PALO ALTO, Calif. — No. 7 BYU men’s volleyball fell 3-1 (25-21, 25-22, 23-25, 30-25) Friday night to No. 18 Stanford at Maples Pavillion.
The Cougars are now 15-5 this season and 2-1 in MPSF play after putting themselves in some deficits they couldn’t fight out off against the Cardinals. BYU forced deuce points late in the fourth set, nearly getting to a fifth set, but Stanford finished things off on its seventh match point.
AJ Cottle had a career night for BYU in Palo Alto, with a career-high 15 kills. He took 17 attempts, hitting .882.
Trent Moser had a team-high 16 kills, taking a career-high-matching 40 swings. Teilon-Jonathan Tufuga added 14 kills and two aces.
Tyler Herget added 46 assists, his second-highest assist total this season
Trevor Herget had a career-high 10 digs.
BYU hit .265 in the match, well below the Cougars’ season average. A top-10 team nationally in blocks, BYU had just six against Stanford, as the Cardinal racked up 10.
Set 1
The teams went back-and-forth with one-point leads on both sides until Stanford built the first multiple-point lead of the match on back-to-back aces to get to 8-5.
A 3-0 BYU run put the Cougars back up at 14-13, highlighted by a Tufuga kill.
A Tufuga ace made it 19-19, but Stanford would take control from there, ending the set on a 6-2 run to win the first frame 25-21.
Stanford hit .444 in the first set, while the Cougars hit .200.
Set 2
The second set started the same way as the first, with a Stanford block, but the Cougars fought back to take a 3-2 lead on a Connor Oldani kill and 4-3 lead on a Moser kill.
Multiple BYU attack errors followed by a Stanford kill and ace got Stanford out to a 12-8 lead, forcing a BYU timeout.
BYU came out of the timeout with a 3-0 run, featuring two Cottle kills and a duo block from Cottle and Moser.
The Cougars fought back to eventually make it 16-16 and 17-17 but could never grab the lead. Playing from behind for the majority of the set, the Cougars could never grab the lead and Stanford took the second set 25-22.
Set 3
BYU flipped the script in the third set, building multiple two-point leads while Stanford played catch up, highlighted by more kills by Cottle.
Tafuga’s second ace of the match made it 14-12 and Cottle’s 10th kill on his 11th attack of the match made it 15-12.
Trevor Herget contributed a few important kills to help the Cougars get to a 20-17 lead.
A late push from the Cardinal pushed BYU to take a timeout on the Cougars’ third set point at 24-23. Out of the timeout, Moser hammered his 10th kill of the match to give BYU the set.
Set 4
A couple of BYU attack errors put BYU in an early hole in the fourth set. The Cougars and Cardinal kept trading points from there, but BYU couldn’t get within two points of Stanford.
The Cougars got within one at 13-12 on a Stanford attack error, but again would fall back behind after that until a Moser kill out of system got BYU back to a 21-20 deficit.
Two late Cottle kills finally got BYU back to a 24-24 tie, the first of the set since 1-1, and forced deuce points.
BYU battled from there with a remarkable save by Jackson Fife to tie things at 27-27 and an out-of-system kill from Moser off of a Tufuga assist to make it 28-28. Despite BYU fighting off six match points, Stanford won it on the seventh, 30-28.
Up Next
These two teams face each other again tomorrow night in Maples Pavilion.