ATLANTA – The Stanford women’s volleyball team fought off two match points to prevent a sweep, and instead rallied for a five-set victory over No. 19 Georgia Tech on Wednesday.
No. 6 Stanford got a career-high 20 kills off the bench from redshirt freshman Ipar Kurt to pull off a 22-25, 20-25, 26-24, 25-18, 15-12 triumph before a loud packed house of 1,200 in tiny O’Keefe Gymnasium.
Stanford had won 21 consecutive sets going into the Atlantic Coast Conference match – a streak snapped in the first set – but the Cardinal managed to extend its overall winning streak to eight.
Stanford (24-4 overall, 16-3 ACC) sits in a tie for third in the conference with one match remaining – a Saturday showdown against No. 3 Louisville at Maples Pavilion at 1 p.m. Georgia Tech (20-8, 12-7) dropped into a sixth-place tie with Florida State.
Through two games, Stanford was hitting .115. Elia Rubin had nine kills at that point, but the rest of the team had a hitting percentage of minus-.026.
Stanford seemed to be playing catchup throughout the first three sets and things looked bleakest when the Yellow Jackets owned third-set leads of 16-12 and 23-20. And a service error had Stanford facing match point at 24-22.
However, Kurt began to sizzle. Her seventh kill of the match kept Stanford alive at 24-23 and Lizzy Andrew fought off a second match point to tie it, 24-24, by slamming the ball off a block and out of bounds. The Cardinal completed a 4-0 run with Kami Miner serving to close out the set with two more kills by Kurt, both off Miner assists. Miner had 50 assists overall.
Kurt didn’t stop there. She would hit .381, with 17 of her 20 kills coming in the final three sets.
The match changed with that third set victory. Stanford remained on the offensive, hitting .414 in the fourth set and, except for a 1-0 deficit, never trailed.
The fifth was tighter, but again the Cardinal seemed in control. Though there were six tie scores – the latest at 7-7 – Stanford never trailed. A Rubin kill after a Georgia Tech scramble put Stanford ahead for good and consecutive blocks by Sami Francis, the latter in tandem with Miner, added to a decisive 3-0 run and a 10-7 lead.
Kurt had two more kills: one after a great dig by Rubin in the back row for 13-10 and another with a cross court attack from the left for a 14-11 lead. A Georgia Tech attack error finished off the improbable Stanford victory.
Francis had 11 blocks and the team totaled 13. The Cardinal finished with a .252…
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