On Saturday, #9 Stanford women’s volleyball fell to #3 Louisville at home by a final score of 3-1 (26-24, 27-25, 14-25, 25-13). Claire Chaussee led the way for Louisville with 19 kills and 4 digs while Aiko Jones had 12 kills, 4 digs, and 8 blocks. Kendall Kipp (15 kills, 4 digs, and 4 blocks) was the top performer for Stanford. Louisville improves to 9-1 overall while Stanford falls to 5-3.
“Well, I mean the first two sets were like two good teams going at it,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “They executed a little bit better than us down the stretch and then it happens when good teams are playing sometimes like one will get loose and figure some stuff out like we did in the third and we kinda separated and they did the same. They put a lot of good pressure on us and they responded very very well. So, I mean they outexecuted us. There’s a reason they were a final four team last year. Because they can execute at a high level and they got great pins and great arms and they out executed us in the match.”
Stanford got out to a 15-13 lead in the first set. Kipp was leading the way for Stanford with 5 kills while McKenna Vicini had a couple blocks. Louisville would respond to go up 19-18 as the set continued to be a back and forth affair. Stanford had more attack errors and service errors, not playing as cleanly as they needed to.
After a kill by Elia Rubin for Stanford, it was a 23-22 lead for Louisville, who called for time. Louisville would then get set point before Stanford responded to tie it up 24-24 after back-to-back kills from Kipp and Rubin. Louisville would go on to take the set 26-24 as Elia Rubin and Sami Francis had back-to-back attack errors. The first set lived up to the hype.
“Yeah, we definitely had some good momentum coming off the road in those matches and it’s tough when we haven’t played that many matches at home and so we have been talking a lot about our fight and playing with that chip on our shoulder,” Stanford sophomore Kami Miner said. “Especially when we’re playing away in these super-packed gyms and so for us it’s all about finding that same fight and consistency and execution when we’re at home instead of being relaxed and being more comfortable in our own gym. And so Louisville of course they’re a great team, they were in the final four last year, but for us, we had a game plan and we just didn’t execute it.”
The second set was another battle as Louisville led 15-14 before going up 17-14, forcing a Stanford timeout. Stanford would respond to tie it up 23-23 after a nice block assist from Rubin. It was another barnburner of a set.
Just like the first set, Louisville found a way to take the second set, this time by a score of 27-25. It was tied 25-25, but Louisville found a way to come up with the big points in crunch time. Stanford was now down 2-0. At this point in the match, Chaussee was leading Louisville with 11 kills while Kipp was leading Stanford with 9 kills. Both players were doing a great job of leading their teams.
“I think honestly, it came down to points just leading up to those tight points at the end,” Miner said of why they fell short in the big points. “I think for us it’s one or two points, just things were not executing, balls were not covering, or things were not picking up earlier in the set that came back to bite us in the end.”
Stanford came out with a lot of fire in the third set, jumping out to a 13-8 lead. They were playing with serious motivation, not wanting to get swept at home. Stanford would then rally off four straight points to go up 17-8, forcing Louisville to call for time.
Stanford would finish the third set strong to win 25-14. Truly a dominating performance by Stanford as Caitie Baird had the set-clinching kill. Kipp had two kills towards the very end of the set. It was now a 2-1 Louisville lead.
“Yeah, again I think it’s all about execution for us,” Miner said. “Just blocking, being very aggressive and just playing the way we know how to play and not waiting for them to make mistakes for us. So I think that those two sets you saw more of that fight and that consistency that we need to show.”
In the fourth set, Louisville returned the favor, jumping out to a 12-5 lead of their own. This forced Stanford to call for time. Stanford was in serious trouble, needing to find some way to get back some of the momentum they had in the third set.
Rather than mounting a comeback, Stanford ended up falling decisively in the fourth set 25-13. Louisville did a great job of bouncing back from a rough third set and not giving Stanford the chance to pull off the comeback in the fifth set.
