On Wednesday night, #5 Stanford women’s volleyball defeated Cal 3-0 (25-23, 25-21, 25-22) in Berkeley. Kendall Kipp (16 kills, 4 digs, and 3 blocks) led the way for Stanford while Caitie Baird and Elia Rubin each had 14 kills of their own. This match was the first of two “Big Spike” matches the schools will play this season. The return match on The Farm will be on Friday, November 25th at 6:00 PM PT. Stanford improves to 6-3 overall and 1-0 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 7-4 overall and 0-1 in the Pac-12.
“I feel like with what we’ve gone through, we’re ready for just about anything we’re going to see in conference as far as competition and what teams are going to present,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “We know who we are, we know our roles, we were missing Sami [Francis] tonight, which is kind of a bummer, because she’s I think one of the better middles in our conference, but Annabelle [Smith] did a really nice job coming in and playing in her stead. But I think we have a good sense of who we are and what we need to do and also what we need to continue to work on to be ready for the rest of the season and the post-season.”
The opening set was competitive as it was tied 8-8 after a nice kill from Baird off an assist from Kami Miner. Cal would then win four points in a row to go up 12-8, forcing Stanford to call for time. The timeout paid off for Stanford as they won four points in a row to tie it up 12-12 following another kill from Baird off a Miner assist.
“She’s more technically sound than she was last year, too. Which helps,” Hambly said of Miner’s progression. “So she has, certainly has more confidence in what she’s doing. But, she can play with tempo, she can play high. I mean she’s such a great athlete, she flies around. I think she’s really developed nicely. Alex has done a really nice job, Dunphy’s been working with her, I think she’s done a really nice job of developing her. But, I also think Kami’s committed to being great and that helps a ton.”
“Oh, she makes us all look good,” Baird said of Miner. “She just dishes it, she puts the ball up there, and we’re able to go get it and it’s awesome to have her. She can push it either way. She’s expanded her game as well, too and it’s awesome to see her grow.”
Cal would continue to apply the pressure, going up 18-16 and again 20-18 before Stanford tied it up 20-20 after a kill by Baird and an attack error from Cal’s Leah Schmidt. Schmidt would respond for Cal in the next point with a kill, making it a 21-20 Cal lead.
Stanford would then respond with back-to-back kills from Baird and Kipp, making it 22-21. Down by one point, Cal called for time. Coming out of the timeout, Baird committed a service error, making it 22-22. Stanford once again stepped up, winning two points in a row off back-to-back kills from Rubin and Kipp, making it a 24-22 lead and set point. Cal then called for time.
On the first set point, Kipp committed an attack error, making it 24-23. Rather than tying it up, Cal returned the favor as Lydia Grote committed an attack error. 25-23 Stanford took the opening set.
“Just trusting each other, really,” Baird said of what the key has been to winning tight sets. “And staying more relaxed in those situations, not getting tense and panicked or anything. Just taking it one point at a time and knowing that we can side out.”
Stanford got off to a strong start in the second set, leading 4-0 after four consecutive kills from McKenna Vicini, Annabelle Smith, and Elia Rubin (twice). Stanford was hoping to cruise to an easier set victory after a tight first set.
To Cal’s credit, they found a way to win three points in a row to make it 5-4 after a service error from Kipp and back-to-back attack errors from Rubin. Following back-to-back attack errors from Kipp and Rubin, Cal tied it up 12-12 before taking the lead 13-12 after another attack error from Kipp. Cal was coming to play.
At the media timeout, it was a 15-14 Stanford lead after a kill by Rubin and an attack error by Cal’s Sam Taumoepeau. After a double touch by Cal, Rubin got a service ace to make it a 17-14 lead for Stanford. This forced Cal to call for time.
Coming out of the time out, Stanford got two straight points to go up 19-14 after a kill by Miner and an attack error by Grote. Following an attack error by Vicini, it was a 23-21 lead for Stanford as Cal still had a bit of life. However, Stanford finished the set strong with two straight points to win 25-21 following back-to-back kills from Kipp and Rubin.
In the third set, it once again was tight early on as it was tied 5-5 after an attack error from Baird. After Stanford got up 11-8, Cal responded with four points in a row to make it 12-11 after back-to-back kills from Grote and back-to-back service aces from Schmidt. It continued to be a back and forth set as both teams found themselves tied 17-17. Cal would then win two points in a row off an attack error by Kipp and a service ace by Annalea Maeder. Down 19-17, Stanford called for time, hoping to finish the match out in three sets.
Coming out of the timeout, Stanford won two straight points to make it 19-19 after a kill by Rubin and a double touch from Cal. Elena Oglivie then committed a service error, giving Cal the point and a 20-19 lead. However, Rubin responded with a kill off an assist from Miner to make it 20-20. Kipp would then get an ace for Stanford, forcing a Cal timeout. Out of the time out, Kipp would hit a service error, making it 21-21.
A kill by Rubin and an attack error by Taumoepeau made it a 23-21 lead for Stanford. Cal then called for time, hoping to get momentum back on their side. Rubin would commit a service error to make it 23-22. Stanford would win the next two points to win the match as a kill by Baird secured set point after which a kill by Vicini secured match point. 25-22 Stanford took the third set to make it a 3-0 victory.
