Texas A&M Falls to No. 2 Stanford in Season Opener

Friday, August 28

Palo Alto, Calif.

8:00 PM

Texas A&M

0-1

Stanford

1-0

TAMU

Stanford

Aug 28, 2015 | Volleyball

Box Score

By: Texas A&M Media Relations

STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford lived up to its No. 2 billing, sweeping Texas A&M, 25-19, 25-19, 25-15, in both teams' season opener at Maples Pavilion.

Senior outside hitter Angela Lowak led the Aggies with 13 kills while hitting .375. Sophomore Kiara McGee came off the bench and pitched in seven kills. Defensively, sophomores Stephanie Aiple and Amy Nettles tied for the team lead in digs with six each, while junior middle blocker Jazzmin Babers led in blocks with three.

Stanford, which reached the NCAA semifinals in 2014 and was playing a season opener at home for the first time since 2006, outhit A&M, .320 to .160. Senior outside hitter Jordan Burgess led the Cardinal with 13 kills, and Brittany Howard and Hayley Hodson added 12 and 10 kills, respectively. Hodson, a highly touted freshman, finished with a double-double as she pitched in a match-high 11 digs. Sophomore Ivana Vanjak had eight blocks to lead the Cardinal to an 11 to 5.5 advantage in team blocks.

The Aggies started senior Shelby Sullivan and Babers at middle blocker, junior Emily Hardesty at outside hitter and sophomores Ashlie Reasor and Aiple at the right side and at setter, respectively. In addition, freshman defensive specialist Amy Houser made her Aggie debut, starting as a back-row defensive specialist, with Lowak taking over in the front row. Nettles was the designated libero.

Others coming off the bench and appearing for the Aggies were freshmen Kaitlyn Blake and Paige Panter and junior defensive specialist Victoria Arenas.

A&M scored the first point of the match as Stanford served wide, but it would be the only lead the Aggies would hold in the set as the Cardinal came back with back-to-back kills.

Stanford built its largest lead of the opening set at 17-11 following an A&M attack error. The teams then began exchanging point for point until Babers put down a Stanford overpass for a kill and the Cardinal hit into the net on the ensuing play to put the Aggies within 22-18.

Following a Stanford timeout, the Aggies had some miscommunication and were unable to connect on an attack attempt, putting Stanford up, 23-18. Madi Bugg followed with a solo block to put Stanford at set point. Lowak kept the Aggies alive with her sixth kill of the set before Howard's kill secured the win for the Cardinal.

Stanford, which outhit A&M .342 to .263 in the opening set, hit .222 while holding A&M to a -.033 hitting percentage in the second set. McGee drew the start in the second set and sparked the Aggies to a 6-3 lead, teaming with Sullivan for a block to start the frame and also getting a kill through the seam followed by back-to-back service aces that gave A&M the three-point advantage. A&M later used a three-point run -- which included a Lowak kill, a block by Babers and Reasor and a Stanford attack into the net – to build its largest lead at 10-6. The Cardinal then rallied, outscoring A&M, 8-2 to go up 14-12.

Stanford continued to pull away, twice reeling off three consecutive points en route to a 23-18 lead. Babers ended one of the rallies with a kill on the slide attack to put A&M within 23-19, but a Cardinal kill and an ace closed out the frame.

McGee put the Maroon and White on the scoreboard first in the third set with a kill, but the lead was short lived. Stanford twice tied the score before a kill by Hodson put the Cardinal up for good at 3-2. Stanford, which outhit A&M .375 to .219 in the set, quickly pulled away and eventually built its largest lead of the match at 20-10. The lead was too much for the Aggies to overcome, and Stanford later closed out the sweep on a kill by Howard.

The Aggies return to Maples Pavilion on Saturday to face Minnesota in the Gophers' season opener. First serve is set for 4:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m. CT) and links to the live stats will be available at 12thMan.com.

Visit 12thMan.com for more information on Texas A&M volleyball. Aggie fans also can keep up to date with the A&M volleyball team on Facebook and on Twitter and Instagram by following @AggieVolleyball.

Texas A&M Head Coach Laurie Corbelli quotes:

On her overall thoughts of the match…
"Looking for the positive spin on it, our outside hitters did a beautiful job. Angela [Lowak], Kiara [McGee], and Emily [Hardesty] have been working hard all last spring and summer to improve their numbers, both front and back row. That was such a bright spot to see those guys just really get physical and do the things they do in practice every day.

"I thought we had kind of a sketchy start with serve receive, and kind of as a result our offense struggled a little getting into any rhythm. Then if we didn't terminate, Stanford came back with super-fast beautiful transition plays, and that kind of stunned us a little bit. We made too many service errors at really bad times -- right when we would maybe get a run of points -- so that made it even more difficult to get into our rhythm.

"I thought in set two we started off a little bit better with our serving. There is a lot to learn from this. This is the kind of loss that you take to the No. 2 team in the country that you have to really find the great things your team did and really ride with that. And it will show our glaring weaknesses. I think it will be motivating. I expect the team to really learn a lot from this and hopefully even overnight and come back tomorrow with a better overall performance.

On opening the season against a high-ranked team…
"I like it. I thought we were ready. We had one of the best practices we have had yesterday when we got here. We have just been doing so many great things in practice. I think if there is any group that was ready to go to play this kind of level early, it would be this group. [Stanford] had seen us, I'm sure, since we return everyone. They had a really tough game plan on our middle. I think that was really hard for us to accept. They shut down Shelby [Sullivan] and Jazz [Babers] pretty early, and we are used to those two getting our good, quick rhythm going.

"We had not seen them at all. We didn't know anything about them. Likewise tomorrow, we don't know anything about Minnesota. From that perspective, we got the worst end of the deal in terms of scout report. But no excuses. We really have to look at this as an opportunity to learn and get this behind us. And I believe this team will."

On getting many of the underclassmen into the match...
"Our freshmen in our practices have really been standing out in certain areas that we needed someone to stand out in. For instance, Amy Houser in the middle back, we decided that was a chance to get her out there in Lowak's spot and get some passes and some defense going, which she has been doing really well. All of our defensive specialists have been doing a really nice job in practice. [Kaitlyn] Blake luckily was here in the spring, and it really helped a lot getting her both middle and right-side work. She is a great, competitive kid and just needed to get out on the court. No matter how she did, we just wanted one thing from her: executing her block the way she knows how. We just tried to keep it simple for them and just give them one job, and I thought they just did a beautiful job and I'm glad they got to get out and start their collegiate careers against a great team and in an environment on the road."