ASU Volleyball: Sun Devils stay home to face Bay Area schools

(Photo via Alyssa Buruato/WCSN)

After getting swept by the two southern California schools last weekend, Arizona State women’s volleyball (8-10, 2-4 Pac-12) will hope to avoid being swept by the state as a whole this weekend with two matchups against California (7-9, 0-6 Pac-12) and No. 7 Stanford (10-4, 5-1 Pac-12).

In their first weekend home in over five weeks, the Sun Devils struggled to find solid ground, taking only one set in the two matches. Still, ASU took solace in an improved showing from one match to the next.

“We of course hate to lose, but this shows that ASU isn’t the team we were when we played UCLA [on Friday],” junior middle blocker Claire Jeter said following Sunday’s loss to USC. “This was kind of a step up in the right direction, giving us confidence that we can battle with any team.”

One lesson the Sun Devils took from their disappointing weekend was the squad’s service game.

“We just need to make sure that we are hitting our serves,” Jeter said. “We have been talking about it in practice a lot. Our serves have been right at the people, and I think that is something we definitely need to work on. Hitting it deeper and hitting it harder so that it is really hard to get a perfect pass.”

In both games against the southern California schools, ASU was simultaneously out-aced and had more service errors than its opponent. The discrepancy was highly apparent in their match against UCLA, as the Sun Devils had zero aces and nine service errors compared to the Bruins’ six aces and eight service errors. ASU served slightly better on Sunday, with three aces compared to the Trojans’ four and eight service errors to the Trojans’ seven.

ASU will start the weekend similar to last week with a match against a winless team in the Pac-12 Conference. Cal comes into Friday’s match riding a six-game conference losing streak. The Golden Bears have only taken two sets in that span, with both coming in their five-set loss to Oregon State. Since then, they have been swept in four straight matches.

Cal is led by junior opposite hitter Lydia Grote, who leads the team with 216 kills and is the only Golden Bear with more than 200 kills.

While still the team offensive leader, Grote’s efficiency has been lacking, as she holds just a .209 hitting percentage. Grote is second on the team in aces with 18, but she also leads the team in service errors with 19.

While Cal presents a favorable matchup, Stanford is arguably the biggest challenge ASU has faced so far this year. The Cardinal is 10-4 on the season, but all four of its losses have come against ranked opponents. Stanford is also battle-tested, as eight of its 14 games have been against ranked opponents. In those eight games, Stanford is 4-4 with impressive wins over current No. 10 Minnesota and current No. 3 Nebraska.

One major obstacle ASU will have to overcome is Stanford’s excellent blocking game. The Cardinal currently lead the Pac-12 in blocks with 145.5 and is anchored in the middle by sophomore middle blocker Sami Francis and redshirt junior McKenna Vicini. Francis and Vicini are nearly tied in blocks with 64.0 and 63.0, respectively.

Offensively, the Cardinal is led by senior opposite hitter Kendall Kipp. Last year, Kipp was named to the All-Pac-12 team and has picked up where she left off this season. She leads the team in kills with 216 and aces with 28. The senior is paired with last year’s Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, sophomore setter Kami Miner. Miner is first on the team with 573 assists and leads the Pac-12 in assists per set with 11.45.

In 2021, the Sun Devils went 2-0 against the Golden Bears and will look to extend their winning streak against Cal to five games. On the opposite end, ASU is 7-75 all-time against Stanford.