[BostonCard]

As a team, Stanford is hitting an even .300, which is down a bit from last year's .314 but on par to how we hit as a team in 2022 (.297), and better than 2021 (.281), which was Kami Miner's freshman year.  Now, of course, effective hitting is not just on the setter; you have to have good hitters, and an underrated aspect of effective setting (and thus hitting) is good passing, and the ability to hit out of system effectively.   And, of course, the opponents get a say based on how good they are defensively.  Still, we are a long way from a crisis hitting.

My hypothesis is that we have been more effective with the middle blockers and less effective with the pin hitters.  That's borne out by the stats; our two most effective hitters are Andrew (.437) and Sayer (.414), substantially better than two years ago when Francis (.368) and Vicini (.411) were the MBs or last year with Andrew (.363) and Francis (.401).  That's interesting to me because traditionally, the setter to MB connection requires both to be on the same page and can only really be executed well with good timing.  On the other hand, two of our pin hitters have taken a step backwards.  Rubin (.295 vs. .283 last year) has been fine, but both Harvey (0.234 vs. .290) and Kurt (.219 vs. .294) have taken big steps back compared to last year.  The struggles at the pin hitting positions are more obvious, but it is really tough to say that the offense, as a whole, is much worse of this year with new setters than it was last year with a senior all-ACC setter.

BC

[BostonCard]

As a team, Stanford is hitting an even .300, which is down a bit from last year's .314 but on par to how we hit as a team in 2022 (.297), and better than 2021 (.281), which was Kami Miner's freshman year.  Now, of course, effective hitting is not just on the setter; you have to have good hitters, and an underrated aspect of effective setting (and thus hitting) is good passing, and the ability to hit out of system effectively.   And, of course, the opponents get a say based on how good they are defensively.  Still, we are a long way from a crisis hitting.

My hypothesis is that we have been more effective with the middle blockers and less effective with the pin hitters.  That's borne out by the stats; our two most effective hitters are Andrew (.437) and Sayer (.414), substantially better than two years ago when Francis (.368) and Vicini (.411) were the MBs or last year with Andrew (.363) and Francis (.401).  That's interesting to me because traditionally, the setter to MB connection requires both to be on the same page and can only really be executed well with good timing.  On the other hand, two of our pin hitters have taken a step backwards.  Rubin (.295 vs. .283 last year) has been fine, but both Harvey (0.234 vs. .290) and Kurt (.219 vs. .294) have taken big steps back compared to last year.  The struggles at the pin hitting positions are more obvious, but it is really tough to say that the offense, as a whole, is much worse of this year with new setters than it was last year with a senior all-ACC setter.

BC