“Serve and pass were pretty even there in the first set and second set,” Hambly said when asked of the lopsided third and fourth sets. “And then in the third set we got them in a lot of trouble passing and in the fourth set they got us in a lot of trouble passing. That was the difference. I think they got a little bit loose and they put some more service pressure on us and we didn’t respond very well and then in the third set, we put some service pressure on them and mixed them up and the same thing, they didn’t respond very well. I mean you saw them pulling out their All-American outside because we took her out of the match with some good serving. But, we didn’t sustain it long enough obviously.”
Overall, this match was a real battle that could have gone either way. The first two sets were tight and went Louisville’s way while the third and fourth set were lopsided in favor of each team. Ultimately, Louisville just found a way to win the big points, something that Stanford was able to do in their previous two matches at #3 Minnesota and #2 Nebraska.
“It was a better defensive match than it was offensive for both sides,” Hambly explained. “I think both teams got loose. Like we got loose in the third and they got loose in the fourth, but most of the time it was under .200 for most of the match. Yeah, they’re at .222 because they got really loose. But, it felt like a defensive match. It felt like a grind it out, big block, and good defensive match and they had fourteen blocks and we had ten. So, I think it was physical, it was good, they’re not tall, but they’re really physical and I think they did a phenomenal job of defending us and I think we did the same back. It was more about the if service pressure wasn’t there, they could get loose. And like we did, you know?”
While this match didn’t go Stanford’s way, they know what this non-conference season is about. It’s about playing as tough of a schedule as possible and preparing themselves for the NCAA tournament as much as possible. Stanford wishes they were off to a better start, but they recognize December is when they really need to be at their best and they're hopeful that this tough schedule will help them achieve that goal.
“Our goal with the schedule is to put ourselves in a situation to host,” Hambly said of the schedule. “So, with our schedule I think it’s the number two toughest schedule in the country. So, to be 5-3 right now is disappointing. We feel like maybe we should be better, but it is what it is. But the most important thing for us is that we’ve seen the teams that we need to get through to win the tournament and will give us an opportunity to work on the things that we need to and that’s why we play this schedule. We know what we need to do against these guys to be better, we know what we need to do against Minnesota, we know what we need to do against Texas, we just gotta work really hard for the next little bit to get there.”
“Yeah, I feel like that schedule is pretty invaluable for us,” Miner added. “I mean, we’ve been tested by literally the top four teams in the country and so for us at the end of the year when we’re entering the NCAA tournament, we know the best of the best that we’re gonna see and we know what we’re working towards when we lose matches like this. And so, once again, just take, just keys from these matches, all of these matches, and use it to hopefully give us momentum into Pac-12 and eventually the end of the season.”
While a lot of this is a function of how the schedule has gone, Stanford is a bit of an anomaly right now in that they’re 0-2 at home and 5-0 in true road matches. Stanford is hoping to find a way to bring that road warrior mentality to their home matches and start finding some success on The Farm.
“Yeah, I think for us it’s all about carrying that chip on our shoulder and that fight when we know we’re in a gym where everyone is cheering against us and taking that same sort of mentality and just kind of consistency and focus and attention to detail that we have on the road,” Miner said. “When we know that we have to execute and just taking that when we’re in our gym when we have our own fans and stuff here.”
Up next for Stanford is Pac-12 play. They’ll open things up on the road at Cal on Wednesday. That match will begin at 8:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks.
“We gotta focus on that, it’s like we gotta get better the next couple days and work on the things that we talked about and then we gotta go play Cal,” Hambly said of starting Pac-12 play. “It’s always fun to play Cal and we always get their best from them. They’re always good against us. And it’s always a tough match. So it should be a great match for us.”
“Yeah, it’s always super exciting,” Miner added when asked about starting Pac-12 play. “It’s almost kind of surreal that it’s finally here and preseason is over. It seems like it just started, but I think for us it’ll be another chance to play on the road, of course it’s a rivalry game so we always are super excited for that and so we’re just gonna take this loss, take, just learn from it, and try to be more consistent and just focus on playing our game.”
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