On Thursday, #8 Stanford women’s volleyball defeated Arizona State 3-1 (25-22, 25-11, 22-25, 25-14). Kendall Kipp led the way for the Cardinal with 21 kills while Elia Rubin had 18 kills. Marta Levinska was the top performer for the Sun Devils with 15 kills. Stanford improves to 21-4 overall and 16-1 in the Pac-12 while Arizona State falls to 11-18 overall and 5-12 in the Pac-12.
“She was hitting good shots, she’s just playing her game,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said of Rubin’s performance. “What I liked was Kenna getting 10 kills. We haven’t had that kind of production out of her. And Annabelle had some good cuts. I liked that we got 14 swings to Kenna and she put them away. Kipp, we’ve come to expect that from her. Same with Rubin. So, we could have been a little bit cleaner offensively. We’ll get to work tomorrow. See if we can be a little bit better on Saturday.”
“We’ve been putting in a lot of work out of system and pushing us tighter to the net,” Rubin added. “So just taking advantage of hands and I think, yeah. That’s what I was focusing on. I saw that I had opportunities to get kills off the hands and then if things were open I could go up and smash it, but for the most part just looking to tool hands and keep hitting high.”
Early on, the first set was tied up 8-8. It was a back and forth affair as Arizona State won three points in a row before Stanford came back to take a 4-3 lead. Neither team was able to gain much of an advantage. Stanford would gain a bit of separation, leading 11-9 as Elia Rubin got a kill as well as Kami Miner getting a nice block. Things would continue to be tight as it was tied 18-18, 20-20, and 21-21 deeper into the set.
What finally broke things in Stanford’s favor was a 3-0 Stanford run consisting of a kill by Elia Rubin, a service ace by Elena Oglivie, and a kill by Kendall Kipp. This made it a 24-21 Stanford lead. After Arizona State won one more point, Kipp closed it out with a kill to make it a 25-22 first set victory.
“Well, the key in pulling it out was just cleaning up our game,” Hambly said about the first set. “Made a few errors. Kendall was hitting zero after the first set, couldn’t get much going there. I thought our setting off the net where we couldn’t get space to attack. And then we had some weird little errors and got aced. I felt like we gave them like seven points, like a plus seven points. So, once we started cleaning that up, we did a whole lot better. It was pretty simple.”
“We were just focusing on our side of the net,” Rubin added. “We knew that we had to earn the bad team out of them and they were playing a pretty scrappy game and so if we were able to limit our side of the net, the errors on our side of the net, we’d be fine. But, it was all on our side of the net. So just focusing on limiting our errors, staying focused, not letting them back in throughout the set. It was pretty close.”
Stanford would get out to a hot start in the second set, leading 7-1 as Miner got a service ace followed by a kill by Kipp. This forced Arizona State to call timeout. Out of the timeout, Stanford won a couple more points to lead 9-1, really putting the Sun Devils in a hole. Stanford would continue to lead, up 17-8 as they were hitting .450 in the set. In the end, Stanford won the set 25-11 as the Sun Devils offered little resistance. Kipp was up to 11 kills while Miner had 24 assists. The Cardinal were rolling up 2-0.
“I think our serve and pass game was pretty strong,” Rubin said. “And yeah, we got them out of system a lot. And so we were just taking advantage of that and just keeping the momentum on our side of the net, too.”
The third set looked like it would be all Stanford early on as the Cardinal took a 3-0 lead after two kills from Kipp and a service ace from Miner. After a kill by McKenna Vicini, Stanford led 12-10. After Vicini’s kill, Arizona State went on a 5-0 run to lead 15-12 as Roberta Rabelo had three kills during this stretch. Stanford would never regain the lead in the set as Arizona State found a way to win the set 25-22. Levinska was up to 11 kills, doing her part for the Sun Devils.
The fourth set would end up being smooth sailing for Stanford. After it was 5-3, Stanford went on a 5-0 run to lead 10-3 as Rubin had three kills during this stretch. From there, Stanford expanded their lead even more, eventually winning the set 25-14, closing it out on a 3-0 run thanks to two kills from Kipp and a kill from Rubin. This made it a 3-1 match victory for the Cardinal.
“I mean we defended really really well,” Hambly said of the decisive second and fourth sets. “They hit less than a hundred in those two sets and we scored it over 64 percent in those two sets. So, we defended really well, we served really well, we got them off the net and we didn’t in set three. We didn’t defend, they hit .316. 18 came in and did a nice job Roberta. She tore us up a little bit and then 4 was really good in that set as well. So, opposite. Once we kinda settled in, I thought we did a better job in the fourth and kinda cleaned that up.”
For Stanford, this is a really nice win. Two of the sets were quite dominant and in the close sets, Stanford got the split. Mission accomplished.
While Kipp and Rubin both had great nights, Caitie Baird was quiet with just 5 kills. What really helped Stanford overcome her quiet night was the performance of Kipp and Rubin. Both of them really stepped up.
“They did a nice job defensively and she had a tough matchup with four, who is a big blocker,” Hambly said of Baird’s quiet night. “And I thought they did a nice job defensively. She just didn’t put as many balls away.”
In addition to Kipp and Rubin, Vicini had a big performance with 10 kills, which ties a career high set last year. Vicini was really active at the net and did a great job of making the most of the opportunities that came her way.
“She was hitting good shots and we passed really well, so we got to use her,” Hambly said of Vicini’s performance. “Kami is a good setter and put her in good positions and I thought she took advantage of that.”
Up next for Stanford is a home match against Arizona on Saturday. That will begin at 12:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Los Angeles.
“They’re playing a lot better, they got long arms,” Hambly said of Arizona. “They just beat Washington at their place. So, I think they’re playing really well. We’ll see, I think we’re gonna have to play better than we did tonight to beat those guys.”
“We’re trying to keep a national championship mentality,” Rubin added. “We know that we can, if we focus on playing our best volleyball, we’re gonna be locked in. So that’s just kind of our goal right now is staying with the championship mentality and taking each one game at a time. Focusing on our side of the net and finishing off Pac-12 to the tournament. We’re looking forward to it.”
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