12/10/1999 Match #4 (1/8) against the U.C. Santa Barbara Gauchos
On the Way to Final Four
Kerri Walsh: Queen of Ace
 I had an amazingly good seat.
 Here were some of the ball
girls admiring the players warming up. Most of these girls are in the fifth grade. I had
the chance of sitting next to a mother of one of these girls. We had a nice talk.
She was also a friend of the assistant coach. On the way to the Final Four, Stanford had
to find a way to beat the #7 rated U.C. Santa Barbara.
 Head Coach Don Shaw and
the assistant coach Josh Cohen.
Prior to the hitting warm up, the Stanford players intently studied today's opponents.
Were they confident, worried, or excited? Then they ran onto the court.
 Stanford had a strong start
and went ahead with a 7-1 lead. I thought, "Great, I can relax and enjoy the rest of
the game." Not quite. After a time-out, the Gauchos stormed back and tied the game at
7-7. In fact, at one point they even led. Fortunately, Stanford stayed calm and eventually
won the first game 15-12. Whew. I was disappointed to see that Lindsey Yamasaki got pulled
after committing two errors. :-(
I was not surprised by Tara Konrad's jump serves and her three service aces. Perhaps
the most surprising aspect of the game was the jump serves by Kerri Walsh--Stanford's
senior stand-out. Since this was the last game she would ever play at Maples Pavilion, I
guess she did not want to hold back anything. She didn't. Her jump serves were amazing.
The serves caught the opponents off-guard, and she was able to score 4 aces. This was the
reason for me calling her "Queen of Ace" for this memorable evening.
 Walsh was getting ready to receive.
 Walsh.
  Pictures of Kerri Walsh by Dave Gonzales on the Stanford
WEB.
 From the www.ncaavollyball.net
 No amount of time-out could
have prevented U.C. Santa Barbara from losing the second game 6-15. The head coach of the
Gauchos was rather grouchy. :-)
 Could this be a future
Stanford man volleyball player? Probably not. Even though he was sitting in the front row
seat right in front of me, he rather played with his two toy trucks. :-)
 Stanford women played
lightening fast! Or was it just the flash going off in the whole arena? :-)
 The team celebrated winning
the third match 15-10. They won the Pacific Regional Final. Last home game of the season.
Sadly this will be Kerri Walsh's last game in Maples.
 Aloha Hawaii. Here come
Stanford!
Official story from the Stanford WEB.
No. 2 Stanford Earns Fifth Trip To NCAA Final Four In Last Six Years With Straight-Game
Victory Over No. 7 UC Santa Barbara
Stanford, Calif. - No. 2 Stanford (30-2) reached the NCAA Women’s
Volleyball Final Four for the fifth time in the last six years with a straight-game 15-12,
15-6, 15-10 victory over No. 7 UC Santa Barbara (29-6) in the NCAA Women’s Volleyball
Tournament Pacific Regional Final at Maples Pavilion on Friday. The Cardinal will be
shooting for its fifth NCAA championship of the decade after winning titles in 1992,
‘94, ‘96 and ‘97. Stanford will be appearing in its 12th Final Four during
the 19-year history of the NCAA Tournament. The Cardinal picked up its ninth 30-win season
in school history.
“I thought that we came out ready to play tonight,” said Stanford 16th-year
head coach Don Shaw
after he improved his overall record to 439-69, the best in NCAA history. “We were
really prepared. We knew that we were going to have a size advantage and the main thing
was to pass the ball well.”
National Player of the Year candidate Kerri
Walsh (Saratoga, CA/Archbishop Mitty HS) was named the Pacific Regional MVP after
contributing 10 kills and seven blocks in tonight’s victory. “Kerri Walsh has
dominated collegiate volleyball from the beginning,” said UC Santa Barbara head coach
Kathy Gregory following the match. “She blocks, plays defense, hits and plays with
team chemistry. She’s a great player. She will end her career as one of the top
players ever at Stanford and that is a credit to her.”
All-tournament selection Logan Tom
(Salt Lake City, UT/Highland HS) led the Cardinal with 13 kills, while junior Jennifer
Detmer (Thousand Oaks, CA/Thousand Oaks HS) contributed eight kills, five blocks and a
.438 attack percentage (8-1-16). Sophomore Tara
Conrad (Torrance, CA/West HS), who had six kills and seven blocks tonight, was also
selected to the all-tournament team. The Stanford players were joined on the
all-tournament squad by UC Santa Barbara senior Roberta Gehlke (Huntington Beach, CA/Mater
Dei HS) and UCSB sophomore Brooke Rundle (Westlake Village, CA/Westlake HS), as well as
Nebraska junior Nancy Meendering (Hull, IA/Western Christian HS).
