No. 20 ASU did something that only one other Pac-12 team has accomplished this year: they took No. 1 Stanford to five sets.
Stanford pulled out on top, nulling the accomplishment, but ASU showed the resiliency that’s kept them in so many matches and that coach Jason Watson has said is so important.
ASU lost the two sets by large margins.
Set one featured three Stanford runs in which they scored at least four points in a row. The final of these was a 9-0 run in which junior middle blocker Inky Ajanaku and junior setter Maddi Bugg hit three kills each.
Ajanaku was a problem for ASU the first time the two schools played this year, hitting 14 kills in four sets. That night, though, the Sun Devil defense managed to hold her to a pedestrian .250 hitting percentage. Tonight, Ajanaku exploded for 20 kills and only four errors, hitting a whopping .457 percent.
Bugg showed unique strengths as a setter. She passed for 54 assists and received 13 digs, but also hit seven kills on a .333 hitting percentage. Setters tend to focus on passing with sporadic setter attacks, but Bugg was a larger threat to get a kill than ASU is accustomed to from setters.
ASU junior setter Bianca Arellano had only one kill, though she was forced to hit it 11 times.
ASU dropped set one 25-11. Set two wasn’t much better, falling 25-16.
Sophomore outside hitter BreElle Bailey finally got going in the set, though, getting four kills. She finished the match with 10 kills and two errors, which is by far her best offensive output in the last month. She added three blocks on defense.
Junior outside hitter Whitney Follette was the story of the blocking game. She had eight of them, making up for her poor offensive output (one kill and four errors on 18 attempts).
ASU snuck away with a 25-22 set three victory led by junior outside hitter Macey Gardner. She had nine kills in the set.
Freshman setter Madison McDaniel also had a pair of late kills. She subbed in for sophomore outside hitter Kizzy Willey, who had one kill and four errors on 20 attempts through two sets. She only had three digs.
Set four was plagued with attack errors; ASU had three of them early and fell behind 7-3. They found their stride, though, forcing Stanford into three errors and tying the score at 10. From there, it was a back-and-forth set, with no team taking a lead by more than one point until junior libero Mia Mazon hit an ace to take a 20-18 lead.
She promptly hit a service error, though, showing the inconsistency of ASU’s serving game and perhaps its largest problem as a team. ASU had nine serving errors and only two aces.
With the score tied at 22, ASU forced Stanford into two hitting errors and finished the set with an Arellano kill. They shocked Stanford, coming back from an early deficit and forcing a set five.
To begin set five, ASU looked good. They forced Stanford into four errors and Gardner had two kills to take a 7-4 lead. Stanford’s the number one team for a reason, though, and the Cardinal rights wrongs quickly.
Stanford promptly tied the score at seven. They grabbed a miniscule lead, and up 12-11, Ajanaku hit two consecutive kills. The match ended on a Gardner attempt that was blocked by Ajanku and junior outside hitter Jordan Burgess.
Gardner’s 21 kills couldn’t get ASU over the hump and they lost 15-11 in the fifth set. Stanford remains undefeated on the year.
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @Logan_Newsman
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