service aces. After a kill by Kipp, it was a 15-5 lead for the Cardinal. In rather fitting fashion, the other two seniors who were getting honored alongside Xu, Natalie Berty and Emily Teehan, took it home for the Cardinal. Teehan got a kill to make it 23-12 and Berty got two kills to close it out 25-14. 3-0 victory for the Cardinal.
“I think it’s great to get that,” Hambly said of winning on Senior Day. “It’s great to have them out there playing, you know? To have our seniors out there playing in that last set and showing Cal a lot of respect and really competing hard against those guys and it put us in a situation where I could end with Natalie Berty and Emily Teehan on the court. You know, Selina we were going to put her back in if it got to that, but she’s not the strongest blocker, so we pulled her out. But it was really fun to have them out there and get a W at the end.”
For Stanford, this went about as well as they could have asked. They got the win on Senior Day and all three seniors graduating from the program (Selina Xu, Natalie Berty, and Emily Teehan) got to play and made an impact on the match. On top of that, Stanford didn’t stub their toe, improving their winning streak to 18 before beginning the NCAA tournament.
“We know how to win,” Hambly said of how he’d compare his team to the last Stanford team to win a national title. “The teams in ’18, ’19, like in ’19, we had a team that lost, actually Kipp, we lost Kathryn Plummer for 10 matches, but we understood how to win. And we figured that out. We went 9-1 in that run. This team, you know, we lost Sami and the first time we lost to Oregon without Sami, that was one of the first matches without her, and we didn’t really have that figured out. But then we sorted it out with Sami and then I think we continued that, like understanding what it takes to win, which is a skill you have to develop.”
“It means a lot,” Kipp said of winning for the seniors. “It was really special that we got to do it with them out there also. We just wanted to end it on a good note and it was really fun to do that with the seniors out there working so hard. It was super fun.”
As for Cal, my heart goes out to their players. For the second season in a row, they went winless in the Pac-12. That’s just sad. They battled hard all year to get a win and had multiple five set matches, but just couldn’t get over the hump. Given it’s their second year in a row of not winning a Pac-12 match, one has to wonder if head coach Sam Crosson is back next year. It’s a wonder he survived one winless Pac-12 season but surviving two would have to make one wonder if Cal’s Athletic Director Jim Knowlton is even aware that his school has a volleyball team.
Up next for Stanford is the NCAA tournament. On Sunday, they got awarded the #4 overall seed in the tournament, which means they got the fourth and final #1 seed. This means they’ll get home court advantage all the way through the Final Four, getting the chance to host a regional final. Stanford’s first NCAA tournament match will be on Friday against Pepperdine at 7:00 PM PT on ESPN+.
“It’s the best time of year,” Hambly said. “It’s the best time. So, everyone’s, into the tournament everyone’s happy until you’re not. So like everyone feels good. If you’re advancing you feel good, you make the tournament you feel good, like everyone just feels good until you lose or you win and you continue to feel good. So it’s a really really fun time of year. Teams are fighting for the end of their seasons and lots of teams have high hopes to try to advance to Final Fours and national championships. We’re one of those teams and it’s just the best. Can’t wait for the prep, it’s incredibly tight and we have no time to like prepare and it’s incredibly intense, it’s awesome. I love it.”
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