PALO ALTO, California — There are always six degrees of volleyball separation seemingly anywhere you go in our sport.
Friday at Stanford, well, everyone seemed tied to each other.
The ties that bind were evident everywhere as fifth-ranked Stanford swept No. 15 Ohio State after No. 10 Minnesota beat No. 6 Oregon in five.
Start with the coaches, where Kevin Hambly is in his seventh year on The Farm. In 2011, he took Illinois to NCAA title match, where the Illini lost to UCLA. One of his assistants on that team? Ohio State coach Jen Flynn Oldenburg.
J-FO’s ties went deep here. For starters, when the third-year OSU coach watched the first match, she saw two of her former Buckeyes play each other, Oregon outside Gabby Gonzales and Minnesota libero Kylie Murr, who happen to be best of friends.
Among the players she’s coached on the national level was Stanford setter Kami Miner, who grew up down the Strand from Holly McPeak, who lives on Manhattan Beach and was doing the Pac-12 broadcast analysis.
The gathering was a reunion for former Pac-12 rival coaches and good friends Matt Ulmer, in his seventh year at Oregon, and first-year Minnesota coach Keegan Cook, who came from Washington. And, of course, they’ll be…
