A competitive effort against the No. 2 team in the nation was marred by an injury to outside hitter Ivana Jeremic in Tempe on Friday night.
In order to have a chance against the defending national champions in the Stanford Cardinal, the Sun Devils knew they had to swing with a lot of power.
As he stepped into his third match as interim head coach, Carlos Moreno brought some drastic changes to the starting lineup, moving Oly Okaro from the opposite end of the floor to the outside while sliding Megan Beedie over from the middle to Okaro’s outside end.
“I’ve been working on it this week in practice,” Okaro said of her position change. “The newest thing for me was passing in that rotation. Focusing on not being perfect and just managing helped me a lot tonight.”
Despite her nerves, the Sun Devils immediately sought after this potent attack, and Okaro delivered with a beautiful kill down the line to start off the match. She recorded four of the first seven points of the set for ASU, and the Sun Devils hung close with the Cardinal at an early 7-7 tie.
After a series of exchanged points, the Cardinal started looking toward their big guns in reigning All-American Kathryn Plummer. Plummer consistently used all of her 6’6 frame to sky attacks over her opponents, recording two of her 23 in the early going to help the Cardinal take an early 11-10 lead.
The Sun Devils began to gain some momentum, however, as they went on a 4-1 run that was bolstered from key serves by Courtney Leffel to take a 15-13 advantage.
Following an Okaro kill that gave ASU a 18-16 lead, the Cardinal began to show some of their championship fight as the set wound down. Kathryn Plummer shot two more kills over the smaller outside block of the Sun Devils, and the Cardinal went on a 4-0 run to take a 20-18 lead.
Despite cutting the Stanford lead to one, the Sun Devils couldn’t put enough consistent passes together to set up a consistent attacking offense, and an Ivana Jeremic service error allowed Stanford to take set one, 25-22.
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The Cardinal quickly followed up with the momentum they carried over from the first set, as Kathryn Plummer continued to dissect the Sun Devil defense on both the opposite and outside ends of the floor. Four kills from her during opening points of the set proved to be critical, as she helped her team go on two 4-0 runs to take a 13-6 stranglehold over Arizona State.
Despite looking as if things couldn’t go any worse for the Sun Devils in the set, all of Wells Fargo Arena fell dead silent when outside hitter Ivana Jeremic took a hard fall on the foot of Audriana Fitzmorris. Jeremic continually screamed out in excruciating pain, and she left the court being unable to put pressure on what seemed like a serious left ankle injury.
Coach Carlos Moreno had no update yet regarding the status of Ivana for Sunday’s match against California.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he noted. “We hope for the best, we are kind of expecting the worst.”
For the rest of the set, the Sun Devils were unable to recover from the shock of Jeremic’s injury, as the Cardinal finished on a 6-3 run to close a dominant second set with a 25-16 victory.
In what seemed like a match that had a nail in the coffin, the Sun Devils came out of the second set intermission looking for vengeance. Carmen Unzue launched consistent, aggressive serves over the net, which allowed Nicole Peterson to find Okaro and Peyton Grahovac for big kills on the corners of the floor, giving ASU a 5-0 lead early on.
After a Merete Lutz kill halted the run, the Sun Devils didn’t take their feet of the gas pedal. Okaro and Grahovac were found once again for big angle shots, and the Sun Devils used a responding 4-1 run to keep the score at 9-2.
Soon enough, however, the Cardinal clawed their way back into a set it appeared ASU was going to run away with, recording two 4-0 runs to bring the score within one at 11-10.
As soon as the Sun Devils looked like they were going to collapse, the team put together its greatest string of points they’ve tallied all season long. Five of Oly Okaro’s 19 kills on the night were tallied during a 9-0 run in the middle of the set, which gave ASU a commanding 22-14 lead to put the Cardinal hopes of a sweep out of reach.
After a quick exchange of points between both squads, a poorly handled serve receive pass from Stanford caused Kathryn Plummer to hit into the net, and the Sun Devils capped off a thrilling set three victory, 25-21.
Unfortunately, the momentum of the third set was unable to rally the Sun Devils into a deeper match with defending national champs. The block of the 6’8 Merete Lutz kept the Sun Devils unsure about their attacks, and the high-reaching power of Kathryn Plummer gave the Cardinal a 9-2 run in the middle of the set that allowed the Cardinal to close the set and match, 25-13.
In her first appearance as outside hitter this season, Oly Okaro recorded 19 kills on a .300 hitting percentage, while Nicole Peterson contributed a double-double with 30 assists and 14 digs on the night for ASU.
As the Sun Devils look forward to their match on Sunday afternoon, a lot of uncertainty surrounds how the lineup will look in the wake of Jeremic’s injury. Regardless, it will take another great team effort if the Sun Devils want to steal their first conference victory of the season.
“Hopefully, we’re going to have Ivana back,” Coach Moreno said. “We do have a few options, but we’re going to wait to see what happens first.”
Next: ASU Volleyball: Devils face No. 2 Stanford in search of first Pac-12 win
The Sun Devils will look to rebound and close their homestand in Tempe this weekend with a victory against the visiting California Bears on Sunday afternoon. The match will begin at 11:00 a.m PT and can be viewed via PAC-12 Arizona.