Delivering an All-Around Better Season
Stanford takes her game up a notch across the board
Mike Brohard
At first glance, Tom Hilbert didn’t see it.
At second glance, he thought there was potential. By the time Kennedy Stanford’s sophomore year rolled around, the Colorado State volleyball coach knew what the team needed, deemed Stanford to be the best option and sent her to the floor.
Sink or swim.
“When I first saw Kennedy her sophomore year of high school, I didn’t look at her as a six-rotation player,” Hilbert said. “Then I saw her playing club her junior year and she was passing, and I was like, wow, this kid’s got skills. We needed a player like her with the departure of Breanna Runnels. It was great to see it, and we’ve just put her in that position and said, you’re playing this and we’re not going to be yanking it around. I think I’ve taken her out of one game her entire career.”
From the onset, her offense has been her mainstay. She’s gone from a dependable producer as a freshman in a wonky pandemic season, to being an anchor on the front row. All of them could see that, and Runnels, who holds the program record with 1,404 kills in the modern scoring era, figured her understudy was going to make a serious run at her career numbers.
As a sophomore delivering an All-Mountain West performance, her 348 kills rank ninth all-time on the modern era single-season CSU list, and with the promise of a few matches in front of her, she can exceed the total. Better yet, her attack percentage is much higher in a season where she produced a career-best 28 kills against Fresno State.
She has 341 kills heading into the Mountain West Tournament this weekend, and she's doing it with a more productive .236 hitting percentage.
“That’s the part of my game that’s always been there,” the junior said. “It’s where points are scored, so it’s something I’m always working on improving. Where I am in the lineup now, I’m expected to take more big swings in less fun situations.”
Her real value to the Rams comes in the fact she’s improved every facet of her game, and the team needs her to be sharp at all of them.
She was learning to be a six-rotation player a year ago. This year, she’s starting to thrive in the role for the Rams as they head into the Mountain West Tournament beginning Wednesday at Moby Arena. The third-seeded Rams start with a match with No. 6 San Diego State at 4 p.m.
Defensive specialist Ruby Kayser has been impressed with the transformation. The first time she watched Stanford play, she was an opponent at a qualifying tournament in Texas. The Stanford she played against then was on the right side and never near the back row.
Now they share it.
“She didn’t play it our freshman year, either, but she played it last year and she’s gotten really good at serve receive and then just staying composed,” Kayser said. “It’s important, a lot of teams will have one or two people who have to carry the load of being a front-row and a back-row player, and she does a really good job. Not only is she required to do defense, but she’s required to do serve receive breakouts and hitting breakouts and blocking breakouts and serving breakouts. She does it all really well, and she does a good job of being able to go to each position and focus. She may have a bad day in one spot, but she’ll rock the others.”
Her practice routine is what stands out to Hilbert, because he sees her go after each task as if it’s the only one she has to do. Far from it, and because she’s doing a bit of everything, she gets about half the practice reps at each as do her teammates, even less than those specializing in the backrow.
The way she makes up ground is seeking quality when quantity isn’t an option. To reach the level required a certain amount of insistence and persistence from her.
“It’s a lot of grinding it out. It’s a lot of day after day coming in and working on the same things over and over, and maybe not seeing the improvement from day to day, but after months and months taking big leaps,” she said. “We knew with the potential of how much we could be shifting our lineup around that having someone who could play six rotations was necessary to save us subs. It was something I needed to solidify myself in as far as being able to pass and hold a big load on the court, and it’s something we worked all spring on and it’s gotten to the point where it something I feel solid in.”
The ball is their greatest teacher. We’ve worked with her on a lot of things, but she’s really blossomed as a blocker, she’s learned to be aggressive and now I think she’s the second-best passer on our team. She’s really embraced a lot of things.Tom Hilbert
A season ago, she produced 154 digs. She has 199 this year, leading to five-double doubles – one a 16 and 16 effort against Colorado. Her blocking has improved by nine (52 total), which doesn’t tell the whole story. She has developed so much that schematically the Rams are more willing to use her as a solo blocker than the other pins.
Her work at the service line has led to 30 aces after 18 a season ago. Of the six Rams who have 10 or more aces, she’s the only one whose aces exceed their errors. Where she shines brightest is passing, grading out second on the team to libero Kate Yoshimoto, but by the slimmest of margins.
When the process started, there was naturally going to be one area which lagged further back, so it became the one Stanford paid particular attention to in practice and breaking down everything into specifics.
“It was floor defense. Serve receive is more and more reps, and I’ve been passing long enough I feel I have that,” she said. “It’s more taking my errors out of serve receive, not so much making more three passes but less errors. For my floor defense, just being able to read the game better and react to getting stopped and reacting and being able to run down balls and things like that. It’s something I’m still working on.
“Everything is about improvement, so you’re never at your best self, so I just want to keep pushing."
Floor defense is the thing I feel like has always been my bugaboo. Now that I’m getting a little better at it, anytime I get a good up it always feels good. It’s definitely a feeling like, ah, maybe a year ago I wouldn’t have gotten that ball.”
Hilbert likes her response has always been, ‘OK.’ She shrugged off the trying times and kept going. After a bad match, she never asked him if it was sure this was the right move.
If she second guesses herself, she seeks an answer. Then she shows up and does it again, all because she was asked to do it to help the team, using each practice and match as a new instructor.
“It's been sort of a rocky road, because her first two seasons she was kind of in and out of being aggressive, and now she’s learning to just do it all the time,” Hilbert said. “She works very hard every day. You put somebody in and say you’re playing it, throw them to the wolves and they grow just by virtue of the role you put them in. The ball is their greatest teacher. We’ve worked with her on a lot of things, but she’s really blossomed as a blocker, she’s learned to be aggressive and now I think she’s the second-best passer on our team. She’s really embraced a lot of things.”
The moment, too. Just another way the Rams count on Stanford.
There are times Hilbert would like to see her more emotional, but the counter to that is the balance she brings to the floor and the composure which spreads from her actions. She may not jump up and down and scream, but Kayser said there are times she’ll look over and see intensity rise inside of her teammate, when she gets the ‘eye of the tiger.’
She may be the Rams’ most consistent hammer, but she’s also their level.
“Kennedy is really mature. If you talk to her outside of volleyball, she’s a very mature person and that carries out on the court,” Kayser said. “If she’s not having a great night offensively, she’s able to focus on her passing and be really good in serve receive. I think that takes a high level of maturity and being, ‘OK, it may not be my night in this area, but Im going to contribute to the team in this area.’
“You can always expect the same thing out of Kennedy. Sometimes she’ll fire up a little more than usual, but most of the time she’s never down in the dumps; she’s even. She’s not the one you expect to be screaming, ‘let’s go guys,’ but she’s going to be the person who is always doing her job and always consistent emotionally, which is really important.”
As was her willingness to grow into the player the team needed. On the floor, all the time, willing to take on every role. It might not have been pretty at first glance, but her game is one which has proven to deserve a second look.