Oregon volleyball made its way off the court, heads hung low and faces without emotion, after the team was swept by No.7 Stanford on Thursday night, 25-23, 25-17, 25-18.
Whether the loss was due to a lack of energy or the absence of a winning mentality is up for debate. But one excuse head coach Jim Moore refuses to accept is that the youth of the five-freshman-and-six-sophomore team had an effect.
“We’re not young anymore. It’s November,” Moore said.
Unlike the previous losses this season, Moore wasn’t fired up after his team’s defeat. His brow was unfurrowed and he was not struck with disbelief that the team lost in straight sets. He just wanted the team to focus on the point at hand and not the match as a whole.
“We start to play safe,”Oregon’s leading scorer of the night, Lindsey Vander Weide said.
Oregon didn’t start playing safe until the end of the first set tonight, though. The Ducks took the court with energy and enthusiasm, celebrating every point like it was the last of the set. Oregon didn’t even allow the Cardinal to lead the first set until the score hit the 20’s, when Stanford picked up its first lead of the night, 22-21 over Oregon.
Stanford took that lead and used it to power through to a set win, gaining the 1-0 advantage.
“We didn’t stay focused,” Moore said. “And one point turned into four.”
The Cardinal kept its energy after the first set win and used that spirit to take the second set with relative ease, 17-25. Oregon did its best to keep up, tying the score at 12 with a kill by Taylor Agost. But a 6-1 scoring run by the Cardinal was more than Oregon could handle. It was also the point in the match when the vibe on Oregon’s side of the court took a turn.
“Once you loose that focus, it’s really hard to regain it,” Moore said.
Oregon was unable to regain that focus for the rest of the evening, and Stanford used the turn to take hold of the third and final set, forcing Oregon errors and making big kills of its own. Oregon used both its timeouts early to try to break the Cardinal run, but even a break in the energy wasn’t enough to stop Stanford’s outsides and middle from wreaking havoc. Stanford took the set 25-18, ending Oregon’s chances at a set win.
“Our energy went down when we started losing,” Vander Weide said. “We need to keep pushing forward and keep that lead.”
Vander Weide was the only Duck to score in the double digits tonight with 11 kills, followed by Agost who added nine.
The match was Oregon’s first of two at home this week. The Ducks’ chance at redemption will be on Sunday against Cal, a team that Oregon swept earlier this season. Oregon hopes the turnout for that match matches that it had tonight. A nearly filled Matthew Knight Arena was present for the game, which was this year’s “student appreciation” for the Ducks.
With a final disappointed sigh, Moore expressed his dismay with the difficulty Oregon faced tonight, wishing the team could have put on a better show for the fans.
“We needed to play better for them,” Moore said.
Follow Madison Layton on Twitter @MadisonLayton01