With just three games remaining before the regular season ends and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament begins, the Stanford men’s volleyball team is gearing up for a dogfight. Although the team has already clinched a spot in the postseason–which in men’s volleyball spans the annual conference tournament and four-team NCAA Tournament that follows–the No. 2 seed in the playoffs is still up for grabs as the No. 3 Cardinal trails No. 2 BYU by half a game.
National No. 1 USC has already wrapped up the MPSF regular season title by going 17-1 in conference play and 18-1 overall, and has to be the current favorite to win both the MPSF and NCAA titles. Stanford (17-7, 13-6 MPSF) is still trying to avoid being placed in USC’s half of the MPSF draw, which it could do by finishing either second or third in the standings.
Thankfully for Stanford, the Cardinal swept the season series against BYU, so it does in fact control its own destiny in the race for the No. 2 seed.
To achieve that goal, Stanford must take care of business this weekend on the road against No. 6 UC-Santa Barbara (13-11, 10-8) and No. 7 UCLA (15-11, 8-10). The Bruins have struggled of late, dropping matches to No. 11 UC-San Diego and No. 8 UC-Irvine in the past week. But they have been able to protect their home court, having won seven of 11 games in Westwood this season.
Santa Barbara also enjoys playing with the comforts of home, where they are 7-5 this year. The Gauchos swept San Diego–the team that shocked Stanford in Maples Pavilion in March–on the road last weekend before falling at the hands of UC-Irvine in Irvine.
Junior All-American outside hitter Brad Lawson currently leads the team with 383 kills, and his .332 hitting percentage is second on the team among players with at least 50 attempts. Lawson and fellow outside hitter senior Spencer McLachlin have accounted for over half of the team’s 1,267 kills on the season.
And the questions surrounding new junior setter Evan Barry have long since been answered–Barry has racked up 1,075 assists and led a strong Stanford offensive attack all season long in filling the big shoes of graduated senior setter Kawika Shoji. Kawika, the older brother of junior libero Erik, was the AVCA National Player of the Year as he led Stanford to the NCAA title last May.
But while the veterans’ contributions have met lofty preseason expectations, the efforts of freshmen Brian Cook, Eric Mochalski, Stevin Irvin and Denny Falls have really been what’s put Stanford in position for another deep run in the postseason.
Outside hitter Cook is third on the team with 158 kills and middle blocker Mochalski is hitting .432 with 142 kills, and both have started almost every game this season. In addition, both outside hitter Irvin and middle blocker Falls have come on strong of late with some critical stretches of inspired play.
If the Cardinal is to make it back to the NCAA tournament, it will likely have to at least make it to the MPSF Tournament final, because there is only one at-large bid.
Should Stanford slip up and lose both games this weekend, it would fall back into a tie with No. 8 Hawaii, which currently sits in fourth place, assuming BYU does not lose both of its games against Pepperdine, and Hawaii somehow manages to knock off USC twice on the road. If that were to happen, it would put a lot of pressure on the Cardinal in its final match of the regular season on Saturday April 16 at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.
The MPSF tournament begins the weekend after that, with the top-four seeds securing home-court advantage for the first round, with the second round played at the site of the higher-seeded school. The NCAA Tournament begins on Thursday, May 5, in State College, Penn.