Stanford sweeps Rainbow Warriors

STANFORD, Calif. >> Stanford’s Clay Jones fired his serve hot, right at the top of the net. The red, white and blue ball smacked the tape and dribbled over, falling right in the middle of the Hawaii defense.

The serve wrapped up the second set of a three-set sweep for the sixth-ranked Cardinal over No. 4 Hawaii at Burnham Pavilion on Friday. An expected tight match between top-10 teams never materialized as Stanford (9-2, 7-2 MPSF) took just 85 minutes to finish the 25-18, 25-19, 25-16 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation victory.

But Jones’ serve really summed up the night for both teams. The No. 4 Rainbow Warriors (9-3, 4-3) were outplayed from the get-go. And the one point where they showed signs of life — it was Jones and his serve that helped shut them down.

“Clay Jones came off the bench and served I don’t know how many serves,” said Cardinal sophomore libero Evan Enriques, a Kamehameha-Hawaii graduate.

The answer was eight consecutive serves to end Set 2. Jones had subbed for junior opposite Gabriel Vega (‘Iolani) when Hawaii took a 19-16 lead. A kill by Conrad Kaminski turned the serve over to Jones.

Kaminski had a kill and two blocks during the 9-0 run and finished the night with match highs of 11 kills and five blocks.

“Clay got us the momentum back by just serving good, smart serves,” Stanford coach John Kosty said. “We came out pretty focused.

“I think the thing we did tonight is we served well. We served and passed and that’s the name of the game. The teams that are serving and passing well at any given moment are the teams that are winning games and sets and matches.

It was a short and disappointing night for the Warriors. Coach Charlie Wade said his team just wasn’t crisp on serve-receive all night, giving up eight aces to the Cardinal.

“We put together a nice little run there in the second set and got a lead,” he said. “In the third set we just didn’t have enough guys on the court that were playing at a high level.”

Hawaii scored the first point in all three sets. But Stanford quickly got control in the first, racing to a 10-4 lead and was never threatened. Sophomore serving specialist Joe Worsley, who grew up nearby in Moraga, had a three-point run serving to help the Warriors get close in Set 2 and two kills by junior setter Jennings Franciskovic and one by senior hitter Siki Zarkovic spurred the run that put Hawaii up 19-16.

Zarkovic finished with a team-high 10 kills. Hawaii hit a season-low .064 and lost the block war 10-5.5.

For Enriques and Vega, it was a big night facing the school from their home state. Enriques was solid at libero, aced once in 19 receptions, with four digs.

“This was probably the biggest game of the season for me,” Enriques said, noting Hawaii had recruited him. “I was so nervous to play.”

A crowd of 837 crammed into the old gym, the contest conflicting with a women’s basketball game going on nearby in Maples Pavilion. Hawaii and Stanford will move to Maples for today’s rematch.

“I think Hawaii is a lot better team than we saw tonight, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be a lot better tomorrow,” Enriques said. “It could happen the same way reversed tomorrow night.”

His coach agreed.

“I expect Hawaii to come back blazing tomorrow,” Kosty said. “They’re a really solid team. We expect a barn-burner tomorrow. I expect a really hard battle tomorrow.”

MPSF VOLLEYBALL

Friday

Long Beach State def. Southern California 25-18, 25-19, 25-15

BYU def. Princeton 25-22, 25-19, 25-22

Stanford def. Hawaii 25-18, 25-19, 26-16

UC Santa Barbara def. UC San Diego 25-20, 25-22, 25-15

California Baptist def. CSUN 25-14, 21-25, 19-25, 25-25, 16-14 Today

Hawaii at Stanford, 5 p.m. HST

UC San Diego at UCLA

BYU at NJIT

NO. 6 STANFORD DEF. NO. 4 HAWAII 25-18, 25-19, 25-16

Key — s: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d: digs; bs: block solo; ba: block assists; pts: points (kills plus blocks plus aces).

Service Aces — Hawaii 4 (van Tilburg, McKellar, Franciskovic, Fey). Stanford 8 (Rakestraw 3, Jones 2, Kaminski, Ewert, Hayden). Service errors — Hawaii 5 (Mol 2, van Tilburg, McKellar, Fey). Stanford 10 (Kaminski 2, Shaw 2, Ewert 2, Hayden 2, Dagostino 2). Assists — Hawaii 29 (Franciskovic 27, Fey, Kanetake). Stanford 36 (Shaw 32, Vega, Ewert, Hayden, Enriques) T — 1:25. Officials — Bill Forrester, John Kinyon. A — 837.