Coming off of a 4-24 season, not many people considered the men’s volleyball squad as especially dangerous or lethal. But, in this weekend’s Elephant Bar Tournament at UC-Santa Barbara, the Cardinal showed they could compete with some of the best teams in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

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Junior outside hitter Jesse Meredith and the Cardinal played tough this weekend, but couldn’t muster a win in their first three games. Stanford fell to UC-Irvine, Long Beach State and USC. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/6652
Stanford Daily File Photo

Junior outside hitter Jesse Meredith and the Cardinal played tough this weekend, but couldn’t muster a win in their first three games. Stanford fell to UC-Irvine, Long Beach State and USC.

Although they lost all three of their matches at the season opener, the Cardinal proved to the other MPSF teams that they will be a force to be reckoned with. They did lose five contributing seniors to graduation, but they have five talented freshmen coming in as well. The freshman held tough but Stanford fell 30-23, 30-21, 30-23 to UC-Irvine, 30-22, 27-30, 22-30, 30-26, 15-13 to Long Beach State and 30-28, 23-30, 23-30, 30-28, 15-12 to USC.

“The team will be able to compete with the entire league in a short while,” said head coach John Kosty. “We need to keep up the intensity and competition for each starting position. I am really excited about the season to come.”

Stanford, because of their poor season last year, was ranked last in the tournament of eight teams. Accordingly, their first game was against top-ranked UC-Irvine, a team that was ranked No. 1 last season for eight straight weeks and went on a 21 match winning streak. The Anteaters’ entire nucleus returned and they will likely be vying for the MPSF and national championships.

UC-Irvine won the match last Friday handily with a score of 30-23, 30-21, 30-23. They were led by senior opposite Matt Webber who recorded 15 kills with a .565 hitting percentage, freshmen opposite Cole Reinholm with 14 kills, last season’s American Volleyball Coaches Association National Player of the Year senior outside hitter Jayson Jablonsky with 14 kills, and Brian Thornton had 48 assists.

The Cardinal finished with 43 total assists, 27 coming from freshmen standout and team leader Kawika Shoji and 12 from sophomore Miki Groppi. Junior Matt Ceran, who switched from middle blocker to outside hitter this season, had 14 kills and freshmen opposite Evan Romero had 10 kills.

“UCI is just in a league above us at this point in the season,” middle blocker Cameron Chistoffer, a sophomore, said. “With three starting freshman, we will have to work to be on their level.”

Because of their loss earlier in the day, Stanford was relegated to the loser’s bracket. Their next match was at later that evening against Long Beach State, a team reeling from the loss of four year starting setter Tyler Hildebrand last season. After losing 3-2 to Cal State-Northridge earlier in the day, the 49ers, just like the Cardinal, was searching for their first win of the season.

After losing the first game 30-22 to the 49ers, Stanford bounced back with 30-27 and 30-22 game wins. After losing the fourth game 30-26, the Cardinal fought valiantly in the fifth game, but came up just short, losing 15-13.

“We showed that we can compete with some of the better teams in the country,” Christoffers declared. “Last year, I’m not sure we would have been able to keep up. But with the additions of Kawika, Garret and Ceran being moved to outside hitter, we can keep time.”

Long Beach State was led by junior outside hitter Paul Lotman (17 kills) and sophomore outside hitter Daniel Fabry (13 kills). Senior middle blocker Teddy Liles added 10 kills.

For Stanford, Ceran paced the Cardinal with 16 kills, junior outside hitter Jesse Meredith had 13 kills, and freshmen opposite Ed Howell came off the bench to chip in 15 kills.

Competing for seventh place in the tournament the next morning, the Cardinal squared off against USC, who had lost to UCSB and Pacific the previous day.

Much like the Long Beach State match the day before, the Cardinal started out sluggish, losing the first game 30-28. Stanford’s next two games were dynamic and fast paced, with the Cardinal running the score board 30-23, 30-23. They lost the fourth game 30-28. The Trojans then cruised to an easy 15-12 win in the final game.

However, Romero had a great showing overall in the match with 21 kills. Ceran also had 21 kills. The middles made a strong showing as sophomore Brandon Williams had 14 kills on a .600 hitting percentage and Werner had 9 kills and .692 hitting percentage.

The Cardinal take on CS-Northridge this Friday at Stanford at 7 p.m.