Cougars To Test Cardinal
Washington State’s volleyball team will Friday night try to accomplish something it hasn’t been able to do in 20 attempts.
Beat Stanford.
The match against the Cardinal will be the Cougars’ second in the Pacific-10 Conference this season and will be played on Stanford’s home court at 7:30 p.m. WSU travels to California Saturday.
Like last week’s conference opener at Washington, WSU’s game against Stanford will be shown live on Prime Sports Northwest.
The Cougars (9-2, 0-1) are hoping the match fills more air time (last week’s lasted less than 2 hours) and that the outcome is much different. UW beat the Cougars 17-15, 15-10, 15-8.
“I think we were a little intimidated by Washington,” WSU coach Cindy Fredrick said. “We seem to play a lot better when we’re the underdog.”
The lose dropped WSU in the USA Today/AVCA Top 25 poll from No. 6 to No. 10. The Huskies (10-1, 1-0) jumped from No. 24 to No. 18.
Stanford also suffered a shakeup in the rankings. The Cardinal (8-1, 2-0) lost at Pacific last week and fell from No. 2 to No. 4.
But after two Pac-10 wins on the road against Arizona and Arizona State, the Cardinal are back on their home court where they have won 50 of their last 52 matches dating back to 1992.
Stanford outside hitter Kristin Folkl is one of many weapons WSU will face. Folkl, a 6-foot-2 junior from St. Louis, was named the Pac10 player of the week this week after recording 39 kills (5.57 kills per game), and 12 blocks. Folkl had 20 kills against Arizona and 19 against ASU. She missed a large part of last season because she played on the national team.
California will not be as loaded. The Bears are off to a 2-5, 0-2 start. However, they do lead the series with WSU 15-11. The past two years, matches between the Cougars and Bear have gone five games.
Big West Conference begins
Idaho, which has enjoyed a 10-1 preseason record, begins life in the Big West Conference this weekend, playing host to Nevada (8-4) on Friday and Utah State (8-4) on Saturday. Both matches start at 7:30 p.m.
The Vandals have the best record among Big West Eastern Division teams. Nevada is second.
The Big West Western Division is headed by Long Beach State. The 49ers (11-0) are No. 6 in the rankings and travel to Moscow on Nov. 7.
Spokane’s Lee fights hard for Irish
Junior Jaime Lee, a Ferris High School graduate, opened the season at her third different position for No. 12 Notre Dame when she started at setter in the Shamrock Classic and chalked up 102 assists.
Her great play earned her tournament MVP and Big East Conference player of the week honors that week. Lee started as a middle blocker her freshman year and then shifted to an outside hitter. She was forced to change positions due to teammates’ injuries.
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