BYU Beat Stanford....TWICE?

[007]

Is this correct? Did anyone see these matches at Maples? Feedback? Input?

[hwy101]

Both matches went to 5 games. The setters on both teams were very athletic although I would give the edge to Carlos Moreno of BYU. Alleman of BYU was impressive, he was unstoppable in both matches. Rafael Paal played well the first night but hit negative (?) the following night. He has a wicked jump-serve wherein he tosses the ball way in front of him, chases it and hits it reall hard upon contact. The following night though, he had more errors than aces. In the second match, Luka Slabe got slapped with a yellow card (resulting in a loss of point) and a few plays later got a red card (loss of point and ejected from the game).

Stanford loss a 5-game heartbreaker the following night. They had a few match points in the fifth game but couldn't convert. Curt Toppel was equally impressive but was slowed down a bit because of an ab pull he suffered during the Santa Barbara tourney. His left thumb was also heavily bandaged for both matches. Strickland, Bocage and Curtis picked up the slack for Stanford. The M2 position was shared by Buell, Sandman and Ahlfeldt.

A lot of trash talking especially on the BYU side. At one point, the down ref told the BYU players to stop talking across the net. I believe that was the reason why Slabe got the yellow and red cards although he was slapped both (by the up ref) when he was in the back-row!

[hwy101]

In the second match, I noticed that Curt Toppel was complaining (shades of another no. 15 from Stanford) about something to the Stanford coaching staff a number of times. It looks like he was concerned that the middle blocker wasn't sealing the block allowing BYU hitters to hit between the blocks. Too me, it looked like the middle blocker was slow moving to the right or left but this could be a product of the deceptiveness of the BYU setter.

[007]

Maybe it runs in the blood up there in the Bay Area, Complaining, I mean!