For Stanford, the Truth is the Process is Not Always Easy
Freshman's recent run the product of gaining experience
Mike Brohard
Tom Hilbert knew what he had to do, but it wasn’t always easy for the veteran coach.
With the youngest and least experienced Colorado State volleyball team he’s had in years, he knew he had to put development at the front of the line, and sometimes, that was going to mean the Rams were going to suffer through some rough stretches.
He is still confident in his belief his young players have talent. And while practice will make them better, they truth is they need match play.
The truth is, confidence in practice is one thing, taking it into a match is another.
The truth is Kennedy Stanford.
“It’s a slow process. We’ve seen it in practice for a while, but she is now becoming less tentative, more aggressive, because she’s becoming more confident when she’s playing in match situations,” Hilbert said. “That’s allowing her play to come out. You can’t work on it until you play matches.
“You can practice all you want. Until you play matches, you don’t gain experience. That’s what’s happening right now. She’s gaining experience, she’s doing it under fire and it’s good for her.”
And the Rams.
The true freshmen outside hitter is on a current hot streak, producing three consecutive matches of double-digit kills. When she posted 15 kills against San Jose State, it was by far her best output of the year. When she followed up with 14 kills the next night, she had accumulated more kills in that series than she had combined in the seven previous matches she’d played.
And when she came back with 10 in a four-set win over Fresno State, there was proof she had really had a breakout moment.
There was a lot to wade through for her. She has moved around in the lineup, finding herself mainly on the right side the beginning of the season. Her natural fit is on the left, and when she was moved there against San Jose State, it was the spark she needed.
But it took a couple of swipes to light the match, too.
“Knowing going into the match, OK, I’m playing outside, I need to be able to execute there, and having a good week of practice was nice,” Stanford said. “By the time of the match, I started a little more tentative than even Tom would have preferred. The end of the first set, maybe the second, it was a tight game and we needed to make plays. I got up to the front row and was like, there’s no reason why it can’t be me who can’t make the play. It’s easier said than done, but I was getting good sets, they were putting me in good position and it was kind of nice to get those first few kills. Then it was spread out into a good game.”
At 5-foot-10, she’s not the prototypical pin player at the Division I level. In that regard, she has the perfect teacher in the gym in Breana Runnels, a teammate she can look at eye-to-eye. In Runnels, she has found a mentor who knows exactly the path she is currently walking.
Every time Runnels puts down a kill, the senior is adding to her program-record kills total during the modern era. The count currently stands at 1,355 heading into this weekend’s home matches with Boise State (Thursday, 7 p.m.) and Utah State (Saturday, 1 p.m.) at Moby Arena.
Runnels sat out during the fall, so the relationship between the two was a late introduction, but Runnels has really enjoyed playing the role of mentor, as Jasmine Hanna did for her.
“I really love playing with Kennedy. I do feel like I see a lot of me in her,” Runnels said. “Not even just our physicality, but also mentally. We’re kind of emotionally stable people. We get in our zone and we stay in it. It’s fun to play with her and also help her develop. I am a senior, she is a freshman. I’ve been in her shoes. I’ve seen things that she hasn’t yet, and I’m learning from her, as well, and that’s a really cool aspect.
“She is playing the position I did my freshman season. I know what she feels, and I can see she’s holding back a little bit, but I know in the future, she’s going to be that aggressor, that person who people are going to want to go after. It’s really cool to see the other side. The seniors, when I came, were kind of seeing the same thing.”
No matter how hard you try, the pressure of a game vs. the pressure of a practice can never be fully emulated. There’s some level of having to rebuild the confidence that you gain from practice in game play.Kennedy Stanford
Stanford couldn’t wait for Runnels to come back to practice, because she knew when she signed with the program she was somebody she could learn from, through conversation and observation. Playing in Texas, Stanford was used to going up against big blocks, especially during the club season. It was there where she developed a wide array of shots, and she knew Runnels had to play that way to some degree, too.
While she does not currently possess the power Runnels has in her arm swing, Hilbert believes Stanford’s arsenal of shots exceeds what Runnels had at the same point of her career. And Stanford knew she would have to adapt her club approach to meet up with the experience level she would be facing in college.
Who better than Runnels to explain how.
“With Bre, even just coming in, that was a huge thing knowing there was somebody who was one of the all-time greats in front of you at the same size as you and be able to put down the ball,” Stanford said. “As far as this semester and getting to talk to her and really pick apart her game, it’s been a mixture of watching, but also in the drills where we’re working on outside stuff, she can watch and critique me, and I can take that to mind and implement that.
“If I make a questionable decision or something seems a little wonky, she’s always, ‘hey, make sure you take your time.’ Those little insights are invaluable.”
Nobody is saying Stanford has now arrived, certainly not her. The San Jose State series taught her a lot, not just from the success of the opening match, but the struggle to get to 14 kills the following night. All the sudden, the Spartans knew who she was and what she could do.
While she still had a lot of kills, they came on career-most 57 swings and her hitting errors went from two to eight, her hitting percentage from .500 to .105.
Even still, she’s still gaining the confidence to do some things in college she used to do so well growing up, because, well, she’s not sure everything will work the same. At least not until she tries.
“Getting to college, it’s odd to say, but in club, it’s the scariest thing to go for high hand or use the block to score. It can feel like you’re purposefully making an error when in actuality it can be as guaranteed of a shot as any straight-down kill,” she said. “Getting to college and seeing a big block I can physically see no matter what because of how large it is, it can give me some of that vision of like, now is a good time to go high hands because you can see the hands.”
It isn’t easy for Hilbert to watch her or any of the other young players struggle at times, but he knows he has to let them work through it for the betterment of the team. There are times he wants to make a lineup switch but holds back, knowing full well match development is the best teacher.
What makes it possible is what he was seeing in practice from Stanford, but also in the matches. Her kill totals may not have been high, but he calls her a very skilled all-around player, and with her natural passing ability – which is also improving through match play – she was finding other ways to help the team.
The goal now is to keep building. There are going to be off nights, because even seniors have them. There is going to be more scouting done on her, so she realizes she has to adapt. But at least now, she has some confidence built up to help her continue down her path of development.
“It’s great. It just gives you a little preview as to what she can be,” Hilbert said. “You have to be careful, because you can’t expect that all the time, but you know what’s good is she takes information on scouting reports, she’s smart and able to go in there and hit the kind of shot that’s necessary against a particular type of team. I like that.”
So does she, especially now she knows the process works. The loss of non-conference matches due to the pandemic didn’t help any of them. The lineup changes could be frustrating at times, but they helped to teach lessons.
While practice polished her skills and gave her a chance to lean on Runnels for advice, the last part of the equation had yet to kick in. Now, Stanford feels it has.
“No matter how hard you try, the pressure of a game vs. the pressure of a practice can never be fully emulated,” she said. “There’s some level of having to rebuild the confidence that you gain from practice in game play.”
As her most recent performances would suggest, that really is the truth.