SALT LAKE CITY — Utah women’s volleyball, coming off of two big wins in the NCAA tournament against Illinois and BYU — two teams that made the Final Four last year — has another challenge on Friday. The Utes will face Stanford at Maples Pavilion on Friday at 9 p.m. on ESPNU.

“Any time you can get to the Sweet 16, you have to be happy. This team set a lot of goals early in the year and you go through a season and there’s a lot of ups and downs, so I couldn’t be more happy for our players and our program for some of the success that we’re having,” Utah head coach Beth Launiere said.

The Utes reached the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years. Utah beat Illinois 3-2 in the first round to advance to the second round against BYU.

“I think it gave us a lot of confidence. We had a very tough match against Illinois in the first round and we had to fight tooth-and-nail. We were down 2-1, we were down 17-14 in the fourth and we had to find a way to win that match,” Launiere said.

Grid View Utah volleyball coach Beth Launiere coaching from the sidelines. Provided by University of Utah Athletics

Utah coach Beth Launiere and Dani Drews converse during a match. Provided by University of Utah Athletics

Utah’s Dani Drews between points during match against Cal Poly on Aug. 31, 2019, in Salt Lake City. Steve C. Wilson, University of Utah

Utah volleyball players celebrate their NCAA Tournament victory over BYU at the Smith Fieldhouse in Provo. Provided by University of Utah Athletics

That victory gave the Utes confidence heading into the match against the Cougars, who they swept to punch their ticket to the Sweet 16.

“We were ready for a battle and a fight and we were on the offense all night and played a great match,” Launiere said. “You can’t go into a competitive environment like that and have the success that we had and not have it give you confidence.”

To advance past the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history, the Utes will have to beat No. 3-ranked Stanford at its place.

“It’s a nice matchup for us. Stanford is a team that has great size, they’re really physical,” Launiere said. “They don’t do a lot of things different. They say, ‘Hey, this is who we are, stop us.’ From a preparation standpoint, we know what’s going to be coming so we can put our plan in place.”

The Cardinal are led by Kathryn Plummer, a senior 6-6 outside hitter. Plummer is a two-time national player of the year and has 343 kills this season. The Utes will try and load up on Plummer but have to take care of the other aspects of the match before they can do so.

“You have to take care of every other aspect of the match. You have to serve tough, you have to dimmish the amount of options that they have, so then you can go load up on an attacker,” Launiere said. “If they’re in-system and have all of their options going at us, it will be a tough match because then you can’t go load up on a Kathryn Plummer, and even when you do that, she’s hard to stop.”

Stanford has a physical and big team, which the Utes will try and combat with speed

“We can be physical and we have some size at the net, but we also have some speed. Berkeley Oblad’s one of the fastest middles in the NCAA. We can spread the block out pretty good, Dani (Drews)’s fast,” Launiere said. “We feel like we can play with a big, physical team, but we think we have a little bit of speed that can cause teams problems.”

Outside Dani Drews, who was named the AVCA All-Region Player of the Year on Tuesday and ranks second in the country in kills with 625, will be important on Friday. Outside hitter Kenzie Koerber, middle blocker Oblad and setter Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres, all of whom were named to the AVCA All-Region team, will all have to be on their games — along with the rest of the team — if Utah wants to advance.

Friday’s match will be the third time the Utes have faced the Cardinal this season. Utah lost both of the matches, losing 3-2 at Stanford and 3-1 at the Huntsman Center. Still, the familiarity with the opposition instills confidence in the Utes.

“We’re more confident in that game than any other that we could have played because we’ve seen them twice now. We know what their strengths are, we know what their weaknesses are and we know how close we were to beating them one of the times,” Koerber said. “To go back there and play in a gym that we tend to play really well in is a little bit comforting to me, I’d say.”