Cardinals start season with clean sweep
The Stanford Cardinals got off to the best possible start to the season, as they defeated Santa Cruz 3-0, at the Burnham Pavilion this Wednesday night. The Stanford men’s volleyball team put up a good show, with the scoreboard reading 28-26, 25-17 and 25-14
at the end of the match.
The Cardinals are last season’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Volleyball Champions. By winning the first match of the season they have proved that the team has not become over confident after last years’ exploits.
Stanford Coach John Kosty had the following comments to make at the end of the match, “Santa Cruz is a good team, and we came into this match needing to get competition besides what we have in practice. That’s exactly what they gave us; it was a good chance
to compete against someone besides ourselves.”
Santa Cruz was highly competitive during the first set, as they were able to race into a 19-13 lead early on. Thomas Davidson played an integral part in maintaining this lead with his excellent blocking tactics. The Cardinals were made to work hard to tie
the set and take the lead themselves at 26-25. From then on, the Cardinals were able to close the deal with a final set score of 28-26. In doing so, Stanford had to overcome three set points. Steven Irvin and Evan Berry made the last few kills of the set which
secured the opening set for the Cardinals.
Stanford started off the second set with a lot of determination and got control of the game right from the start. The Cardinals were able to move ahead on the score board with some excellent kills, one after the other. However, Santa Cruz kept on challenging
Stanford with some impressive blocking techniques. The Cardinals though, took up the challenge with great zeal and went on the offensive relentlessly. By the end of the game, Santa Cruz recorded a disappointing hitting percentage of .083.
Bursting with confidence, the Cardinals tried out their freshmen in the third set, who followed tradition and played equally well. The coach had words of praise for these fresh starters. Kosty said, “There’s going to be some nerves playing for the first
time with a Stanford jersey on, but they worked through it pretty fast and played a nice game.” Santa Cruz was not able to rally together, making it easy for the Cardinals to win the final set 25-14.
Stanford next play Brigham Young University (BYU) on 14 January.
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