Three Attack Prongs and a Freshman Setter: How Arizona State Toppled Stanford

The scoreboard read 24-23 in Stanford's favor. At the neutral-site gym in San Luis Obispo, the stands were not as full as at the men's football matches I have covered, and that quiet made every bounce of the ball ring out more clearly. But that moment — when Elle Mottola, a freshman setter, took the ball from the back row and had to decide in a split second — was where the whole story of the match was rewritten. Arizona State was trailing, on the verge of letting Stanford drag the match into a fourth set. Then they flipped it: 26-24. In that third set alone, head coach JJ Van Niel's team recorded 22 kills — a marker I often use to separate a team that finishes with composure from one that lives on fleeting inspiration.

The final result was Arizona State over Stanford, 3-0 (25-19, 25-21, 26-24). But read only the score and you miss the most interesting part. This was a match in which an attacking star performed exactly as expected, and still lost. It was a match in which a teenager barely under twenty, sitting in the setting position — the loneliest spot on the court — became the pivot of the entire contest. And it was a match in which a rising program beat one of the oldest cradles of American collegiate women's volleyball.

To understand why this win matters, place it within the rhythm of NCAA Division I women's volleyball. The American college game runs on a fall season. The early phase — September, when teams play non-conference matches at multi-team tournaments like the San Luis Obispo Classic — is when coaching staffs experiment with lineups, build their RPI, and accumulate quality wins. Unlike international competitions that operate on cycles and regional qualifiers, American collegiate women's volleyball selects its postseason field on a year-long cumulative resume, in which the number of wins over ranked opponents is one of the heaviest measures.

The multi-team tournament format also deserves attention. Matches come thick and fast, sometimes two in a single day, with limited recovery time. That raises the value of roster depth and conditioning — two factors that directly decide whether a team can close out a tense set like the third one ASU just won. A thin roster usually folds in the third set, when the legs are heavy and the mind is tired.

A win over a ranked opponent like Stanford is a heavy asset for that resume. ASU sits at No. 12, Stanford at No. 8. In the college rankings, No. 8 and No. 12 are not far apart in level, but they are far apart in reputation. Stanford has been an icon of American collegiate women's volleyball for decades, a program bound to standards of technique and discipline. ASU is a program on the rise, led by Van Niel — who has 20 ranked wins in four seasons, six of them against top-10 opponents.

That contrast is even clearer in roster construction. ASU brought in Una Vajagic from Wisconsin this summer through the transfer window. In American collegiate women's volleyball, the transfer portal is the mechanism that lets rising programs close the gap with the leading group quickly, and it is also what makes the league harder to predict season by season. Vajagic is one visible link in that strategy. Alongside Clinton — a graduate outside hitter, at the mature stage of her career — and Glover at the opposite position, ASU built a three-hitter attack spread across career stages: a seasoned veteran, a player in her prime, and a newcomer. At the top of that structure is a freshman.

And that is where the story gets interesting. ASU's win came from distributed attacking, not from raw star power. Their three hitters — Clinton, Glover, and Vajagic — each reached 14 or more kills. When three attacking prongs all reach that threshold, the opposing block is forced to spread its attention across several zones at once, and that is the classic mechanism for beating a strong block.

Clinton had her best match of the season with 15 kills and a .522 hitting percentage. For those unfamiliar with volleyball, hitting percentage is calculated as kills minus errors, divided by total attempts. In collegiate women's volleyball, .300 is already good, .400 is excellent, and above .500 is the mark of a night with almost no errors. Clinton's .522 belongs to that group. Glover leads the team in season kills with 126, while Vajagic is close behind at 124. The near-parity between 126 and 124 is quantitative proof that this is not a one-hitter team. Vajagic also left her mark on defense with double-digit digs and a direct service ace.

But the link that made the machine run is the youngest player. Elle Mottola, the freshman setter, had a career-best match with 45 assists — her second match this season with 40 or more. In volleyball, the setter decides where the ball goes. A good setter must not only deliver accurately but also read the opposing block, recognize which hitter has momentum, and distribute the ball so the block can never guess. It is a position that demands game-reading ability usually built over several seasons, which is why a freshman orchestrating a three-pronged attack at the Division I level is noteworthy.

