Washington State University Athletics
Volleyball Falls in Three at No. 11 Stanford
October 24, 2015 | Volleyball
STANFORD, Calif. -- Freshman McKenna Woodford had a career-high 18 kills as the Washington State volleyball team (14-7 overall, 3-6 Pac-12) fell at No. 11 Stanford (13-5, 7-3) with set scores of 25-20, 25-20, and 25-19, at Maples Pavilion Friday night.
Woodford, from Chandler, Ariz., led the match with her 18 kills as WSU looked for offensive production to replace the injured Kyra Holt. Haley MacDonald tallied a double-double with 26 assists and 12 digs. Hailey Bethune added eight kills. Casey Schoenlein led WSU with three blocks while Taylor Mims and Claire Martin contributed another two blocks each. Kate Sommer added 10 digs. Aces were served by Haley DeSales, Sommer and Mims.
Stanford's Brittany Howard had 12 kills (. 370) and Merete Lutz had 10 kills (.421) and four blocks. Madi Bugg had 36 assists and four blocks. Halland McKenna led the team with 12 digs.
Stanford hit .330 for the match while WSU hit .137. The Cardinal out-blocked the Cougars 12 to six. WSU had nine service errors and Stanford had eight errors.
WSU took at 10-9 lead in the opening set and kept the set tight until the midway point when Stanford pulled ahead for the 25-20 win. The second set had three tie scores early but the Cardinal hit an outstanding .452 in the set and regained the lead each time, advancing to a 25-20 win. There were nine ties in the third set but the home team was propelled by the five kills of Howard and took the 25-19 win.
“I thought we had some good moments and some people stepped up,” WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny said. ”McKenna did a really nice job, especially as a freshman against a great Stanford team. She stepped up and took the passing role as well so I'm really proud of her performance offensively tonight. We had too many errors, especially from the service line where that was our focus: to serve tough and get them out of their offense. We definitely missed far too many serves. There were times when we weren't as aggressive as we could have been. They have a huge block and that's pretty intimidating. We need to stay aggressive in those moments and this is something that our young players will learn from.”
The Cougars finish the Bay area weekend at California (7-13, 1-8) Sunday, Oct. 25 at 11 a.m. in a match televised on the Pac-12 Networks.
