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PROVO — During the week, BYU men's volleyball coach Shawn Olmstead was not happy with the way the top-ranked Cougars served during opening weekend, and he let them know it all week in practice.
For five days, the service got better. But not so much by the sixth day.
Madison Hayden put down a match-high 24 kills, and BYU served 19 errors to just two aces, as the 11th-ranked Cardinal knocked off the Cougars, 25-18, 19-25, 23-25, 25-23, 15-11 in front of more than 5,000 fans Friday night at the Smith Fieldhouse.
The loss was the first home loss by a BYU team in any sport in the 2015-16 academic year.
"I thought we made good strides in practice. I wouldn't just say that; I actually thought we served really well in practice all week," Olmstead said. "But I don't know what happened at the end."
Ben Patch led BYU (2-1, 0-1 MPSF) with 20 kills, but he also had a team-high five service errors for the Cougars. Jake Langlois and Brenden Sander supplied 11 kills for BYU, which got 47 assists from Leo Durkin and seven kills and four blocks from Price Jarman.
"Our serving and passing were better; we had been working on it all week," said Langlois, who had one ace to match teammate Tim Dobbert with the team-high. "And then in the fourth set, we missed a lot of serves … and lost some energy."
Gabriel Vega added 13 kills for Stanford (2-0, 1-0 MPSF), and teammate Conrad Kaminsky added 12 kills and seven blocks.
Neither team served particularly well, but Stanford countered its own 19 errors from the line with eight aces — three of them from senior setter James Shaw. The 6-foot-8 setter added 54 assists and five kills for the Cardinal, which won three-straight matches dating back to last year's conference meetings in the Bay Area.
Many of BYU's service errors came in inopportune moments, as well.
"You can't miss (serves) in the fourth set," Olmstead said. "We let them off the hook, and they were better than us. They beat us. Hat's off to them for coming in here and doing it."
In the final set, BYU opened with a 4-1 advantage after one of Jarman's kills. The Cougars held a slim lead through the first rotation, as both teams switched sides with BYU leading 8-6 in the fifth set.
That's when the Cardinal went on a run. Shaw tied the final set at eight apiece with an ace, and the two squads exchanged points until Hayden gave Stanford an 11-10 lead.
Stanford got four of the final five points, capped by Hayden's thunderous kill after Conrado Kiminski used one of his 12 kills to set up match point.
"He just chopped away. That's all he did," Olmstead said of Hayden. "He chopped the block, did all those things, and unfortunately I thought we had a good game plan. We tried to tell them to adjust, but he just kept chopping and chopping."
BYU jumped out to a 10-6 lead in the first set before Stanford rallied and tied the set 10-10 on an ace by Vega.
The Cardinal then used a 5-1 run to take control, 18-14 midway through the set and cruised to the 25-18 win on a double-block by Kaminsky and Shaw.
The Cougars opened the second set with three-straight kills, including two by Patch, but Stanford pulled within one on a back row kill by Vega, 5-4. From there, BYU did enough to stay in front, going up 12-8 on a block by Patch and Hatch, then 19-14 on Sander's kill.
Price Jarman soared for one of BYU's five blocks in the second set to go up 21-14, and the Cougars evened the match at a set apiece on Stanford's 10th service error of the night.
The Cardinal jumped out early in the third set, going up 6-3 on Kaminsky's kill to force Olmstead into an early timeout. But errors hurt Stanford during the remainder of the set. Stanford committed three-straight errors — one from the service line and two from the front row — to tie the game at 11-11, and BYU took back the lead four plays later at 13-12 on a booming kill by Patch.
The Cougars went up 24-19 on a Cardinal attack error, but Stanford rallied to put together four-straight points with BYU sitting on set point. Finally, Sander dropped a back row kill to end the action 25-23 and give BYU a 2-1 advantage going into the fourth set.
After 16 ties and five lead changes, BYU tied the fourth set at 22-22 on Langlois' kill following an extended rally. With both teams flying across the back line to keep the ball in play, Langlois slammed a ball that caromed off the Stanford block and put the Cougars just three points away from wrapping up the match in a set neither team led by more than three.
Stanford took three of the final four points to claim the fourth set 25-23 on Vega's kill that skidded off the BYU back row and forced a decisive fifth set.
The Cougars and Cardinal meet again Saturday at 7 p.m. MST. The service woes will be addressed by BYU — but Olmstead said it's also important to stick to a basic routine with such a quick turnaround.
"We have a routine, and we're not going to give that up because we lost. We have to come back," Olmstead said. "It wasn't major things; we just did not force them to play in the tough moments in the match. That was it."