Across the net, Stanford showed a pattern of single-point dependency. Jordyn Harvey recorded 18 kills, a match high, at a .455 hitting percentage on 33 attempts — a high-class night, almost beyond reproach individually. But the match report itself admits that was not enough to offset ASU's distributed attack. When one hitter carries the entire offense against an opponent with multiple prongs, the opposing block only needs to lock onto that hitter in the crucial rotations. That is not bad luck. It is a structural problem.

The picture was clearest in the first set. ASU recorded 15 kills, Stanford only 10. When Harvey was neutralized or rotated to the back row, Stanford's attack nearly stood still, because there was no second prong reliable enough to draw the block's attention. By the third set, when ASU trailed 24-23, Van Niel's team did not panic. They recorded 22 kills in that set alone, flipped the momentum, and closed the door. In total, ASU had 12 blocks. The block in modern women's volleyball is not merely a defensive tool; a good block produces direct points and, more importantly, creates pressure that forces hitters to change direction, lowering efficiency. ASU's twelve blocks should be read in that logic — as part of the same system as the three-pronged attack, not a separate skill.

Here I must say something that enthusiastic match reports tend to skip. What is called ASU's balanced attack is in reality three threats, not an even split. Clinton and Glover, the two leading hitters, together account for about 31.5 of the documented points — nearly 48%. Balance here means having three prongs the opponent must guard against, not three prongs sharing the load in perfect equality. That is an important distinction, because it determines whether a team can withstand an off-night from one individual.

And one more thing made me pause. The match report states that Clinton and Glover combined for 31.5 of ASU's 65 points. But three sets won 25-19, 25-21, 26-24 add up to 76 points. The two figures do not reconcile. Either "65" refers to a different statistical category rather than total points, or it is an error in the original. Similarly, the original says in one place that ASU finished the 2026 season with eight ranked wins, and in another that four matches into this season they are halfway to that mark. If the current season is 2026, the two statements are consistent; if not, they contradict each other. Based on my experience tracking international matches and Japan's women's V.League, I always check figures like these before citing them, because one wrong detail can shake an otherwise sound argument. In women's volleyball, where data is already thinner than in men's football, discipline with numbers matters even more.

Then comes the question of rankings. Stanford sits at No. 8 but has lost three of its last four. In college rankings there is a phenomenon I call ranking inertia: early-season rankings tend to reflect last season's results more than current form. A big brand like Stanford can hold a high position longer than its current strength warrants. ASU, by contrast, is showing a real upward trajectory — eight ranked wins last season was a program record, and four this season have carried them halfway to that mark.

But ASU also carries a sign of instability. At the previous tournament, they lost to UC Davis, an unranked team, before recovering. That says ASU's floor is lower than its ceiling. And in such a lineup, a freshman setter who carries a heavy load is also a source of potential volatility. Youth brings room to grow, but it also brings unavoidable off-nights. This is the point I believe ASU's coaching staff must manage most carefully over the rest of the season.

At Nadeshiko I learned that losing on the court can also be a way of winning at life. Stanford leaves San Luis Obispo with a third defeat in four matches, but if they read the lesson of this night correctly — that one excellent individual cannot replace a system with enough attacking depth — then that defeat may be the beginning of a necessary rebuild.

ASU's next match, against Cal Poly on September 18, will be the real test — not of ability, but of consistency. A clean win would add foundation to the story of a rising program. A struggle would bring back memories of the UC Davis loss. And elsewhere in the picture, Stanford heads into matches against Santa Clara and then Cal Poly under pressure to stabilize an offense that is currently loaded onto one pair of shoulders.

There is a wave rising in American collegiate women's volleyball this season: upsets of ranked teams have become so common that even Vanderbilt claimed its first ranked win. That parity makes the league harder to predict, and to someone who tells the stories of women's sports for a living, that is welcome. The media wave will pass. The children who see themselves in it will not. When a freshman like Mottola stands in the setting position and the whole team trusts her enough to run three prongs, what is passed on is not just a win, but a way of seeing the act of giving young players a chance.

Women's volleyball does not need anyone to save it, only someone willing to sit down and listen. And sometimes, the one who most needs to be heard is the youngest girl on the court, the one who just recorded 45 assists on a night few noticed her name. The first questions I once feared are now the stories I tell the younger generation — and the question I leave for myself now is this: are we patient enough to watch a freshman setter grow through her off-nights, rather than remember her only for one win?