BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — LSU couldn’t have requested for extra.
A fully excellent Good Friday right here, temps within the low 70s with no cloud within the sky. Identical to Southern California.
The most effective discipline ever for an in-season NCAA seashore volleyball event.
However the volleyball piece was powerful for the house workforce, because the 4 squads from the West within the Loss of life Volley Invitational dominated the 4 groups from the East.
To wit:
No. 1 USC got here away with 5-0 victories over No. 4 TCU and No. 17 Florida Atlantic.
No. 2 UCLA beat No. 5 Florida State 4-1 after which left TCU reeling, when it additionally beat the Horned Frogs 5-0.
No. 3 Stanford beat each FAU and No. 10 LSU 5-0.
No. 6 Cal misplaced 3-2 to FSU however got here again and took it to the hometown Tigers to wrap up the day, profitable 4-1, sweeping the 4 matches it received.
Maybe the best-played and most entertaining matches concerned three-set losses by TCU’s No. 1 workforce of Hailey Hamlet and Anehlina Khmi, final week’s AVCA nationwide pair of the week. The misplaced to USC’s Megan Kraft and Delaynie Maple 21-14, 21-23, 15, after which fell to UCLA’s Lexy Denaburg 24-22, 21-19.
And the TCU pair will get no breather of their first match Saturday, after they open with Stanford’s rock-solid No.1 of Xolani Hodel and Brooke Rockwell.
Saturday’s slate on the LSU Seashore Volleyball Courts guarantees extra prime faculty competitors.
At 8 a.m. Central, Stanford performs TCU.
Cal vs. FAU is scheduled for 9:15, which means each of these West Coast groups have early begins for groups from the Pacific time zone.
Stanford will get to move house early, as a result of the Cardinal then play Florida State at 10:30 a.m.
Earlier than the day ends, LSU performs USC, Cal performs TCU, UCLA performs FAU, USC performs FSU and the two-day occasion wraps up with LSU vs. UCLA.
All matches might be seen on Volleyball World TV.
Stanford has been a program on the upswing. Final season, the Cardinal completed 29-13 in duals and superior to the NCAA Championships, the place they beat Grand Canyon however acquired swept by TCU.
This 12 months, Stanford is on a roll, 16-2 after Saturday. That features a victory over USC, two over UCLA and one over TCU. Its solely defeats have been to UCLA and then-No. 10 Arizona State, each 3-2.
Stanford boasts a lineup from prime to backside that’s fast, athletic, and clearly proficient.
“On the recruiting panorama, we clearly attempt to get people who find themselves actually dynamic and transfer properly and have good arms and all that stuff, however I feel we attempt to meet the athletes the place they’re and spotlight the issues they will do very well,” mentioned Stanford eighth-year coach Andrew Fuller.
“And we apply in a approach that’s like, ‘Right here’s the issue, you need to clear up it?’ ”
There haven’t been too many issues thus far this season. Friday, the No. 1 pair of Hodel and Rockwell received their first match towards FAU 21-12, 21-19, after which battled to a 21-17, 22-24, 15-11 win over LSU’s Gabi Bailey and Ellie Shank.
At No. 2, Ruby Sorra and Taylor Wilson swept FAU after which beat LSU’s Parker Bracken and Reilly Allred 21-19, 19-21, 15-8. Sorra — a Canadian freshman — and Wilson — a junior from Santa Barbara — are 15-3 and Stanford’s winningest pair.
The No. 3 pair of Chloe Hoffman and Kelly Belardi didn’t lose a set, nor dAshley Vincent and Maya Harvey at No. 4 nor Clara Stowell and Kate Reilly at No. 5.
Reilly, a senior from Manhattan Seashore, famous this 12 months’s Stanford workforce has an improved tradition, a greater sense of objective in practices and has gotten a giant increase from an amazing freshman class.
“I agree with that heartily,” Fuller mentioned.
Reilly, for one, performed at No. 3 on the finish of final 12 months, however this 12 months mentioned she is fortunately at No. 5 the place she and Stowell, a freshman, have received 10 matches in a row and are 11-3.
For that matter, Stanford’s roster has an attention-grabbing mixture of expertise. Harvey and Hodel are the opposite seniors, Wilson is a junior, Belardi and Vincent are sophomores, and Rockwell and Sorra are additionally freshmen.
A part of the brand new and improved Stanford workforce consists of gamers — not coaches — giving the pre-match talks and the addition of longtime professional Billy Allen to the employees.
“We began asking them to do this (give the speak) this season and, in full candor,” Fuller mentioned with fun, “I feel they have been fairly bored with listening to me. It’s far more significant coming from them and we simply wished to make it possible for as a gaggle they’re main the cost. We’re simply supporting them.”
Allen, 42, has had an extended and illustrious professional seashore profession, even profitable AVP Denver Open final summer time with Alison Cerutti. Final fall, he served as a volunteer coach at Cal and lives in Berkeley. When Fuller provided him a job, he accepted however didn’t transfer to Palo Alto. So he takes BART after which a bus for a five-hour commute each methods to to work for the Cardinal. He’s strongly contemplating shifting subsequent 12 months, he admitted.
“Billy and I’ve been actually shut mates for like 15 years,” mentioned the 6-foot-10 Fuller, 39, who performed professionally on the seashore from 2007-13. “We by no means performed collectively, however have been speaking about teaching and sport for thus lengthy that the muse and the bottom was already there. We have been already talking the identical language. It’s actually enjoyable to have a training employees the place you will have that consolation and belief with one another.”
Additionally on employees is first-year assistant Jo Kremer, who performed at USC when Fuller was an assistant there. For years, Fuller’s spouse, former professional Lauren Fendrick, was his volunteer assistant, however when staffs might add one other paid coach, she stepped away and Allen got here in.
“It was a extremely nice transition with Billy,” Fuller mentioned.
And that commute? “We need to be certain the gamers know that, too, that degree of dedication. That’s gnarly.”
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Click on right here for the Stanford recap of its victories over FAU and LSU.
Click on right here for USC’s recap of its wins over TCU and FAU.
Click on right here for the UCLA recap of its victories over Florida State and TCU.
And right here for Cal’s outcomes towards FSU and LSU.