By WSU Athletics
The Washington State volleyball team (12-15, 2-13 Pac-12) fell at No. 1 Stanford (23-2, 15-0) Wednesday night at Maples Pavilion in scores of 25-20, 25-21, and 25-15, just 17 days after taking the Cardinal to five sets in Pullman.
Carly Wopat led the Cardinal with 12 kills and a .706 hitting percentage while Rachel Williams added 11 kills (.429) and Brittany Howard tallied 10 kills and 12 digs. Hannah Benjamin and Kyle Gilbert each added another 11 digs. Madi Bugg and Karissa Cook combined for 38 assists. Stanford hit .339 for the match and out-blocked WSU 8.5 to 4 and tallied 65 digs to WSU's 45.
Jaicee Harris led WSU with 13 kills and Marcelina Glab and Ver'Leea Hardaway each added six kills. Camryn Irwin set up 24 assists and had 13 digs while Kate Sommer led the team with 14 digs. Rachel Todorovich had three blocks and Maile Scarpino served a pair of aces.
"I thought we came out well and put the pressure on them early," Cougar Head Coach Jen Greeny said. "Jaicee Harris was doing some great things and our defense as well. But with a great team like Stanford you have to finish it. At the end of the first set we made some mistakes and the same in the second, we were right with them but those costly errors get you. In the third our passing broke down and we made a lot of unforced errors. We have to play really well to beat the number one team in the country and it just didn't happen."
The Cougars started quickly and took an 8-4 lead in the opening set. Stanford came back and tied the set at 10 but the teams battled closely until WSU scored four straight points for the 16-14 advantage. With the set knotted at 19, Stanford scored six straight points for the 25-19 win. Harris tallied eight kills with no errors in 16 attacks (.500) in the opener.
The second set was also very competitive with the teams tied at 12 and again at 16. The Cardinal went up 21-18 and WSU battled back to close the gap to 23-21. But Stanford closed out the set for the 25-21 win as Wopat tallied nine kills in this set.
WSU was its own enemy in the third set, hitting .024 as Stanford hit .379 and took the 25-15 win.
WSU plays at California (13-11, 7-7 pending outcome of 11/7 match vs. No. 5 Washington) Thursday night, Nov. 8, in a 6 p.m. match at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley that will be broadcast live on the Pac-12 TV Networks.
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