WSU volleyball (13-9, 2-8) was swept for the first time this season Saturday night by the defending national champions, No. 2 Stanford (17-2, 10-0) in California.

The final scores of the three sets were 25-22, 25-18 and 25-14. The Cougars and the Cardinal tied 13 times with six lead changes in the opening set.

“I think we served pretty tough that first set,” WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny said. “I thought we were doing a good job and then they picked up their serving and our passing fell off the table.”

Junior outside hitter Taylor Mims led the Cougars with 18 kills and WSU’s lone ace. Senior opposite Casey Schoenlein added eight kills and one block. Freshman setter Penny Tusa had 13 assists and led the Cougars with nine digs.

Stanford had 42 kills on the night and a .299 hitting percentage while WSU had 33 kills and were held to a .137 team hitting percentage. The Cardinal also had six times as many aces as the Cougs.

“It’s hard to run much of an offense with the passing numbers that we had tonight, but Stanford is an unbelievable team,” Greeny said. “They have a lot of skills so, credit to them, but we have to be able to do more with those not great passes.”

Stanford is the second team this season to out-block WSU, 8.0 to 6.5. Claire Martin’s 4 block assists give her 339 in her career, putting her at sixth place for WSU’s all-time career block assists. Fourth on the list is Greeny with 360.

“We have played everybody but Arizona State, and I think this team is learning we have to be more consistent and not let those silly errors and silly mistakes affect us,” Greeny said. “We can be right there with all of these teams if we clean up those things.”

The Cougars are now halfway through conference play. They have 10 games remaining to make up ground in the Pac-12.

“It is hard when you have injuries and people are playing different positions, but that’s what you have to do. You have to step up and find a good combination that works,” Greeny said. “Maybe it’s back to the drawing board a bit and putting some other people in different positions, so we’ll see what happens in the second half of the Pac-12 season.”