“I think we’ve grown a lot already,” Hambly said of his team’s progression from the beginning of the season until now. “People have, especially just in what role they need to play and how we can use people in certain situations and a good sense of how to play together. So, I think from the first match it was pretty much terrible, to be honest. Like we were pretty sloppy as everyone is, but I feel like there’s times right now where we’re pretty smooth and we still have work to do where it’s still a little sloppy, but we’re definitely heading down that path.”
For Cal, this is a bit disappointing only in so far as they got swept. Sort of an obvious statement, but they battled hard for all three sets and made Stanford work for the sweep. I honestly thought Cal would find a way to win one set, but Stanford just made winning plays in the big moments. Despite the loss, Cal should take some confidence from this match with the hopes of winning multiple league matches.
“Yeah, we were just trying to slow down their pins,” Baird said of what the gameplan was. “They run a quick red, so just trying to stop that a little bit. And just really competing. Taking it like anyone else and just putting it to them and not giving up.”
As for Stanford, while Cal did make them fight for each set, a sweep is still a sweep. Stanford could have caved in one of those sets and allowed Cal to get a bit of life, but they found a way to close the door each and every time. That’s impressive and a testament to the kind of team that Stanford is becoming.
“I think the fact that we’ve been in a lot of tight sets, we played against really tight competition, like we get in those moments where it’s close, we’ve been in that before,” Hambly said. “We felt very calm, it felt normal. And that’s what we’ve been doing. We played Nebraska, it’s what we did when we played Minnesota. We’ve been in all these things. So, I thought the pre-season really, pre-conference tournaments and matches really helped prepare us for these kind of moments.”
“Yeah, I’m super proud of them,” Baird said of her team getting the sweep. “Sometimes we come in here and we’re not like ready yet. We don’t get our right mindset on. But, I think we really focused on getting for the game, doing what we needed to do to prepare for it, and we approached it with a good mindset and we were ready to go and just go after it. Not let them get that fourth set or anything like that.”
Probably the only real concern from this match for Stanford is all the service errors (14). That’s something that they do need to clean up a bit as that was a major reason why the sets were as close as they were. Interestingly enough, when asked about this, Hambly didn’t seemed concerned in the slightest. If anything, it tells him that his team is being aggressive with their serves and putting pressure on teams on the return.
“I’m okay with the errors,” Hambly admitted. “Like, there’s no correlation between missed serves and losing. Like in fact, sometimes there’s a negative correlation. Like, so we want to stay aggressive, we want to keep them off the net, so it’s like we’re going to take our shots, we’re going to go for it. Do I love missing serves? No. But when we miss a few does it matter? I mean everyone made a big deal about missing twenty against Florida and missing twenty three against Nebraska and we went to those places on the road and we still won because we kept our service pressure up.
“So, I think some of that we’ll see those go down as we get more comfortable and as we serve more and get used to serving this aggressive. So I’m not caught up in it. I know the fans are and all that stuff, but there’s no statistical thing that says we should not be aggressive and we’re going to stay aggressive.”
Coming off a Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week Award, Elena Oglivie had a strong performance with a team-high 12 digs. Her defense was key in this match as it has been all season long. She just knows how to absorb attacks from opposing teams and turn those into offensive opportunities for her teammates.
“Yeah, I mean she’s locking down passing first off, which is great,” Hambly said of Oglivie. “She’s a great passer. I think she’s passing like a two-four tonight, which is high level passing. Her defense, she doesn’t make it flashy, she makes the hard plays look very simple, but she takes care of a big chunk of the court for us and can defend a lot of space. Which makes it a lot easier for our defense to kinda work around her.”
“Yeah, that’s been a big focus for us,” Baird said of ramping up the intensity on defense. “We want to get as many touches as we can to slow it down, make it easier on our defense in the backcourt, but we’re all together, working together to make it happen, so it’s been good.”
One bit of injury news is that Stanford was without sophomore middle blocker Sami Francis, who was on the sidelines and not suited up.
“That’s her story, not mine,” Hambly said when asked about Francis’ injury. “She’ll be back. It’s not going to be permanent. She’ll be back, yeah.”
Up next for Stanford is a road match at #21 Oregon on Sunday. That will begin at 12:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks.
“It’s a big, big match of the ranked teams,” Hambly said of facing the Ducks. “We’ll see how the league this season goes, but we saw Oregon out in Minnesota and they’re a very good team. Nuneviller is one of the best players in the country. I mean, she’s pretty special and they’re tough to play against. They play fast and they play with a wide variety of accommodations, so we’ll have to have things dialed in to make sure that we defend them at a high level because they will be tough to play.”
“Oh yeah, we’re all super excited to get after it and see what we can do in the conference this year,” Baird added. “But, taking those pre-season games really prepared us for what’s ahead, I think…It’s gonna be a good test for us to see how we measure up and all that. But I think with what we got going on right now, we’ll be good and just playing our game.”
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