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NewsvineThe No. 9 Stanford men’s volleyball team rounds out a four-game stint at home this weekend against two familiar teams, UC-Santa Barbara and Cal State-Northridge.
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The Cardinal — who is currently 7-4 overall and 3-4 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) play — takes on No. 13 UCSB (4-6, 3-4 MPSF) today. The men defeated UCSB 3-0 (30-28, 30-26, 30-26) in the first meeting between the teams this season, Jan. 25 at Santa Barbara. Last year, the Gauchos swept the Cardinal.
On Saturday, the Cardinal is set to face No. 6 Cal State-Northridge (6-4, 4-3 MPSF). Stanford defeated CSUN 3-1 (30-27, 30-25, 28-30, 32-30) in its season opener on Jan. 4 at the Elephant Bar Tournament in Santa Barbara but fell to the Matadors in its second meeting two weeks later at Northridge, 3-0 (30-25, 31-29, 30-24).
After being ranked in the top-five near the start of the season, Stanford has dropped two spots to No. 9 in the CSTV/AVCA poll. Brigham Young University remains at No. 1 (9-0) while Penn State is at No. 2 (10-0). Long Beach State (8-0), UCLA (8-3) and Pepperdine (5-3) claim the rest of the top five spots.
The Cardinal will hope to carry the momentum from last weekend’s finale, when it overcame a rare two-game deficit to storm back and capture a victory against the Ball State Cardinals. Although the team fell to previously winless Pacific the night before, the comeback against the Cardinals provided a good way for the team to bounce back.
Sophomore opposite Evan Romero took the spotlight last weekend, racking up 16 kills against Pacific and a career-high 34 kills against Ball State. He also played well defensively, accumulating 15 digs on the weekend. He currently leads the team with a whopping 169 kills on the season.
Senior outside hitter Matt Ceran made an impressive show against Ball State as well. He came off the bench at 24-19 in the third game and posted two straight service aces to help secure the win. Ceran continued to help the Cardinal rally back in the subsequent games, rounding out the five-game match with 10 kills.
UCSB carries serious momentum coming into tonight’s match, having just swept its season series against No. 13 Hawaii. In the last game of the series, four Gauchos posted kills in the double digits: senior middle blocker Theo Brunner led with 25, freshman Jeff Menzel had 23 while senior Phil Matthews and junior Mike Runkle had 19 and 12, respectively. On the other side of the ball, the team accumulated 40 digs.
After the series, Brunner was named Sports Imports/AVCA National Player of the Week and MPSF/Molten Player of the Week.
CSUN is looking to rebound after a tough weekend when it lost to No. 1 BYU. In the last game of the series, Northridge battled hard but fell 2-3 (20-30, 24-30, 30-25, 36-34, 8-15). Despite the loss, senior Isaac Kneubuhl had a career-high 22 kills at a .364 hitting percentage. Freshman Cody Loe wasn’t far behind, posting a career-high 20 kills at a .417 hitting percentage. He also had 6 blocks.
In any case, it should be an exciting weekend for the Cardinal as it looks to move up the ladder in the MPSF standings. Both matches take place at 7 p.m. in Burnham Pavilion.