On Tuesday, #5 Stanford women’s volleyball fell to #4 Nebraska on The Farm by a final score of 3-1 (23-25, 16-25, 25-19, 21-25). Merritt Beason led the way for the Cornhuskers with 15 kills and 5 digs while Harper Murray had 12 kills and 6 digs. Caitie Baird was the top performer for the Cardinal with 15 kills and 6 digs along with a .400 hitting percentage. Nebraska improves to 8-0 overall while Stanford falls to 6-2.
BOX SCORE: Nebraska at Stanford-Tuesday, September 12th
“I think we had lots of opportunities in the first and fourth set,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “Obviously even more, even in some of the third. Didn’t execute the way we wanted to. Simple little things: covering balls, overpasses, free balls, all those things that we have been better at. Just didn’t execute in this match and all those points matter against a team like Nebraska that’s not gonna give you much and they also got really loose offensively. They did a really nice job offensively. Better than they have and I think what they did in that second set was pretty outstanding.
“They had a good thing going, we changed the matchup, we pressured them a little bit, played a little bit better in that third set, but in the fourth, they got a little bit loose again and it took us a while. And I think we didn’t execute high enough on them. So, couple people struggled. But, to be expected I guess at times against a good defensive team. But, we got work to do. We play these matches to be exposed. Things to be exposed that we need to work on. Things we need to get better at and we’ll get to work.”
Stanford got off to a strong start as they led 6-3 in the opening set after a kill by Sami Francis. However, Nebraska would quickly tie things up 6-6 as they went on a 3-0 run assisted by a couple of attack errors by Stanford. Stanford would once again take a three point lead to go up 13-10 after an attack error by Nebraska only for Nebraska to come back to take a 15-14 lead after Murray got back-to-back service aces.
“I thought we needed to pass well enough to get her the ball,” Hambly said of Francis, who hit .312. “She’s pass dependent. On the outsides you just can just kinda flip it up to them whenever. I think she can make a few better choices on some of the swings she has when she was there, but we could force her a little bit more. I mean, I think Kami and her were, Kami was trying to, it just wasn’t probably enough. That’s all. And that’s not a big change. You try to go to her more. When you have a chance, go to her.”
After Kendall Kipp and Merritt Beason traded kills, it was tied up 20-20. After a kill by Kipp made it a 21-20 lead for Stanford, Nebraska responded with three kills in a row to make it 23-21. From there, Nebraska went on to win the set 25-23. Kipp would get a kill to get the Cardinal within one point only for Beason to strike back with a kill of her own to take the set.
Nebraska dominated the second set, leading 9-3 after a service ace from Beason. The Cornhuskers were riding the momentum from the opening set and doing a good job of getting Stanford out of system. Stanford would make a bit of a run to make it 17-13 after back-to-back service aces from Anna Pringle, but it wasn’t enough as Nebraska fended them off to win the set 25-16 with relative ease.
Down 2-0, Stanford came out with a lot of fire in the third set. After back-to-back kills from Elia Rubin and Sami Francis, Stanford led 9-6. Nebraska responded with four points in a row to make it 10-9, three of which were errors. A service error by Nebraska evened it up 10-10. It would remain back and forth as Nebraska took a 17-16 lead after a kill by Murray.
Stanford then responded with three straight kills, two of which were by Baird to make it a 19-17 lead. After an attack error by Nebraska, Stanford led 20-17. From there, Stanford would win the set 25-19 as they won the final three points of the set. Kills from Kipp and Baird along with an attack error by Nebraska. Stanford now just needed to win one more set to force a deciding fifth set.
The fourth set was close early on as it was tied 4-4 after Kami Miner got a service ace for the Cardinal. After kills from Murray and Beason, Nebraska led 9-7. After a kill by Baird, Stanford was able to make it 13-12, but Nebraska responded with two straight points to lead 15-12. After a kill by Rubin, Stanford trimmed it to 17-16, but then Nebraska went on a 4-0 run to lead 21-15 with three of those points coming courtesy of errors by Stanford.
An attack error by Kipp gave Nebraska set point at 24-18. To Stanford’s credit, they didn’t give up as they would stave off three straight set points to make it 24-21. However, Andi Jackson would then get the match-clinching kill for Nebraska to make it 25-21.
“Playing great defense, they’re a very good defensive team,” Hambly said of why they didn’t have the hitting percentage they wanted. “They blocked really well. They blocked us a bunch, especially in the fourth set where they got us out of system and we couldn’t take advantage of, we couldn’t work around the block at times.”
For Stanford, this is a disappointing loss. They came in ranked only one spot back of Nebraska and being at home, they should have had the advantage in this one. Instead, Nebraska played the cleaner match and did a better job of playing defense. Nebraska was in control for most of the match as Stanford only had control in the third set.
“I think we know what it takes to play a high level,” Hambly said. “And what we need to do to execute at a high level. We’re still trying to figure out how to get there consistently. I think that’s gonna be a key for us. That’s what the early season is about is to figure this stuff out. So, we have the whole rest of the year to keep working on that and figure that out. We know we can play at a high level; we know how to play at a high level, we just gotta figure out how to get there.”
With respect to Nebraska, this is a huge win. They came into this match with a soft schedule, making some (at least myself) wonder if they were worthy of their #4 ranking. They proved that they are indeed worthy of such a ranking and a team that could win the national title in December.
At this point, all that Stanford can do is move on from this match and learn from it. They have a big match coming up on Sunday at #2 Louisville. If they win that, that would be quite the bounce back, which we’ve seen them do already this year. On that note, Sunday’s match will be at 10:00 AM PT on ESPN2.
“Yeah, it’s work and make sure we’re doing some things to execute,” Hambly said of the matchup at Louisville. “We have two days to train down there, which is nice. We got one big day to train. We’re gonna train, we get a day off tomorrow. We need a day off. So, we get a day off. There’s been a lot here. So we take the day off tomorrow and travel on Thursday and then we’ll get to work on Friday, Saturday and see if we can kinda clean up some of the stuff that we, the mistakes that we made tonight.”
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