WVB: Utah 1 Stanford 3 - Printable Version

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WVB: Utah 1 Stanford 3 - Viking_Guy - 10-19-2014

A better match from Stanford in completing the mountain sweep, but it was perhaps tougher than it should have been.

The Cardinal had a more typical path to this victory - win the first two sets, let up in the third set after the break, then close it out in the fourth.  But it was not without its perils.

The first two sets followed similar trajectories - fairly close to 15 points, then Stanford slowly extending the lead and efficiently siding out to end the set.  As Al Scates mentioned in the commentary, in the first two sets, Stanford had a sideout percentage of over 70% - meaning that when Utah served, they got a point less than 30% of the time.  A very good sign of the Cardinal passing well and not allowing any runs of points.

In the first set, it was a sequence of Burgess to McGehee to Boukather getting a few tough serves to build a 17-15 lead to 23-17, with Stanford closing it out on an Inky kill and block to take the first 25-20.

In the second, it was a run on two blocks followed by a dump by Madi Bugg that turned a 16-16 set into 20-16.  The Utes fought back, but again, a solid block by Lutz and a kill by Boukather saw the set out.

Then came the prototypical third set discombobulation.  Stanford started the set seemingly unable to get a good serve receive; it wasn't the Utes acing, it was the Cardinal having to free ball or take off-balance hits from bump sets or barely saving the ball, and they promptly fell behind 9-3.  They slowly cut into the lead over the course of the set, at one point closing to 21-19 and 24-23, but never seemed to be in rhythm at all.  Again, in that key run in the beginning of the set, a un-Stanfordlike complete breakdown of offense, when Bugg backset to the right and neither Inky nor Boukather thought the ball was for them, letting it fall to the floor.

Fourth set followed the pattern of the first - neither team took control until Stanford got a sequence of tough serving from Burgess, McGehee and Boukather to take a 16-15 lead and build it to 23-17.  Kills by Inky and Jordan finished it off.

Really, this was a match that boiled down to can the rest of the Cardinal play well enough to offset a bad Brittany Howard match?  Howard had some good blocks and serving, but her last kill in set 4 lifted her hitting percentage above .100 to a not-great .118 (8 kills and 4 errors on 34 swings).  Even on open swings, she only terminated a hard swing a few times; a lot of her kills were tips.  There was also a sequence where Madi was definitely in her "I'm setting Howard until she gets a kill" sequences that really didn't work.

And Utah was at its most successful when Brittany was center back in serve receive, where she had quite a few horrific shanks off of fairly simple serves.  She wasn't "aced," but it seemed like only about 1 in 3 of her serve receive passes ended up with Bugg able to set all of her options; they ended up going back to the endline, or at or outside the sideline.  She did pick it up a bit in set 4, but it also looked like Burgess and Gilbert were again trying to take a lot of her receiving area.

That said, Burgess had a better match than against Colorado, and Gilbert also played quite a bit better.  And Inky and Lutz had typically efficient matches, although it does seem that teams are now definitely camping out against the middle hit and definitely allowing the outsides to hit against solo or late blocks a lot; the number of blocks against both MBs is going up.  To be fair, in part this is a passing/setting issue as well - Bugg's middle sets are often a bit off-pace and low, not giving Inky and Merete a chance to hit over the top and snap.

But the player and difference maker of the match was Morgan Boukather.  She hit .467, 18 kills and 4 errors on 30 attempts, her hard flat serve was giving the Utes fits, and added 4 block assists and 11 digs.

Big homecoming weekend coming up, with the Bruins (and Karsta Lowe, who's having an otherworldly season thus far) on Friday and $C on Sunday.

One other note: the difficulty of the Pac-12 this season is really affecting Stanford's ability to get ANY subs some playing time (especially getting some hitters swings).  It would be nice to see if Sidney Brown or McGehee could get some swings; both appear to have been relegated to serving specialists at this point.

VG

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Re: WVB: Utah 1 Stanford 3 - BobK - 10-19-2014

Brown hasn't played in awhile as McGehee has become our best server.  Also Morgan B is playing all around and looked great on digs.  Thus almost no Young Benji.

Going to be a brobdingnagian weekend. 

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