On Sunday, No. 2 Stanford women’s volleyball defeated No. 6 Texas 3-0 (25-16, 25-21, 25-22). Stanford junior outside hitter Elia Rubin led the way for the Cardinal with 12 kills and six digs while sophomore outside hitter Jordyn Harvey had 10 kills and two blocks. Stanford improves to 7-0 on the season while Texas falls to 3-3.
BOX SCORE: Texas at Stanford-Sunday, September 15th
“I thought, we kinda challenged the group to execute a game plan pretty early,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “And I thought they did a really good job of executing as far as how we want to defend players and how we wanted to serve and how we want to play. I thought they just did a really nice job of executing, which hasn’t been, they’ve been kinda up and down on that, so it was really nice to see us kinda figure that out.”
Stanford got off to a hot start, winning four of the first five points of the opening set as Elia Rubin already had a couple of kills. Following a service ace by Kami Miner, Stanford led 10-6. After a service error by Stanford and a kill by Marianna Singletary, Texas trailed by only two points 11-9.
However, Stanford turned on the jets to go on a 5-0 run as Elena Oglivie had a service ace, Jordyn Harvey had a kill, and Sami Francis had a kill during the run. Up 16-9, Stanford was in a strong position and went on to finish the set with a commanding 25-16 victory as Rubin and Francis had back-to-back kills to close it out.
“I mean, it was about the execution,” Hambly said of winning the opening set. “It was about being in the spots we felt we should be in on defense and seeing if we were in the right, had the right plan and I think we did and then they adjust and we adjust and it was all kind of like a normal cat and mouse game after that. But it was, I thought that was a big key for us and then we just attacked them. We came out serving aggressive and we came out attacking the court and when you do those things you got a good shot.”
“I think we really executed our game plan really well,” Harvey added. “We went over it last night and we came, were like guys we need to play our game, execute our game plan. I think we did that really well. I wasn’t worried about our energy coming into this game. I knew a big match like Texas, the amazing girls that they have were gonna come ready to go. But I think just coming in, doing our game, siding out perfectly, I think really helped us win that.”
Texas came out aggressive in the second set as they led 5-1. Three of those points won came from errors committed by Stanford. After a kill by Madisen Skinner, it was an 8-5 lead for Texas. Stanford then went on a 3-0 run to even things up 8-8 as Texas had a service error followed by kills from Ipar Kurt and Sami Francis.
After a service error from Stanford, Texas led 14-12. Following that, Stanford went on a 5-0 run to lead 17-14. Four of those five points came via error by Texas. Texas would not regain the lead in the set as Stanford was able to close it out 25-21 as Rubin got a kill followed by an error by Texas. Stanford now had two sets won.
In the third set, Texas led 7-5 after a kill by Whitney Lauenstein. The Longhorns were fighting, hoping to see if they could take a set and make things interesting from there. Instead, Stanford once again went on a 5-0 run to lead 10-7 as Lizzy Andrew and Ipar Kurt had a kill during the run while Taylor Yu had a service ace. After a kill by Skinner made it 10-8, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to lead 14-8 as Andrew had two kills during the run while Rubin and Harvey had one.
After a kill by Kurt, Stanford led 20-13. It looked like Stanford would cruise to a third set victory to close out the match. To Texas’ credit, they didn’t back down as they went on a 4-0 run to make it 20-17. Stanford then responded to go up 23-19 after a kill by Rubin before Texas won back-to-back points to make it 23-21. Jordyn Harvey then got a kill to make it 24-21 before she had a service error to make it 24-22. Texas was back on serve, hoping to find life once more. Unfortunately for Texas, Stanford answered one final time to win the set and match as Kami Miner got the match-clinching kill to make it a 25-22 third set victory.
For Stanford, this is a huge win. Texas is the defending national champions and a top ten opponent. To sweep them has to give them a ton of confidence. Stanford is moving the ball well, executing the game plan, etc. It all seems to be clicking at this early part of the season.
