Pulling into second place of the most recent DI Women’s Volleyball Selection Committee’s in-season top 10, the Stanford hype train had just plowed through seven top-25 opponents and its first 11 Pac-12 foes, which all evidently paled to the powerful right arm of Marta Levinska.
The Latvian outside hitter notched a remarkable 17 kills as No. 21 Arizona State beat the Cardinal in straight sets (25-16, 25-21, 25-14) Saturday afternoon, marking ASU’s first sweep in the series since 1993 and handing Stanford its first loss in over six weeks.
Shannon Shields, who manned the Sun Devils’ distribution efforts with a whopping 28 assists, deceived the Stanford defense early with a pair of setter dumps to mark a couple of rare tallies in the kill column and get ASU on the board. The hometown senior quickly returned to her pass-first ways, assisting two Levinska kills that helped extend the Sun Devil lead to 10-5 and force a Cardinal timeout. The pleads of Stanford coach Kevin…
