On Thursday, No. 7 Stanford women’s volleyball swept Virginia 3-0 at home by a final score of 25-20, 25-17, 25-17. Stanford sophomore outside hitter Jordyn Harvey led the way for the Cardinal with a career-high 16 kills while junior outside hitter Elia Rubin had 14 kills. Virginia senior outside hitter Elayna Duprey was the top performer for the Cavaliers with 10 kills. Stanford improves to 20-4 overall and 12-3 in the ACC while Virginia falls to 19-7 overall and 9-6 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Virginia at Stanford-Friday, November 15th
“Yeah, I think we came out a little sloppy to start and then we kind of settled in,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “We made some errors that were not typical for us and then I thought we settled into a nice rhythm. It was nice to get some other people helping us out. I thought Taylor Beaven came in and did a nice job and I thought Koko did a nice job of scoring some points for us. But, I mean, we were really efficient offensively, so were pretty comfortable that way. I think more on the defensive end we would have liked to have been a little bit cleaner.”
“Honestly, I think we definitely were not the most focused, coming out as hard as we can and how we have in the past,” Jordyn Harvey added. “And I think that’s something we’ve been talking about. Getting towards the end of ACC, getting prepared for the tournament, having to come out ready no matter what point of the game at the very beginning, coming out ready to fight. So, I think we eventually picked it up towards the end and we found our team, but definitely a rocky start.”
Virginia got off to an early 4-3 lead in the opening set after a kill by Abby Tadder. Stanford would respond with a 4-0 run to lead 7-4 as Jordyn Harvey, Lizzy Andrew, and Ipar Kurt had kills during the run. Virginia would then respond with a 4-0 run to take the lead 8-7 as Ashley Le had a service ace during the run. Harvey then got a kill for Stanford to tie it up 8-8 before Virginia went on a 4-0 run to lead 12-8 as Kate Dean had back-to-back kills to close out the run.
A bit later on in the set, a kill by Kurt gave Stanford a 17-16 lead. But then, Virginia went on a 3-0 run to lead 19-17 as Stanford had an attack error followed by back-to-back kills from Brooklyn Borum and Lauryn Bowie. From there, Stanford turned on the jets as they went on a 6-0 run to lead 23-19 as Anna Pringle had a key service ace. Stanford would go on to take the opening set 25-20, closing the set on a 7-1 run. Elia Rubin and Ipar Kurt each had five kills for Stanford.
“I thought we had some really important points, like we scored some great points at the end of the first set and kind established like this is gonna be our match,” Hambly said. “But it was tight. I think it was 19-19 and then we ran away with it at the end or something close to that and then the other two sets I felt like we were in control the whole time.”
The second set was tight early as it was 4-4 after Rubin and Duprey traded kills. Stanford then went on a 4-0 run to lead 8-4 as Sami Francis had a kill during the run while Koko Kirsch had a service ace. After a service ace by Zoey Dood, Virginia got within one point as it would be 13-12. Stanford then went on a 4-0 run to lead 17-12 as Rubin had a pair of service aces during the run.
“I think we would rather get more middles going because they are so efficient,” Hambly said of their middle blockers Francis and Andrew. “You see the swing numbers six and nine, that’s not what we want. We want to get more to other people.”
From there, Stanford would go on to take the second set 25-17 as back-to-back kills from Rubin closed out the set. Harvey was up to 10 kills for the Cardinal while hitting .429. Rubin was up to nine kills while hitting .500. Stanford just needed to take care of business in one more set to get the sweep.
In the third set, it would be tied 5-5 early as Harvey got another kill for the Cardinal. After a 7-5 lead for Virginia, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to lead 9-7 as Rubin got another kill of her own. After a kill by Duprey for Virginia made it 10-9, Stanford extended their lead to five as they went on a 4-0 run to lead 14-9. Rubin had a pair of kills during the run. A bit later on, Stanford led 17-11 after a kill by Kurt.
From there, Stanford would indeed close out Virginia in straight sets as they took the third set 25-17. Stanford finished the set on a 4-0 run as Harvey walked out with a career high 16 kills. Dominating stuff from the Cardinal.
“I think understanding that games like this where we’re all coming out funky, where I know I’m going to have to be better than the way I started this game,” Harvey said of her success. “Having to just improve every point. You know, it’s really easy having the setter that I do to keeping me in system, keeping me in flow so I can keep scoring and producing for my team.”
“They left her one on one a little bit,” Hambly said of Harvey. “Their system like kind of, they took advantage of some of the stuff that they were doing. She also was like had no one up on some back row attacks and hit some nice shots there, but in general I thought Kami put everyone in good spots and they scored.”
For Stanford, this is a good win. Virginia has had some success this season and so to not allow them to get a set has to feel good. This is the third straight sweep for Stanford as they really seem to be finding their groove. They’re moving the ball well and defending well at the net. More than anything, they’re hitting really well, hitting .440 for the match.
“I mean, we hit .440 is good against anybody,” Hambly said. “I think our kill percentage was really high. Like we were 55% kill percentage. That’s a really high number. Had we eliminated some atypical errors for us, we’d even been better.”
“Main points of emphasis was we decided we had to come in strong, which we didn’t really do at first,” Harvey said of what the keys to the match were. “Understood that we’d have to really take them out of system on their serve. They like to utilize their middles as well. So we understood in our game plan to serve in really tough, kind of keeping them out of system, applying pressure under them, but kind of staying simple on our side I think would be good to control a game like this and easily take the win.”
Up next for Stanford is a home match against Virginia Tech on Friday. For more on the Hokies, check out the preview here.
“So we haven’t officially as a team scouted Virginia Tech,” Harvey said of the scouting process. “I’ll go over and watch film when I get home tonight and then kind of figure out my job and what the other hitters that I’m going to have to block against and kind the defense and then tomorrow morning, I actually haven’t looked at the schedule fully, but I’m assuming tomorrow morning we’re gonna come in as a team, talk it over, prepare for Virginia Tech, and then move on with the rest of our game day like usual.”
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