![\"All-American](\"http:\/\/www.stanforddaily.com\/cgi-bin\/wp-content\/uploads\/spo012210mvb-200x300.jpg\" "\\"spo012210mvb\\"")
<\/p>\nAll-American senior setter Kawika Shoji leads the No.3 Cardinal as it travels to BYU. Last week, in a victory over No. 8 Hawaii, Shoji\u2019s strong play helped pace the Cardinal on the way to a three-set sweep of the Warriors. (Stanford Daily File Photo)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
While the Cardinal swept Hawaii over the weekend, BYU swept its two matches against Pacific.<\/p>\n
During BYU\u2019s home opener on Friday, outside hitters Andrew Stewart and Kevin Sagers led the Cougars offensively with nine kills each. BYU\u2019s biggest advantage came from powerful middle blockers that rallied 18 blocks for the night, led by Russell Lavaja and Futi Tavana, who each put up seven. The following night, BYU\u2019s offensive leaders Robb Stowell and Stewart hit 13 and 10 kills, respectively. The Cougars swept Pacific both nights 3-0.<\/p>\n
BYU features a strong team that faced three other MPSF teams already \u2014 No. 2 UC-Irvine, No. 8 UCLA and No. 9 Cal State Northridge. While it was only tournament play, BYU pulled out wins over Irvine, the defending national champions and UCLA. However, the Cougars fell to Northridge.<\/p>\n
Kosty expects it to be \u201ca dog fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, Stanford beat BYU two of the three times they matched up. The loss was the result of a five-set thriller and the two wins were 3-0 sweeps. But, another year adds more experience and consistency.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth teams are very consistent and don\u2019t make a lot of unforced errors,\u201d Kosty said. \u201cAs usual for men\u2019s volleyball, the serving and passing battle will probably decide the match.\u201d<\/p>\n
With sophomore libero Erik Shoji on the Stanford side, who racked up 20 digs last weekend, the passing is expected to be solid. Shoji is the defensive leader for the Card and has put up numbers to blow away any national competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our biggest strength at this point is our ball control,\u201d Shoji said. \u201cEach match, we try to force our opponent into the mistakes by not making them ourselves. Also, we try to be \u2018in-system\u2019 as much as possible, which makes it more difficult for our opponents to stop us.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, as Kosty mentioned, the serving game will be one of the defining factors of the match. Last weekend, the Card was fortunate enough not to have to depend on its serves. Even still, sophomore outside hitter Brad Lawson dominated with five aces of the 10.<\/p>\n
Although Stanford has a stacked lineup that is senior-led by setter Kawika Shoji, opposite Evan Romero and middle blocker Garrett Werner, playing the first away match of the season at BYU has its challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing about BYU is their crowd. There are a lot of them and they can be loud,\u201d Werner said. \u201cThe gym\u2019s a lot of fun to play in because the crowd surrounds you. When you go back to serve . . . [they are] pretty much breathing down your neck behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n
BYU continuously brings in thousands of fans, which might be a slight disadvantage if the Card begins to lose focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with an opposing crowd, I think our focus will be even stronger, since we\u2019ll only want to concentrate on our play and not their fans,\u201d Werner said.<\/p>\n
Despite outside factors, Stanford should match up evenly against BYU, as both teams boast similar styles of play, which reinforces the need for good serving and passing. Both teams are strong offensively and are capable of tough defense.<\/p>\n
This weekend will be another important series in deciding where the Cardinal will stand in the MPSF.<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s volleyball will return home on Jan. 23 in Burnham Pavilion to play UC-Santa Barbara at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stanford men\u2019s volleyball travels to Provo to take on BYU After opening with a successful weekend sweep of No. 8 Hawaii, the No. 3 Stanford men\u2019s volleyball team travels to Utah to face No. 5 BYU for another weekend of challenging Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) competition. \u201cWe executed pretty well on offense and defense,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}