A night after the Stanford men’s volleyball team showed off its muscle in a four-set brawl of a victory over No. 8 UCLA, the Cardinal was just two points from what wouldn’t have been a shocking, but certainly a surprising and painful home sweep at the hands of UC-Santa Barbara.

Back to the wall, the Cardinal (12-4, 9-4 MPSF) steeled itself, and, thanks to some timely blocking, it kept the match alive and eventually pulled out a dramatic, 21-25, 20-25, 25-23, 25-21, 15-10 victory in front of an appreciative crowd at Maples Pavilion.

The Gauchos (10-7, 8-6) dictated the pace of play early on in the match and dominated just about everything else as well. They hit .448 as a team in game one and were almost as efficient in game two–Stanford held the lead just once in the first two sets.

It looked like the Cardinal was on its way to another letdown at home, reminiscent of the 3-0 loss to UC-San Diego earlier this month, as UCSB held a slim lead midway through the third set at 10-9. Stanford, to its credit, refused to roll over and battled back to regain the lead at 16-13 with help from six of junior outside hitter Brad Lawson’s match-high 25 kills.

But a service error from sophomore outside hitter Jake Kneller gave the lead back to Santa Barbara, 18-17. After trading the next few points, the Cardinal clung to a precarious 23-22 lead. It was there that the match turned, when Stanford scrambled during a furious rally and won a loose ball halfway in the crowd that ended up being a kill for senior outside hitter Spencer McLachlin.

Now equipped with its first set point of the match, Stanford’s defense got a big stop thanks to a team block by freshman middle blocker Denny Falls and McLachlin, taking the point and winning game three, 25-23.

Coach John Kosty was extremely pleased with the way his team responded under pressure, if a bit perturbed that the Cardinal let it come to that. He called the team “simply resilient” and said the team members really believe in each other.

With the momentum finally on Stanford’s side to start the fourth set, the Gauchos started to have all kinds of trouble against the Cardinal’s blocking. After hitting .450 in games one and two, UCSB hit .296 in game three, a paltry .138 in game four, and .250 in game five–Stanford never trailed in either of the last two sets.

Lawson hit a season-high .564 for the match with 25 kills and eight digs. Junior setter Evan Barry chipped in 51 assists and eight digs, and after enduring some early struggles, McLachlin finished with 14 kills, four assists, two aces, seven digs and six blocks.

But Kosty may have found a budding star in Falls. The little-used freshman from Orland Park, Ill. came off the bench and sparked the Cardinal with five kills, a service ace and that critical block assist with McLachlin.

“Denny’s just an athletic and explosive middle blocker,” Kosty said. “We wanted to change something up and we gave Denny the opportunity. He came in, and he took full advantage of it.”

The turnaround was even more rare than it might appear at first glance. In the last seven years, Stanford has only come back from two sets down to win twice, and never in the last two seasons. But this year’s Cardinal is now 4-0 in five-set matches.

It only took four sets to dispatch UCLA (9-9, 4-8) on Friday night, but the victory was closer than it appeared. Both teams hit over .400 on the night, with Stanford coming in at .458 to the Bruin’s .403, and the theme of the night was certainly offense.

The Cardinal took game one, 26-24, thanks to seven kills from Lawson and six from McLachlin. But the lead was short-lived, as UCLA stormed out to a four-point lead at 10-6 and didn’t blink in the face of Stanford’s attacks to earn the set victory.

The Bruins were led by freshman Gonzalo Quiroga, who looked very impressive and served five consecutive points late in the third set with three aces to retake the lead for UCLA. Freshman outside hitter Eric Mochalski had a nice kill on another assist from Barry, one of his career-high 54 in a four-set match, to give Stanford a little momentum toward the set victory.

Stanford got stronger as the match went on, culminating in a .500 hitting percentage in set four. The Cardinal took the lead early and never gave it back, running away with a 25-17 set-clincher.

The weekend firmly solidified Stanford’s standing in the top three of the brutal MPSF conference, but there won’t be any room for a letdown with trips to UC-Irvine and UC-San Diego this weekend.