On Friday, No. 5 Stanford women’s volleyball defeated Cal women’s volleyball at home by a final score of 3-0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-19). Stanford junior outside hitter Elia Rubin led the way for the Cardinal with 13 kills, 12 digs, and three blocks on a .462 hitting percentage while redshirt freshman outside hitter Ipar Kurt had 10 kills on a team-high .471 hitting percentage. Cal outside hitter Peyton DeJardin was the top performer for the Golden Bears with 11 kills. Stanford improves to 16-3 overall and 8-2 in the ACC while Cal falls to 10-12 overall and 2-8 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Cal at Stanford-Friday, October 25th
“I’m okay,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly of how he felt about the match. “I feel like we play fine, like the first set we were a little sloppy and you know, we had a good numbers, but we didn’t defend the way we wanted to do, we didn’t execute our plan. Like we talked to the players, they would probably say the same thing, like we missed assignments and didn’t execute exactly how we wanted to execute and so, I think we sided out and we scored and Kami did a nice job of keeping us in rhythm and offense, but we could have cleaned it up a little.”
“It was big,” Elia Rubin said of the win. “We were trying to stay focused coming into this one. We beat them Wednesday on their home court, we knew they were going to come in and put up a big fight. So, we just wanted to stay focused and take care of business. Wasn’t the cleanest, but it’s alright.”
In the first set, it was tied 4-4 after Kurt and DeJardin traded kills. After back-to-back kills from Cal outside hitter Maggie Li, the Bears were up 7-5. After it was an 8-6 lead for Cal as both teams traded points, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to lead 10-8. Jordyn Harvey and Lizzy Andrew had kills during the run while Elena Oglivie had a service ace. Stanford then had a service error before going on a 3-0 run to lead 13-9 as Harvey had a service ace while Cal had a couple of errors.
Cal then went on a 4-0 run to tie it up 13-13 as DeJardin had a couple kills during the run. Unlike their first meeting in Berkeley, the Bears were battling the Cardinal tough. Elia Rubin and Sami Francis then got back-to-back kills to give Stanford a 15-13 lead. After a kill by Ellie Ham for Cal made it 19-17, Stanford went up 21-17 after a service error by Cal followed by a service ace from Elena Oglivie. Cal then went on a 3-0 run to make it 21-20 before Francis got a kill for Stanford to make it 22-20. After an attack error by Cal and a kill by Ipar Kurt, Stanford led 24-21. Cal would win two straight points to make it 24-23 before a kill by Sami Francis off an assist from Kami Miner clinched the opening set for the Cardinal 25-23.
Stanford got off to a strong start in the second set as they led 5-2 after a kill by Rubin and an attack error by Cal. After a service error by Cal, Stanford led 10-7. Cal then won three straight points to make it 10-10 as DeJardin had a kill for the Bears while Stanford had a couple of errors. It would remain a back and forth set for a bit as Cal actually led 16-14 after a kill by Maggie Li and an attack error by Stanford.
Stanford then flipped on the switch a bit to win three straight points, going up 17-16 as Harvey and Andrew got kills while Ipar Kurt had a service ace. Ellie Ham then got a kill to even things up for Cal 17-17. After it was tied 18-18, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to lead 22-18 as Rubin had two kills during the run. From there, Stanford won the set 25-19 as a Rubin had back-to-back service aces to end the set. It was now a 2-0 lead for the Cardinal.
“She was really really efficient,” Hambly said of Rubin. “She was the other night. I mean, I think Kami put her in good spots. I thought she made really good decisions, like she attacked and she could attack. When she didn’t, she couldn’t and I thought that’s a big thing.”
In the third set, Stanford won the first three points to lead 3-0 as Cal had three straight attack errors. Cal then won three straight points to even it up 3-3 as Ashley Li had a kill followed by a service ace by Maggie Li and an attack error by Stanford. Stanford would soon gain a bit of separation as they led 10-6 after kills from Kurt and Andrew. After a service error by Stanford made it 13-11, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to make it 17-11 as Rubin and Kurt each had a kill along with a couple of errors by Cal. From there, Stanford would go on to win the set 25-19 as Cal never got back in it. A kill by Francis clinched the third set and match.
“We were still trying to just limit our errors,” Rubin said of the key to getting the sweep. “I think that like physically and like as far as execution of what we were doing on the court, it was decent, but I think it was more like our energy in the way that we were approaching points that we wanted to fix a little bit. So, yeah, definitely just the way our talent and just the way that we were still trying to attack the court, put pressure on them from the service line, and also attack their hands, keep everything high.”
For Stanford, this was overall a good win in that they got the sweep, but per set, it was much closer than they would have liked. After the way things went in Berkeley, it was surprising to see Cal make it as close as they did. Part of this just goes to show the fact that it can be tough to play a team back-to-back times.
“Probably human nature a little bit,” Hambly said of why the second round of Big Spike was closer. “Where you just beat a team 3-0 and did a nice job and then you have to come and like be motivated to play three days later or two days later and try to dial it in. It’s tough. I think when you saw Pitt absolutely beat up on SMU and then turn it around and lose to them.
“So I think the back-to-back is hard. You gotta stay engaged and not be a human being and kind of relax. Like I thought we relaxed a little bit in that first set and that’s why they got into that and it was 25-23. Did I ever feel like we were going to lose that set? No. That’s why I didn’t call time out because I figured we’d win, but we weren’t dialed in in the same way we were up there.”
Even though Stanford was heavily favored to win both matches this week, the rivalry with Cal still matters to them. They know the importance of winning Big Spike and having bragging rights over their rivals across the bay for another year.
“Totally, I mean, it’s the Big Spike as we call it,” Rubin said of the importance of the rivalry. “I was just told we’d spent nine games that we’ve beat them, so holding on to that, we had to have a lot of pride and just make sure that we didn’t let this rivalry, you know, take over, we wanted to defend our court.”
As for Cal, while they did get swept, they can at least be proud of the fact that they played better than they did in Berkeley. They made Stanford work for each set they got and showed a lot of fight. At some point, they’re going to have to get start winning sets and put more pressure on Stanford, but this is a match that they can take a lot of good things from.
“I mean, they made some adjustments,” Hambly said of Cal. “They definitely got their quicks a little bit more. They ran the slide a lot more. So, they made some adjustments. But, I think we could have executed better.”
“I think obviously they came out and they put up a good fight, but we also were playing pretty sloppy and we’re trying to focus on that,” Rubin added. “So, just cleaning up our errors. I think we were being sloppy defensively a little bit and taking some of their shots for granted, so we just had to tune in a little bit and attack the court a little bit more. So, something we’re still working on.”
Up next for Stanford is a match at Miami on Friday. That will begin at 4:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
“Well, the thing is we’re not halfway through but it won’t be, we won’t even get through the conference once until we got to our 17th match or 16th match because it’s so many teams,” Hambly said of his thoughts on the ACC so far. “What do I feel about it? It’s a very very good conference. There’s a lot of good teams. I think where we are, we know who we are, we have a good idea of what we need to do to take the next step, and make sure that we’re continuing to grow and trying to make a good run in the tournament and see how far we can go.
“I think we’re also in a good spot where we haven’t ruined our chance to have a very good seed in the tournament and that’s a big deal for us. That’s really where the whole season is about, the NCAA tournament and so we put ourselves in a very good spot there that we can still be a top four seed potentially. It just depends on how we fight and how we play.
“So, I think it’s where we wanna be. We have progress that we need to make still, which is where you want to be at this time, too. You don’t want to be peaking at this point. So, I like where we are. We got work to do, but I like where we are.”
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