On Saturday, Stanford women’s volleyball defeated Louisville 3-1 (25-23, 25-22, 27-29, 27-25) on Senior Night to close out the regular season. Stanford came into the match ranked No. 7 in the nation while Louisville came in ranked No. 3. Stanford junior outside hitter Elia Rubin led the way for the Cardinal with 22 kills and 14 digs while sophomore outside hitter Jordyn Harvey had 18 kills. Louisville outside hitter Anna DeBeer was the top performer for the Cardinals with 16 kills and 14 digs.
BOX SCORE: Louisville at Stanford-Saturday, November 30th
“I thought it was a really high level match first,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “Both teams came to play and it felt like an elite eight, final four type of match, which is cool. You look at the numbers, that’s what they feel like. So, it was good for us to be in a match like that right before we get to the tournament and make sure we can play at that level and build some confidence up that we can compete at a high level.”
“Huge,” Rubin added about the importance of the win. “I mean, I think we’re coming off of a big win in Georgia, that was huge. We wanted to turn that around. We just wanna end the season, obviously ACC plays, it’s insane. So, ending it the strongest we can going into the tournament is awesome and then Louisville obviously is an amazing team and we knew that they were gonna come in and fight very very hard. This is a crucial part of the season, but also I mean, most importantly for our seniors we wanted to show some fight and it’s their night, so we were saying, I mean, we have all the motivation in the world right now to end our season strong, but for our seniors, too. It’s just yeah, it’s so important.”
In the first set, Louisville got off to a 6-3 lead after a kill by Charitie Luper. After a kill by Reese Robins Louisville led 12-7 and then after a kill by Cara Cresse it was a 17-12 lead for Louisville. Stanford would slowly close the gap a bit as Louisville was up 20-17 following a kill by Luper. Stanford would then go on a 4-0 run to lead 21-20 as Sami Francis had two kills. After it was tied 22-22, Stanford won two straight points to lead 24-22 as Kami Miner had a kill and Louisville had an attack error. Anna DeBeer would then get a kill for Louisville to make it 24-23 before Jordyn Harvey responded for Stanford with a kill of her own to make it 25-23. Stanford was now up 1-0.
The second set was tight early on as it was tied 4-4 and later 8-8. After a kill by DeBeer, Louisville would lead 14-12, but then Stanford went on a 3-0 run to lead 15-14 as Miner had a service ace during the run. After a kill for Louisville by Cresse, it was tied 16-16. Then, Elia Rubin had back-to-back kills for Stanford to make it 18-16. From there, Stanford would not give up the lead in the set as a kill by Harvey clinched the set 25-22. Stanford now had a 2-0 lead.
The third set was tied 6-6 after a kill by Sofia Maldonado Diaz for Louisville and it was tied 12-12 after a kill by Kami Miner for Stanford. After Louisville went up 17-16, Stanford went on a 4-0 run to lead 20-17 as Rubin had a pair of kills during the run. At this point, it looked like Stanford was going to get the sweep. But Louisville was able to scrap and tied things up 22-22 after a service error and attack error by Stanford. From there, Louisville found another gear to take the set 29-27 as a kill by DeBeer gave Louisville their fourth set point before Stanford committed an attack error to end the set. Louisville was now on the board as Stanford was up 2-1.
In the fourth set, Louisville got off to a strong start, leading 4-2 after an attack error by Stanford. After a kill by Francis, Stanford was down 10-9, but then Louisville went on a 3-0 run to lead 13-9. Cresse had a service ace during that run. After a kill by Cresse, it was a 17-13 lead for Louisville as the Cardinals were on the verge of tying the match up.
Stanford quickly got momentum back on their side as they went on a 5-0 run to lead 18-17 as Harvey, Miner, and Francis had kills during the run. Louisville would take the lead 20-19 after a kill by Cresse before Stanford went on a 3-0 run to lead 22-20 as Jordyn Harvey and Ipar Kurt each had a kill plus an attack error by Louisville. Stanford would then lead 24-21 after an attack error by Louisville. It looked like Stanford would finally win the set.
There would be another twist before Stanford finally closed out the set as Louisville went on a 3-0 run to tie it up 24-24. Rubin then got a kill to give Stanford another set point before DeBeer responded for Louisville, making it 25-25. Stanford finally pulled away as Rubin got a kill to make it 26-25 after which Louisville committed an attack error. 27-25 Stanford took the fourth set to win the match 3-1.
“We knew that they were gonna be fighting for their lives as were we,” Rubin said. “So we just wanted to match that. I think for a little bit, we were doing too much and were trying to win it in one point. We needed to stay consistent and play Stanford volleyball and once we got to that, we were in pretty good shape. So it’s a good reminder to stay true to who we are and play our game all the time.”
“Service pressure,” Hambly said of the key to the fourth set. “I think Elia went back and served great and got them out off the net a little bit and we stopped them. I thought early we were in that set; we were serving pretty weak and not as aggressive as we needed to and once we started and once we started to serve aggressive and get them off the net and execute we were good.”
For Stanford, this was a huge win. Both because it was Senior Day and also because Louisville is really good. Stanford should feel like if they can beat Louisville, they can beat anybody. While it was a tight match all the way through, Stanford was clearly the team who was in control most of the way and that should give them a lot of confidence heading into the NCAA tournament. Especially after their reverse sweep at Georgia Tech in the previous match.
“Yeah, that was huge. Confidence is huge going into the tournament, too,” Rubin said. “I think it sets apart teams for sure. Going with a little chip on your shoulder is kind of what we’re looking for right now and it’s just kind of fueling our fire. So for sure, that Georgia Tech match was huge and I think it’s turned around our confidence just to go into every single match like we’re gonna dominate and I think that’s really important.”
As far as the seniors who are moving on, it’s really an amazing group: Sami Francis, Elena Oglivie, Kami Miner, Taylor Beaven, and Charity McDowell. Especially Francis, Oglivie, and Miner. Francis has been a fantastic middle blocker, Miner has been one of the top setters in the country, and Oglivie has been one of the nation’s best liberos. They’ve all left their mark on the program and would love to close out their careers with a national championship.
On Selection Sunday the day after the match, Louisville still got a top four overall seed for the NCAA tournament while Stanford got the No. 5 overall seed, making them the highest No. 2 seed in the 64 team field. Stanford will open things up on Friday night at home against Sacramento State in the first round. The match is set to start at 7:00 PM PT on ESPN+.
“I gotta go in with some confidence,” Rubin said of the tournament. “And also, all of us upper classmen have to go in and lead the team. We learn so much each year in the tournament. But I think yeah, just being a good leader for our team, our team who hasn’t been in the tournament before, hasn’t been on the stage before, so it’s big for all of us to set the tone and I think it’s huge when we’re the majority so they’ll follow whatever the tone we set. So that’s really important.”
“I think we’ve won the last ten matches, which is you know, that’s what you wanna do is have some momentum going and prove you can win some matches,” Hambly said of how he feels the team is looking. “We’ve been tested, you know, like Georgia Tech was a good test. They went and played five against Pitt. So they’re a good team and I think we most importantly know who we are and how to use all of our personnel and I think that part of it is and to put it to use and use people. Like we played a lot of people in the roles that we need them to play in the tournament and you got to see that tonight.”
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