W. volleyball: 36 kills from Stanford’s top player beats Bruins

Needing just one point to seal the Cardinal’s seventh
consecutive victory over UCLA, Stanford outside hitter Ogonna
Nnamani went up for her 65th kill attempt of the night.

She encountered three Bruin blockers at the net, desperately
trying to find a way to stop the player that had torched UCLA the
entire match. But the Athens Olympian easily put away her
career-best 36th kill of the match, a fitting end to a match that
had seen her dominate from start to finish.

“Well, she only took about 65 swings tonight, normally
she’s up in the ’70s,” Bruin coach Andy
Banachowski said. “I guess that’s something. She came
through for them big-time tonight.”

Behind Nnamani’s incredible performance, No. 14 Stanford
(11-4, 4-1 Pac-10) once again proved to be the better team against
No. 10 UCLA (11-4, 4-2 Pac-10), defeating the Bruins in four games
30-24, 24-30, 30-25, 30-28. One night earlier UCLA handled
California in three games, meaning that both UCLA’s winning
and losing streaks against the Bay Area schools would continue.

Nnamani had 36 kills on .385 hitting. She also had 14 digs and
an ace. In the single game that the Bruins won, Nnamani was held to
only four kills, while tallying double-digits in kills in the other
three games. Her all-around ability and athleticism left Bruin
senior Krystal McFarland stating the obvious.

“She’s just an amazing player. She has it all. She
can hit, block, serve,” McFarland said. “She can also
jump really high, over our blockers.”

However, senior Heather Cullen was dismayed that Stanford needed
only one player to show up for the Cardinal.

“A team shouldn’t be able to win with only one good
hitter. One player shouldn’t be able to take our team
down,” she said.

Though an upset based on the rankings, the loss to Stanford can
hardly be called a letdown. The Cardinal have owned UCLA in recent
years, and its match Saturday night only served to reinforce that
notion.

The Bruins had more than their share of chances to finally knock
off their Pac-10 rival, but often shot themselves in the foot in
crucial situations. Service errors especially proved to be
extremely costly for UCLA. The Bruins had a total of 11 service
errors on the night, compared to four from Stanford. Sophomore Nana
Meriwether had four errors, while three other players had two
each.

Tied at 17 in the first game, Cullen served the ball into the
net, sparking a 4-0 run by Stanford. In the third game, sophomore
Colby Lyman and Cullen had back-to-back errors in their rotations.
Down 24-22 in the later stages of that game, Lyman served the ball
long to give the Cardinal all the cushion it would need. But
perhaps the most costly element of all the service errors was not
so much the free points to Stanford, but rather the fact that they
allowed Nnamani to continually play in the front row, rather than
pinning her back on defense. The lack of scoring opportunities for
UCLA instead resulted in more scoring opportunities for Nnamani,
and she was more than capable of converting those for points.

The fourth game saw the most drama. Down 22-17, Banachowski
substituted senior Brittany Ringel for Meriwether during her
service rotation. Ringel had been relegated to the bench after a
slow start in the first game, and sophomore Becky Green had filled
in for Ringel nicely, leading the team in kills in the second game.
But Meriwether’s shaky serving gave Ringel a second chance,
and the senior made the most of her opportunity.

Behind her serving, the Bruins staged a ferocious rally,
eventually taking the lead at 24-22, forcing Stanford to call a
timeout. The Bruins’ lead would grow to 25-22 after the
Cardinal were called for a mishandled ball, but the Bruins
frittered away the lead in certain crucial situations.

Ultimately, Nnamani put down the final kill of the game, handing
the Bruins another bitter loss.

Stanford was able to keep its streak alive over UCLA, and the
Bruins in turn were able to extend their streak over No. 17
California (8-5, 3-1), sweeping an overmatched Golden Bear squad in
three games 30-20, 30-27, 30-28 Friday night. It was UCLA’s
45th consecutive victory over Cal.

The Bears didn’t put up much of a fight in the first game,
and the Bruins out-hit their Northern California counterparts .444
to .146. Both teams seemed to simply go through the motions after
that point, each team knowing exactly what the end result would be:
the only result that has ever occurred between the two teams since
they began playing over twenty years ago.