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NewsvineWhen the Cardinal takes the floor at No. 4 Cal State-Northridge on Saturday, it will be the No. 6 Stanford men’s volleyball team’s first appearance in the MPSF quarterfinals in five years. This year’s squad has already matched its best win total since the 1997 NCAA champion team and enters the conference tournament as the sixth see
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The Cardinal (17-10, 12-10 MPSF) ended the regular season on a high note last weekend with a pair of wins over higher-ranked teams to secure a quarterfinal berth. While eight teams make the tournament, Stanford finished high enough to avoid Wednesday night’s play-in match between the seventh and eighth teams in the conference.
“It’s incredible that it took all the way to the second-to-the-last weekend for teams to secure a spot [in the tournament] and it took the last match of the last weekend to determine the top seed,” Stanford head coach John Kosty said. “Men’s volleyball in this league is just great and it was a lot of fun this season. I am really looking forward to the playoffs.”
The Cardinal starts the tournament on the road at third-seeded Northridge (22-6, 17-5), with a spot in next weekend’s semifinals on the line. The seven remaining teams are battling for one automatic bid to the NCAA Final Four and an at-large bid that generally goes to the next best finisher in the conference, which is consistently the nation’s strongest — seven of the nation’s top eight teams currently reside in the MPSF.
No. 8 UC-Irvine won Wednesday night’s play-in game against No. 11 USC and will face second-seeded No. 3 BYU in the quarterfinals. No. 2 Long Beach State, as the top seed, has a bye into the semifinals and awaits the winner of the contest between the fourth and fifth seeds, No. 6 UCLA and No. 5 Pepperdine, respectively.
The pair of wins last weekend — four-game battles with UCLA and Irvine — were crucial for Stanford heading into the postseason, both in terms of seeding and momentum.
“I was pretty confident coming into this weekend that if we could get back on track, get back the rhythm that we had before Dead Week and Finals break, then we could get on a really good roll and that is exactly what happened,” Kosty said after the victory over Irvine.
Even though the Cardinal was the lower seed in both of those matches, Kosty does not consider them upsets but rather evidence of the parity in the middle of the conference.
“I went into the weekend with the idea that there are three teams in this league who are one notch above everybody else and that is Long Beach, BYU and Northridge,” he said. “And then everybody else is in the same boat. National rankings and MPSF rankings aside, we’re all right there. Any team can win any night — and that also includes the top three.”
Stanford will aim to prove that on Saturday when they take on one of the three teams who entered the final weekend of conference play in a tie for first. Northridge ended up third after losing three close games to Long Beach on the final night of the regular season.
The teams have played each other three times already this season, with the Cardinal winning in a preseason tournament and Northridge sweeping the conference series.
Junior Eric Vance is the offensive and serving leader for the Matadors with 4.5 kills per game and 49 aces on the season. Libero Ali’i Keohohou anchors the back-row defense, while Kevin McKniff is the team’s top blocker.
“Northridge is one of those teams that you have to play really consistently,” Kosty said. “They just relentlessly come after you. They don’t run a particularly fast offense, but they don’t make errors. They serve tough and they don’t make hitting errors. They’ll let you block them, but they won’t give you free points. You have got to be on your game when you play them. They are beatable but they are a good, tough team.”
The Cardinal will look to sophomore opposite Evan Romero and senior outside hitter Matt Ceran in leading the offense. Since returning from an injury early in the season, freshman Spencer McLachlin has added another strong arm to the outside. Romero has 418 kills on the season, and Ceran and McLachlin have each added over 200.
If the Cardinal can get a win over Northridge, then the team will face either BYU or Irvine in the conference semifinals next week in Long Beach. If Stanford loses, the season — the program’s best in years — will be over.