Recap: No. 4 Stanford Women’s Volleyball falls to No. 6 Louisville
On Sunday, No. 4 Stanford women’s volleyball fell to No. 6 Louisville at home by a final score of 3-1 (21-25, 25-18, 25-20, 26-24). Peyton Petersen led the way for Louisville with 15 kills and 14 digs while hitting .361. Chloe Chicoine (13 kills & 11 digs), Cara Cresse (13 kills & 8 blocks), and Kalyssa Blackshear (11 kills) also finished in double figures. As for Stanford, Elia Rubin led the way with 19 kills and 14 digs while Jordyn Harvey (14 kills) and Lizzy Andrew (12 kills) also finished in double figures. Andrew hitting .688. Louisville improves to 12-2 overall and 4-0 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 12-3 overall and 3-1 in the ACC, seeing their 20 match winning streak at Maples Pavilion come to an end.
BOX SCORE: Louisville at Stanford-Sunday, October 5th
“I mean, I thought at times we weren’t competing the way we wanted to and we certainly didn’t execute the way we wanted to,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said after the match. “But I thought there was times when we weren’t fighting. There was no fight in us and we were, they were making plays and we were surprised by it and we were a little distracted.”
Louisville had jumped out to a 10-7 lead early on in the first set after a kill by Cresse, but Stanford was able to respond strong as they would soon go on a 4-0 run to lead 12-11 and then a 3-0 run to lead 15-12. After Louisville led 19-18, Stanford would go on a 3-0 run to lead 21-18 as Logan Parks had a key service ace during the run while Ipar Kurt had a kill. From there, Stanford took the opening set 25-21. Harvey was leading the way with five kills while hitting a ridiculous .833. She was in quite a groove.
After Stanford led 5-4 in the second set, Louisville went on a 6-0 run to lead 10-5 as Chicoine had a pair of kills during the run. Stanford never was able to re-take the lead in the set as Louisville won it 25-18. Cresse was leading Louisville with eight kills while hitting .462. As for Chicoine, she had seven kills while hitting .316. Rubin was doing her part for Stanford with nine kills on .300 hitting. Andrew (.750) and Harvey (.538) each had seven kills, doing what they could to keep Stanford in it. Tied up 1-1, this match was shaping up to be a tight one.
Louisville would take the third set 25-20. It was truly a set of runs as Louisville started off the set strong leading 6-1 and later going on a 5-0 run to lead 17-9 before Stanford went on a 4-0 run to make it 17-14. After getting up 20-15, Louisville saw Stanford go on a 5-0 run to tie it up 20-20. To Louisville’s credit, they would respond with a 5-0 run to win the set 25-20 as a service ace by Petersen clinched the set. After working so hard to get back in the set, Stanford ran out of gas in the end. It was now a 2-1 lead for Louisville.
“We didn’t execute down the stretch,” Hambly said point blank. “We didn’t pass, we didn’t take good swings, and they made some really good plays and we didn’t respond well to it.”
Louisville would go on to take the fourth set 26-24 as Stanford was unable to force a fifth set. Stanford battled hard in the set, but after tying it up 18-18, allowing Louisville to go on a 3-0 run to lead 21-18 really hurt Stanford. They were playing catchup the rest of the set. While there were brief moments of hope for Stanford, it was clear that Louisville was in control. 3-1 Louisville took the match.
Starting with Louisville, this is a huge win. Stanford came in ranked higher. Any time you beat a team ranked higher than you on the road, it’s a big deal. To do it without having it go into a fifth set makes it all the more impressive. Louisville is looking like a team that could get back to the Final Four.
As for Stanford, this loss stings. They were hoping to get a big win at home against a team that they lost to in the Elite Eight last year. Instead, they got out-worked and that’s something you never want to have happen.
“Yeah, we gotta learn to compete,” Hambly admitted. “We can’t let a few plays that they make or us not having our perfect night affect the way that we’re competing. It’s gotta change.”
All match long, Hambly tried to see if he could find a lineup that could click. One move that did seem to work was having Taylor Yu come in at setter. Unfortunately for Stanford, it wasn’t enough.
“The third set we switched,” Hambly said of putting Yu in at setter. “We weren’t scoring, we were down, and we weren’t, offensively we were struggling and we weren’t taking advantage of some of the opportunities that they were presenting to us, so we switched it and see where it went.”
Up next for Stanford is a road match at Boston College on Friday, October 10th. That will begin at 4:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
“Yeah, I mean, we, the competitive piece they’re gonna have to work on that individually and they’re gonna have to work on that as a group,” Hambly said looking ahead to the coming week. “You know, like the team is, you have to figure that out. The execution part, that’s why we practice, so we’ll get better at that. We’ll get them, like, whatever the things that they reveal is, it’s great. They revealed some things in us that other teams haven’t and we struggled with a little bit, and we’re gonna have to overcome that, like, figure those things, how to overcome those, like little nuances and ways that they attack us that put us in tough situations. That stuff we’ll work on. The competitive thing, we’re gonna have to decide that we want to compete all the time. If we want to be a truly elite team, we’re gonna have to do that.”
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