On Friday, No. 5 Stanford women’s volleyball defeated Syracuse 3-0 (25-22, 25-13, 25-8) at home. Stanford middle blocker Sami Francis (12 kills) and outside hitter Ipar Kurt (11 kills) led the way for the Cardinal while setter Taylor Yu had six kills playing opposite as Elia Rubin was out with an injury. Stanford improves to 12-2 overall and 4-1 in the ACC while Syracuse falls to 12-5 overall and 0-5 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Syracuse at Stanford-Friday, October 11th
“I really like the way we competed and played,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “Especially with a different lineup out there than we had. I put Taylor, who is normally a setter, on the right and she did a really good job. And then moved Jordyn into a different position. And she’s played that position before, but I thought just in general I liked the way we competed. I liked the way we fought on defense.
“I thought we put a lot of pressure on the service line, but more we put a lot of pressure on them in the way that we scrapped and played defense. To hold them negative in the last set and negative for the match, it’s not easy, you know. There’s a lot of good teams that don’t do that.”
The first set was competitive as it was tied 4-4 after a kill by Stanford outside hitter Jordyn Harvey. It continued to be tied 9-9 after a service ace by Harvey followed by an attack error by Stanford. After a kill by Ava Palm, Syracuse trailed 13-11. But then, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to lead 17-11 as three of those points came off attack errors by Syracuse. From there, Stanford would take the set 25-22 as a kill by Harvey clinched the set.
“We gave them eleven points in that set,” Hambly said of the first set. “Like, we gave a lot. I think we were a little anxious playing new positions. We hit a lot of balls out of bounds, we didn’t serve the way we wanted to. So, I feel like we kind of just gave them a lot. We gave eleven and then in the second set, we only gave them three. You know, so that was a difference in there I thought. We didn’t continually put pressure on them when we needed to.”
In the second set, Stanford had an easier time putting Syracuse away as they led 9-6 after back-to-back kills from Lizzy Andrew. After Syracuse and Stanford traded kills to make it 11-8, Stanford went on an 8-0 run to lead 19-8. Taylor Yu had a couple of kills during that run while Ipar Kurt had three. Stanford would end up winning the set 25-13, closing it out on a 4-0 run.
In the third set, Stanford got off to an 8-1 lead and never looked back. Four of those eight points came from kills courtesy of Francis and Kurt. Stanford would have an 8-0 run to lead 16-3 and went on to win the set 25-8 as the match ended on a bad set by Syracuse.
For Stanford, this match went about as well as they could have hoped. They won wire to wire and got stronger as the match went on. They played as a team and had the kind of intensity that Hambly hopes that they have.
“I think a lot of it was just kind of focusing on our side and cleaning up our errors,” Yu said of their success. “Because I think a lot of in recent matches we haven’t been doing a very good job on controlling the ball into a lot of the little things. So I think we did a really good job today cleaning up the errors and just focusing on our game.”
The performance of Taylor Yu was especially impressive since setter is her natural position. For her to switch to an opposite role and pick up six kills just shows how talented of an all-around volleyball player she is. When called upon to do something new or different, she isn’t afraid to step in and do what is asked of her.
“Necessity,” Hambly said of why he moved Yu to opposite. “We had to. We have some injuries that we’re nursing and stuff and not everyone was available. So that’s what we had to do.
“She’s a very very good volleyball player and she understands the game at a high level and she hit in high school. She’s a setter by trade, but she hit in high school and had 30 kills in matches, so it’s not like she couldn’t hit. She’s a pretty good player…It’s just like play quarterback and also she’s playing receiver and then they like oh, you’re good at throwing the option pass? It’s like yeah, I’m pretty good at that.”
“Oh, it’s so different,” Yu said of playing opposite and outside. “The game is so much faster. I think if anything, Kami is an amazing setter and she put the balls in the same exact spot every time. So it made my life a lot easier as a hitter. So, I would say the transition is pretty smooth with Kami as my setter…Yeah, it’s so fun. I mean, as a setter you don’t get to attack very often, so it’s always fun when you can go out there and bang balls.
“It was about three or four days ago, so a couple of days [when I found out]. I had a couple of days [to prepare]. So yeah, we get to work on everything in practice. So, it was really nice just kind of getting some reps off Kami, so we definitely did have a decent amount of practice time. So, I felt pretty comfortable coming to the match.”
Up next for Stanford is a match at home against Boston College on Saturday at 7:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
“We’ll get used to it and it’s gonna happen because teams are traveling east and it’s kind of tough on them,” Hambly said of playing back-to-back days. “But I think for us, it’s we’ve done it in the past, we did it when we were in Milwaukee. It’s what the first and second round of the tournament are going to be like, so it’s good preparation for us like we’re in the first and second round.
“Boston College is a really good offensive team. They’re the only team to take a set off Pitt. So they can play and when they’re good, they’re really good. And they’re not, you know, like everybody, they’re beatable. So, I think we’re gonna have to execute. We’ll see how they look tomorrow, you know, I think, we don’t know a lot about them, you know, what we’ve seen on video.”
“Very quick [turnaround], yeah,” Yu added. “I mean, we have scout. I have to scout them tonight, so I don’t know much about them, but we’ll have scout tomorrow morning as a team and then we’ll have a little practice. And then yeah, we should be good to go by tomorrow night.”
On Boston College: The Eagles are 8-9 overall and 1-4 in the ACC, getting their first win of league play on Friday at Cal, coming back down from 0-2 to get the reverse sweep. They’ve had a couple of five set losses, including to SMU, so they’ve shown they can compete. Sophomore outside hitter Halle Schroder is averaging 3.63 kills per set, doing a nice job of pulling her weight.
One thing that the Eagles do well is blocking. They average 3.14 blocks per set. If Stanford is going to get the win on Saturday night, how well they block is going to be crucial. The Eagles are certainly going to bring terrific net play.
Prediction vs. Boston College: I’m going to pick a sweep for Stanford, but it’ll be three tight sets. Boston College certainly could take a set off Stanford, but I think Stanford is well aware of the dangers Boston College poses and will do what is necessary to ensure this doesn’t go to a fourth or fifth set.
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