The Stanford Cardinal opened up their NCAA title defense with a 3-0 record at the LBSU Invitational last weekend. Those wins, along with a Texas loss to Florida, was enough to propel Stanford to the top of both the VolleyMob and AVCA national polls.
But it wasn’t all good news for the Cardinal. 6’8″ opposite Merete Lutz, a redshirt senior, missed all three games with an undisclosed injury suffered in practice.
That absence tested new head coach Kevin Hambly‘s abilityto adjust on the fly, and he did – though having a hitter like Kathryn Plummer helped that shift. Plummer, the 2016 AVCA National Freshman of the Year, was shifted to opposite, which was her natural position coming into college, but was truly ubiquitous, hitting from all over the court.
Plummer had 37 kills in 9 sets played, scoring a .312 hitting percentage. Her best performance came against Iowa, where she had 16 kills on 24 attacks, which came out to a .542 hitting percentage. She also had 6 aces, 19 digs, and 5 total blocks on the weekend.
No information has been released regarding when Lutz might return to the court for Stanford.
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