USC Men Get Second Win Over Stanford

Playing at home, the Stanford men made things much more competitive against No. 1 USC last night than in the teams' first meeting back in February, but the Trojans still prevailed, 25-22, 21-25, 25-22, 25-22. As noted in the linked article, "The Cardinal outhit USC (.305 to .290) and had more digs (45 to 39), but the Trojans posted 14 blocks (to Stanford's 6.5) and served 5 aces."

Among the teams' big hitters I discussed in yesterday's preview (below), the offensive star was USC's Tony Ciarelli, with a .500 attack percentage (21 K-4 E-34 TA). Steven Shandrick, a 6-7 middle-blocker amidst an attack oriented toward the outsides, added a .474 performance for the Trojans (10-1-19). Stanford managed to contain two of USC's other weapons, Murphy Troy (.059) and Tri Bourne (.222), but fell victim to the Trojans' depth and balance (box score).

For Stanford, Brad Lawson (.297, 17-6-37) and Spencer McLachlin (.267, 14-6-30) made solid contributions, with Eric Mochalski (.571, 9-1-14) coming up big. Brian Cook did not play.

Another thing I noticed in the box score was the high rate of siding-out (i.e., winning the rally on the opponent's serve) by both teams, which I have thusly plotted (you may click on the graph to enlarge it):

As I noted three years ago in an analysis focused on side-out rates, "Of necessity, the team that achieves a higher side-out rate in a game will win the game." Stanford was steady, for the most part, at a side-out rate around the mid-.60s. 'SC exceeded .70 in two of its game wins, an incredibly high rate. As seen for Game 2, the Cardinal was victorious only when it held the Trojans to a .58 side-out rate, a tall-order for any team.