“Yeah, I think first and second contacts have been pretty good,” Hambly said of what’s been working well for his team. “I thought tonight we passed extraordinarily well until we got right around game point. I think we got a little nervous trying to finish that. Those were the only two times we got aced as far as our numbers are. But I thought we were steady passing and then Kami. Kami. She’s the best. She’s just firing it around and making good decisions and putting us in great spots and then even her out of system setting has been really really good.
“So, I think that has been what’s saved us right now. I think we have a long ways to go to continue to get better. Our block and I think our defense could get a little bit stronger and continue to improve in passing. I think for right now that has been a little bit of a difference because that’s the stuff that comes usually later in the season. But to have the experience with Elia and Elena on the first contacts and Pringle and then having and Taylor and Pringle. That’s where our older players are. And then to have Kami. That’s the difference.”
“I think we understood that we’re a different look this year,” Harvey added. “Obviously graduated a lot of great players and having players like myself having to step up. I think we took a lot of time to really kinda figure out who we really are and execute game plans and execute in the gym every single day, coming to work, and though we’ve had a really good start, we still have the mentality that we’re not finished yet. We still have a lot of amazing games to come. A lot of great opportunities for us just to learn and grow.”
A big part of the game plan was containing Madisen Skinner, who is the top player for the Longhorns. While she did have 12 kills, she did so on an inefficient .129 hitting percentage. Stanford did a nice job of containing her.
“She’s gonna always get kills,” Hambly said of Skinner. “We knew she’d get kills. It was more could we stop her when it matters and could we hold her efficiency down. I thought we did a pretty good job of that. Or she made some mistakes so whatever, I’m not sure. We’ll look at more of the tape, but that was a key for us was to keep her down.”
One thing that has been nice for Stanford is to see young players playing big and filling the shoes of those who came before them. Jordyn Harvey a prime example. With Kendall Kipp and Caitie Baird moving on, the Cardinal have needed Harvey to fill those shoes and so far she’s doing what’s being asked of her.
“I think the last few matches I was trying to kinda figure out my role on this team and kinda figure out the different shots,” Harvey said. “Because switching from outside to opposite hitter has been definitely an adjustment, but I think having my teammates help me and I think this game, like Kami is just such an amazing setter and she helps me kind of identify where it is on the court and I think we work really well together and I think that’s helped overall my performance this game and I think I did pretty good.
“I have really been focusing on my blocking. Coming into college, blocking wasn’t something I really focused on. But coming here it’s definitely a lot faster game. A lot more physical game. Where I think my front row defense is gonna be more needed. So I’ve been really dynamic and really locking in on the blocking aspect of my game.
“It’s such an honor, the fact that I have been given opportunity to step in to such a big role and I love the fact that my coaches have so much trust in me, that my team has so much trust in me, so I try to take every day with knowing that to work as hard as I can because I know that I have a lot of people behind me that have that trust and have that encouragement. And so I think just filling into this role has been so fun. I’ve learned so much.”
“I thought she had some big kills and made some big plays,” Hambly said of Harvey. “Her serve has been really really good, but I think for her she’s trying to figure out how to score and people adjust to her. I thought tonight was a really good example of her attacking the right spaces on the floor that they gave her and then adjusting as those things changed. She’s developing. She’s got a lot to figure out, but she’s figuring it out I think.”
With it being the first home match of the season, Stanford had a record attendance crowd with 6,894 people. That certainly seemed to have an impact on the Cardinal in a positive way. Just about every seat was filled, creating for an exciting and positive home court advantage.
“How about that crowd?” Hambly said. “Have you ever seen anything like that? It was like, I mean basically looked like it was sold out. I’m looking around it’s like every seat is filled. It was an incredible crowd and an incredible environment and yeah, I actually didn’t know how the team would respond to being at home. If we get crowd like that I think we’ll play pretty well. I think it was nice to see them having even a little more energy and a little more fight at home.”
“Oh, it’s so good to be home and honestly Maples really showed out,” Harvey echoed. “So thank you to all that came, but just having everyone coming and supporting us for once and not always cheering against us is always such a fun atmosphere to be around and so yeah. Been really good. It’s been really good.”
Up next for Stanford is a road match at No. 5 Nebraska on Wednesday, September 18th. That will air on Big Ten Network at 5:00 PM PT.
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