Texas A&M Volleyball gets swept by top-ranked Stanford, 3-0
Texas A&M fell to No. 1 Stanford in three sets (17-25, 20-25, 17-15) Sunday afternoon at Reed Arena.
Less than 24 hours after nearly upsetting No. 5 Penn State in five sets, the Aggies were not as competitive against Stanford, who lost to the Nittany Lions on Friday night in the first match of the three-team round robin.
Hollann Hans led the way with 12 kills for the Aggies, while Camille Conner hit .400 with seven kills and 18 assists, but they could not overcome Kathryn Plummer’s 22 kills for Stanford.
“I suppose it was tough to expect a similar performance to last night, but I do anyway, and I told them I did,” A&M head coach Laurie Corbelli said after the match. “I think not having confident attackers early really set a tone on our court of panic, and from there it spreads like wildfire.”
The Aggies jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in the first set, but the Cardinal promptly tied the set at six and, after the teams traded a few points, ran away late.
That momentum carried over to the next two sets as well, as the Aggies could not muster enough offense to keep pace with the defending national champion.
“I didn’t see my team out there, and that’s the disappointing part,” Corbelli said. “I tried to get them out of it, I did everything I knew how to do, to challenge them, but we just couldn’t ever get a run of points.”
Corbelli called timeout after the Cardinal jumped out to a 9-3 lead, and the Aggies scored three straight points. They closed the gap to 23-19 at one point later in the set, but Stanford scored two of the final three points to close out the victory.
The third set was more of the same as the 6-foot-6 Plummer, who Corbelli noted is one of the best college volleyball players she’s ever seen, notched eight kills to lead the way for the Cardinal, who improved to 4-1 on the season.
The back-to-back losses drop the Aggies to 2-2 on the season, but Corbelli was still glad they got to play two top-five teams this early in the season.
“I’m still really, really happy that we got this opportunity,” Corbelli said. “It gives us such great feedback on our team in the second week of our season. I don’t think we could have found out this much about our team if we had played some not-as-strong teams.”
A&M will head to Wisconsin next weekend to play two matches, the first against Lipscomb on Friday at 6 p.m.
“Today was disappointing, but it’s encouraging because we didn’t play well and we’re right there,” concluded senior libero Amy Nettles, who led the Aggies with 14 digs. “We’re really encouraged, our confidence isn’t shaken and we’re ready to get in the gym on Tuesday.”
