The No. 7 Stanford men’s volleyball team knew that its opponent’s winless record was not an accurate reflection of their skill. Unfortunately for the Cardinal, Pacific put together its best match of the season, coming away with a sweep in Burnham Pavilion last night.

“We were saying before the game that they were the best 0-8 team in the country,” sophomore setter Kawika Shoji said. “They were well prepared for us, and they were hot tonight. We came out flat and they took it to us.”

The Tigers (1-8, 1-6 MPSF) won the first game 30-21 and did not look back, following with 30-26 and 30-24 wins over the Cardinal (6-4, 3-4).

“Pacific is going to get their wins,” head coach John Kosty said. “They came out strong. They did exactly what they needed to do to start the match. We came into the match thinking there were going to be some seams in the block, places for us to hit it. But they have done a good job shoring up their blocking defense.

“They took us out of our offensive rhythm by serving tough to start the match,” he continued. “We couldn’t get the ball to the net, which gave them a nice opportunity to get two or three guys up. And we did not deal well with that situation.”

The teams stayed close in the early going, but the Tigers slowly pulled ahead.

“They didn’t make too many errors [at the beginning of the match], and they passed well,” Kosty said. “So we slowly fell behind as the games went on. We had difficulty scoring. It was 14-11 when I called my first timeout, and we had already missed seven serves.”

The Cardinal missed only two more serves the rest of the first game, but the damage had already been done.

The second game was more of the same, with the score tied as late as 15-15 before Pacific again pulled away. A kill by the Tigers made it a two-game advantage after their 30-24 victory.

To start the third game, the teams continued to trade one-point leads until a Pacific ace forced a Stanford timeout with the Tigers ahead 20-18. A 5-2 run out of the timeout all but put the match away. Pacific touched the net on a Stanford miss that would have ended the game, giving the Cardinal another chance, but a missed serve ended it, 30-24.

“I called a timeout at 18-20 [in the third game],” Kosty said. “We were in striking distance, but we couldn’t keep the engines running.”

Sophomore opposite Evan Romero led the Cardinal’s offense with 16 kills. Senior outside hitter Matt Ceran was second with nine kills but struggled with consistency. The Cardinal hitters had trouble against the Pacific front line, getting blocked 12 times.

Romero led the Stanford net defense with three blocks. Junior libero Jarod Keller led all players with 10 digs.

Each team finished with 3 aces, but the Cardinal missed 19 serves. The Tigers missed 15.

“As I have continued to say throughout the season, in the MPSF it is all about serving and passing,” Kosty said. “They definitely served and passed better than we did, even though the statistics did not show it.”

The Cardinal will host the Ball State Cardinals (4-5, 2-1 MIVA) tomorrow in a non-conference match.

“We don’t know a lot about Ball State, but we know that they are a very good team,” Shoji said. “We’re lucky to have Friday as a day to practice and prepare for them and work on the things that we need to do to win.”

Kosty echoed the sentiment.

“We need to take care of our side of the net,” he said. “We don’t have an opportunity to watch them all that much. It is a good chance for us to concentrate on the things that we need to do. UOP showed us what we need to work on. High-ball hitting wasn’t effective, our passing wasn’t clicking and we didn’t have the greatest serving night.”

The Ball State squad has won its last three in a row and will play at Pacific tonight before facing Stanford tomorrow at 7 p.m. in Burnham Pavilion.