Stanford men’s volleyball (3-13, 3-13 MPSF) won its second and third games of the season over the weekend against Concordia (3-11, 3-11 MPSF). The Cardinal defeated the Eagles 3-1 in Friday’s contest and narrowly won Saturday’s match with a score of 3-2.
Blocking made the difference for head coach John Kosty’s squad this weekend. On Friday, the Cardinal out-blocked Concordia 13.5 to 3.5 and repeated that performance on Saturday by a margin of 17 to 10.
The Cardinal also managed to spread the ball around over the course of the weekend. Sophomore outside hitter Will Rottman led the team in attempts on Friday with 37 and hit .243. Rottman didn’t play in Saturday’s contest and his attempts instead were made up for by freshman outside hitter Luke Turner, who hit .279.
True freshman outside hitter Kupono Browne didn’t log a single attempt on Friday and was taken out of the fourth set on Saturday with an injury after catching a fall to the ground with his face. Browne was replaced by senior opposite Mason Tufuga in Saturday’s fifth set. Tufuga, the team’s serve specialist, earned an unremarkable scoreline but notched two kills at the start of the tiebreaker set to propel Stanford to a 15-12 score and its third victory of the season.
True freshman outside hitter Aidan Peters and senior middle blocker Kyler Presho had a consistent number of opportunities against Concordia —Peters with at least 29 and Presho with at least 19. Presho hit an astonishing .684 on Friday, marking the most efficient performance of the weekend, but cooled off to an even .250 the next day.
Stanford needs Presho’s performance next week, as it won’t enjoy an opponent as easy as Concordia, who sits just one spot above Stanford in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) conference standings. The team will face No. 4 Pepperdine (11-5, 11-5 MPSF) in the varsity program’s final matches at Maples Pavillion next Friday and Saturday.
The Waves will bookend the Cardinal’s season (Pepperdine handed Stanford its first three losses of the season) before the team travels to Provo for the MPSF championship at the end of the month.