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Provo • When you play so well that you keep a first-team All-America player on the bench, you've had yourself a pretty volleyball match.
That happened to opposite hitter Tim Dobbert on Saturday, as the 6-foot-10 junior from Germany registered a match-high 13 kills and was in on four blocks to lead No. 2 BYU to a 3-0 win over No. 7 Stanford in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) tournament quarterfinal match in front of 2,982 at Smith Fieldhouse.
The scores were 25-19, 25-21 and 25-18 as BYU moved on to a semifinal match on Thursday against the winner of Saturday's late Pepperdine-Hawaii match. Long Beach State — which tied BYU for the conference regular-season title and got the No. 1 seed due to a tiebreaker scenario. The 49ers will host the semifinals and finals at the Walter Pyramid in Southern California if they beat USC late Saturday.
"Yeah, one of the better ones," Dobbert said humbly, deflecting the praise. "I think we blocked really well, and it all started with our serving and passing. That was probably the best thing we did tonight."
Fellow junior and opposite hitter Ben Patch, who has said he will turn pro after this season, did not play. Coach Shawn Olmstead said the two-time All-American "was available" although Patch has battled a groin injury most of the season.
"We just felt comfortable in the situations with Tim out there, and Tim did a phenomenal, outstanding job," Olmstead said.
Against Stanford (13-13), the Cougars (24-3) had plenty of firepower and didn't need to be at full strength. That will change next week at LBSU.
"We knew we were the better team, and had to wait until our run game," Dobbert said, alluding to the only time all night the Cardinal led, midway through the second set. "But yeah, a 3-0 [win], that was amazing."
BYU won the game, and Stanford lost it, from the service line. The Cougars had seven aces and Stanford one. The Cardinal committed 17 service errors to BYU's 13.
"We were really aggressive from the service line," Olmstead said. "Once we got them in certain positions passing, we thought we had a good idea what they were going to do, so we made good touches from there."
Stanford committed seven service errors in the first set, and the Cougars rolled.
"I mean, all credit to our servers," Olmstead said. "They got after it. That ratio there, seven aces to 13 errors, that is big-time. So, you are happy when you are up there, that's for sure."
The Cardinal put up a better fight in the second set, and led 11-8 after a couple kills by Clay Jones. BYU senior Jake Langlois engineered the turnaround with his serving after the Cougars fell behind.
Twitter: @drewjay —
BYU 3, Stanford 0
R The second-seeded Cougars toy with the No. 7 Cardinal in cruising to an easy three-set win in the MPSF quarterfinal match.
• Germany's Tim Dobbert leads BYU with 13 kills, and the Cougars post seven service aces.
• BYU will meet the winner of the late Hawaii-Pepperdine match on Thursday.