Beach volleyball hits eight-match win streak
No. 10 Stanford beach volleyball extended its win streak to eight on Wednesday afternoon, defeating both No. 17 Tulane (16-8, 0-0 Conference USA) and St Mary’s (9-17, 6-12 WCC) at the Stanford Beach Volleyball Stadium. The Cardinal cruised through the meet, winning 9 of the 10 sets they played.
Fifth-year Charlie Ekstrom and junior Maya Harvey finished first after an easy win against the Green Wave. Next, freshmen Sophie Kubak and Ashley Vincent were pushed to three sets, but closed it out in the decider, 15-10. Junior Xolani Hodel and senior Maddi Kriz finished third, cruising to an easy win, 21-16, 22-20. The Cardinal defeated the Green Wave 4-1, with their only loss coming from freshman Line Andersson and sophomore Taylor Wilson in the four slot.
“After the Tulane game, me and my partner were tense. We really wanted to win that game but it really didn’t go our way,” Andersson said of their close loss. “We regrouped after, talked to our coach, debriefed and mostly talked about being more aggressive and not letting them get in the game.”
Stanford then proceeded to sweep the Gaels. Andersson and Wilson also acquired their first win of the day 23-21, 21-14, helping the Cardinal to secure a 5-0 dual match win. Junior Emmy Sharp and freshman Daria Gusarova were especially dominant on court three, crushing their opponents 21-8, 21-15 to clinch the win.
8 match win streak
— Stanford Beach Volleyball (@StanfordBeachVB) April 5, 2023#GoStanford pic.twitter.com/mz0zLxONhd
“It’s important to go into this weekend with a good feeling because this weekend is going to be big for us,” Andersson said of this coming weekend’s North Pac-12 Invitational. “We definitely want to keep playing super aggressively. We can’t make as many of our own mistakes and definitely not give them easy points.”
Stanford will stay at home for the Invitational on Friday and Saturday. The weekend will bring matchups against Arizona (16-4, 1-1 Pac-12), No. 4 UCLA (16-13, 10-10 Pac-12), Oregon (26-6, 17-3 Pac-12) and No. 9 California (18-5, 1-0 Pac-12) on the Farm.
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