On Friday, No. 7 Stanford women’s volleyball defeated Virginia Tech by a final score of 3-0 (25-8, 25-16, 25-12). Stanford junior outside hitter Elia Rubin and redshirt freshman outside hitter Ipar Kurt led the way for the Cardinal with 13 kills each while Virginia Tech freshman outside hitter Belle Patrick led the way for the Hokies with 10 kills. Stanford improves to 21-4 overall and 13-3 in the ACC while Virginia Tech falls to 7-19 overall and 1-15 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Virginia Tech at Stanford-Friday, November 15th
“Really efficient offensively especially,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “I thought we hit .500. That’s a big number. And so I thought we just played really clean, offensive. I thought Kami was very very good. The errors we had were kind of self-inflicted, which was interesting, you know. I thought we also passed I think we were in system 65% of the time, which you don’t see on the stats here. But I thought we passed well and set well and we’re tough to deal with when you can do that.”
“We wanted to come out and stay consistent and really attack the team from the start,” Elia Rubin added. “We didn’t wanna like just kind of wait for them to set the tone for the game. We wanted to do that and I think we did a good job. Some ups and downs, but overall pretty consistent, so we’re happy with that.”
In the first set, it was tied 3-3 after a kill from Belle Patrick. Virginia Tech was hanging tough through the first six points, but the rest of the set it was all Stanford as the Cardinal went on back-to-back 3-0 runs to lead 9-4 as Ipar Kurt had a couple of kills while Kami Miner had a service ace. After a service ace by Elena Oglivie, Stanford led 13-6. Virginia Tech would win the next point to make it 13-7 as Hailey Pearce got a kill before Stanford went on an 11-0 run to lead 24-7. Stanford would commit a service error to make it 24-8, but then Elia Rubin got a kill off an assist from Kami Miner to win the set 25-8.
“We were big on staying focused and preparation for the game,” Rubin said. “And just making sure that we came out strong as something we talk about a lot. Instead of just talking about it, we really wanted to put it into action. So that was what the first set was about.”
Stanford jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the second set as Lizzy Andrew and Elia Rubin got kills. Thanks to a kill and service ace by Pearce, Virginia Tech was able to tie it up 4-4. Stanford then won three straight points to make it 7-4 as Kurt had a pair of kills. After a kill by Hailey Pearce, Virginia Tech was within two points as Stanford led 11-9. Stanford then went on a 3-0 run to lead 14-9 as Rubin had a pair of kills during the run.
A bit later on, it was a 16-12 lead for Stanford after the Cardinal committed a service error. Stanford responded with a 4-0 run to lead 20-12 as Miner, Kurt, and Andrew each got a kill while Koko Kirsch got a service ace. Stanford would go on to win the set 25-16 as Jordyn Harvey got a kill to close it out. The Cardinal were now up 2-0.
In the third set, it was a similar story. It was tied 4-4 before Stanford went on a 7-0 run to make it 11-4. Kurt had three kills during the run while Harvey had two. After a kill by Pearce, it was a 12-7 lead for Stanford as Virginia Tech was within five points. But then, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to lead 16-7 as Rubin had a kill to go along with three Virginia Tech errors. From there, Stanford would cruise to a win as a kill by Kurt set up match point at 24-11 before Harvey clinched the match and set with a kill to make it 25-12. A 3-0 sweep for the Cardinal.
“I think could have defended a little bit better, actually,” Hambly admitted. “We really struggled to stop their two outsides, you know. I think, what did they end up hitting? 3 hit .353 and the other outside hit .219. So, I don’t think we defended them particularly well. We defended everyone else well, but the left side attack got a little bit loose and we didn’t have much of an answer, honestly.
“So we’ll have to get to work this week and see if we can be a little bit better. We’re gonna have to do a better job of that against these teams coming up with North Carolina, Duke, and especially Georgia Tech. So we’ll see what we can manage and what we can do, but I thought offensively we made up for it and we just continued to side out. I think we sided out over what? Close to 90 percent.”
For Stanford, this one went about as expected. Virginia Tech is horrible while Stanford is one of the top teams in the nation. Still, it feels good for Stanford to get the sweep and not stub their toe going into this final stretch.
“There’s a lot we’re still striving for,” Hambly said. “I mean, we have four more matches and a lot could happen in four more matches and we can get a lot better…It’s just about always trying to learn and being, we use the term process oriented and staying process oriented and continue to work.”
Up next for Stanford is a road match at Duke on Friday, November 22nd at 3:30 PM PT. The match will air on ACCNX.
“It’s a big one, it’s a big one,” Hambly said of their upcoming road trip. “We need to come up with 3-0 to have a chance to host the regional. So, I think it’s really important for us. We’ll go one at a time, we’ll prepare for Duke, we’ll do what we can, it’s a long road trip. Six days is a long time in the middle of the season I’m glad we have two days at the front of this so we can kind of get some rest and get caught up on schoolwork.
“But I’m looking forward to hopefully we can take care of business on the road. It’s two or three really important matches. Duke is gonna be good. I mean, North Carolina’s a good team and Georgia Tech. I think they’ll want revenge and I think they’re very good. I think we got the worst of them and we’re gonna see the best of them when we get to their place.”
“We’ve got a long road trip ahead,” Rubin added. “We’ve got Duke and UNC. Both good teams. We ought to come out strong and then we finish off that trip with Georgia Tech, I believe. So, another team we’ve seen before. So we’re excited to kind of go out there and at their house and hopefully keep the streak going and then we come home, play Louisville to finish out the ACC and that’s going to be a big one. So we’ve got our minds focused for these next four matches are going to be big.”
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