Women's Volleyball Match of the Week preview: No. 14 Arizona State at No. 7 Stanford

Who: No. 14 Arizona State at No. 7 Stanford

When: Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 7:30 p.m. PT on Pac-12 Networks, with Krista Blunk and Holly McPeak on the call.

The second half of conference play begins on The Farm, where another top-15 battle on the Pac-12 Networks’ Women’s Volleyball Match of the Week ensues.

The Story so Far: No. 14 Arizona State (17-4, 6-4 Pac-12)

How good is Arizona State? At the moment, that’s a tough question to answer.

At the beginning of the season, Arizona State lived up to its predicted-to-finish-second-in-the-Pac-12 billing. The Sun Devils went undefeated in conference play, taking out two top-10 teams along the way (at No. 9 Colorado State and vs. No. 6 Illinois).That continued into conference play, when the Sun Devils won their first four Pac-12 games at home, including two against top-15 squads (No. 14 Arizona and No. 8 Stanford). With career kills leader Macey Gardner leading the way, Arizona State was 15-0 (second-longest winning streak to start a season in school history) and a serious threat to win a loaded conference.

And then disaster struck – Gardner, the reigning AVCA and Pac-12 Player of the Week at the time, went down late in the second set at Washington with an ACL injury and was lost for the season. The Sun Devils went on to drop their first match of the season against the Dawgs and lost another three in a row to go 0-4 on a four-match road swing. ASU did get back on track at home last weekend, handling Utah in three and Colorado in four.

How good is Arizona State without Macey Gardner? The Sun Devils went 0-3 on the road without her completely, but one of those losses was to No. 1 USC (3-1) and another was to No. 12 UCLA (3-0). They beat the Utes and Buffs at home; Utah is in last place, Colorado is in the middle of the pack. Arizona State won 45 of 54 sets with a healthy Macey Gardner and is 7-12 in the 19 sets without her. So the Sun Devils won’t fall off the face of the Earth, but a win against Stanford will show the rest of the conference that they can still hang with the cream of the crop even without their best player.

The Story so Far: Stanford (13-5, 7-3 Pac-12)

Stanford got its first signature win of the conference season on the last Pac-12 Networks Match of the Week, outlasting then-No. 4 Washington in an intense five sets (15-13 in the fifth) behind a career-high 25 kills from freshman sensation Hayley Hodson. Now sporting a 2-0 record in primetime on Wednesday night, the Cardinal completed the sweep of the Washington schools with a workwoman-like sweep of the Cougs, hitting .330 in the match and totaling 12 team blocks.

Through the first half of conference play, Stanford has shown it can contend even without its All-American middle blocker … but how far can it move up in the standings? Currently in fourth place, the Cardinal is three games back of undefeated USC (the only undefeated team in the nation) and one back of Washington and UCLA for second. The Trojans don’t look like they’re capable of losing three matches the rest of the way, but the Cardinal have beaten both the Huskies and Bruins and get them one more time apiece (albeit on the road).

Repeating as Pac-12 champs will be tough – maybe impossible given the season USC is having – but a second-place team from the Pac-12 is sure to get a high seed for the NCAA tournament, and the Cardinal can certainly get that high in the standings.

Three Players to Watch: Arizona State

1. #8 Whitney Follette (Middle Blocker, Senior) – The Canadian became the fourth Devil in program history to record 400 career blocks, reaching the milestone by registering four against the Buffs. Her 1.31 blocks per set are good for sixth in the conference. Attacking wise, she is coming off a subpar performance in the Colorado match despite her nine kills (she hit -.036 against the Buffs) but hit .421 in a 10-kill outing against Utah.
2. #1 Bianca Arellano (Setter, Senior) – The main setter the last two years for the Sun Devils after she transferred to ASU from Tennessee after her freshman season, Arellano has shared the setting spotlight this year with freshman Kylie Pickerell. Despite the decrease in second balls, Arellano is just 56 assists away from the 3,000-assist mark in a Sun Devil uniform (remember, this is in just in two-plus years) and will become the fourth Devil to achieve that feat.
3. #11 BreElle Bailey (Outside Hitter, Junior) – Three different Sun Devils have led the team in match kills after the Washington contest in which Gardner got injured, and Bailey has done it twice. She averaged 3.57 kills per set during the weekend dip against the Mountain schools and is coming off a 16-kill, .483-efficiency outing against the Buffs.

Three Players to Watch: Stanford

1. #23 Jordan Burgess (Outside Hitter, Senior) – She has dealt with an injury this year that has forced her to not swing during certain matches, but Burgess appears to be rounding into form as of late. After notching 10 kills in the five-setter over Washington, the Floridian posted nine in 20 error-free attacks (.450) in the three-set sweep of Washington State.
2. #16 Brittany Howard (Outside Hitter, Senior) – Like Burgess, Howard is a member of Stanford’s 1,000-kill, 1,000-dig club, doing so earlier this season. With the array of front-row options that setter Madi Bugg has to choose from, Howard doesn't always get a huge number of attacks but is dangerous when she gets the opportunities. Her .282 hitting percentage is second on the team and leads all non-middle blockers on the Cardinal.
3. #3 Hayley Hodson (Opposite, Freshman) – What did we learn last Wednesday? When the match is on the line, Hodson rises to the occasion. She not only had the aforementioned career-high 25 kills against the Dawgs, but she went on a service run that featured two aces to bring her team from down 19-17 to up 21-19 in the fourth set trailing 2-1 in the match, and then backed that up with three kills in the decisive fifth.

Three Notes to Know

1. That doesn’t happen often – Arizona State defeated Stanford in four sets in Tempe earlier this year, giving the Sun Devils their fifth win in 70 tries against the Cardinal and snapped a 15-year losing streak against Stanford. Arizona State has never swept the Cardinal in a season series, so the Sun Devils will be making to look a little history Wednesday night.
2. Arizona State record book watch – A couple of Sun Devils could move up the career rankings list Wednesday night. Whitney Follette needs three block assists to move past Sonja Markanovich into second place in that department, while Bianca Arellano is 13 assists shy of sliding by Jennifer Helfich into fourth on the career assists list.
3. First to first 25 wins – Arizona State is 15-0 when winning the first set (and 2-4 when losing it), while Stanford is 9-0 when claiming the first (and 4-5 when losing it). Superlatives don’t necessarily indicate what’s going to happen, but this is an interesting one to keep an eye on Wednesday.