Stanford once again dominated the match at the net with 14.0 team blocks, marking the
22nd time the Cardinal has reached double figures in team blocks this year. UC Santa
Barbara mustered just four team blocks. Stanford’s serving was also superior with
seven aces in comparison to three for the Gauchos, while the Cardinal defense held UCSB to
a .107 team attack percentage.
Story from San Jose Mercury News ( www.sjmercury.com/
) by Jody Meacham
For Kerri Walsh, the end is in sight, just over the rainbow next week in Honolulu,
where second-ranked Stanford will try for its third NCAA volleyball championship since she
joined the Cardinal four seasons ago.
Friday night, Walsh served notice in the most attention-getting way that the rest of
the volleyball-playing world should prepare itself for a Cardinal onslaught in the final
four.
Returning to the jump serve she last used when Stanford won the national title in her
freshman season, Walsh blasted UC-Santa Barbara into submission with four of the
Cardinal's seven aces as Stanford won the Pacific Region title 3-0 before a Maples
Pavilion crowd announced at 2,849.
``I really didn't want to leave anything on the floor,'' Walsh said, the troublesome
right shoulder that has been a problem since her days at Mitty High encased in ice.
``I want to give all I've got. I've got two more matches. I'm not going to hold back,
because I think my team needs me, and I'm going to do anything I can. If my shoulder's
feeling good, I'm going to take it to the limit.''
Her coach, Don Shaw, who was caught by surprise when Walsh came out leaping, said, ``If
we have to tear (Walsh's shoulder) off and put it in a box after this next week, it'll be
in the Stanford Hall of Fame room.''
The Cardinal (30-2) will play Long Beach State (31-3), which defeated Texas A&M
15-4, 15-7, 15-13 in the Mountain Region final in Honolulu. The semifinal match will be
Thursday, and it will be the fifth final-four appearance for the Cardinal in the past six
seasons and the 12th in the 19-year history of the tournament.
Top-ranked Penn State advanced to the final four by eliminating No. 8 UCLA, one of
the teams that defeated Stanford this season, 3-0 in the Central Region. The East Region
final will be played tonight between No. 5 Pacific, a 3-0 winner over Northern Iowa,
and fourth-ranked Florida, which beat Brigham Young 3-0.
UC-Santa Barbara, one of four teams along with Stanford, Penn State and Pacific to have
played in every NCAA tournament, has never advanced to the final four, but it is one of
seven teams to hold a series edge over the Cardinal, leading 8-6. But the Cardinal has won
six of the teams' past seven matches and has won 45 consecutive matches at Maples
Pavilion.
With Walsh and fellow jump-server Tara Conrad -- who had two aces -- together in the
Cardinal's rotation, the Gauchos were caught flat-footed from the start, although they
managed to lead 10-7 in the first game before losing 15-12, 15-6, 15-10.
``I really didn't expect Stanford to be able to serve that aggressively,'' UC-Santa
Barbara Coach Kathy Gregory said. ``Their jump serves caught us off guard. They were
unbelievable. Even Kerri Walsh brought out a jump serve -- I hadn't seen that. That took
us out of our rhythm.''
One night after the Gauchos (29-6) were able to get to everything Nebraska could throw
at them, Stanford shut them down. Santa Barbara's hitting percentage was only .107 for the
match.
``They had tremendous jump serves,'' said Gauchos outside hitter Roberta Gehlke, who
had a match-high 22 kills. ``I don't think we've ever seen jump serves quite as good as
Kerri's and Tara Conrad's tonight. It was extremely hard to pass, and that really threw us
off. Passing is our foundation, and when we're thrown off we have a hard time.''
Freshman Logan Tom led the Cardinal with 13 kills, and Walsh added 10. Jennifer Detmer
came on in the third game to get all eight of her kills.
Lindsey Yamasaki was subbed out for senior Sarah Clark, a Hawaii native, after a first
game in which she committed two errors. It was the second night in a row Yamasaki had a
poor first game.
``Lindsey struggled a little bit early,'' Shaw said. ``It wasn't her fault necessarily,
just a couple of bad sets she needed to keep in play. She wanted it so bad that she got a
little over-excited. I'm not going to hesitate to go with Sarah. It's nice to have that
kind of depth. We didn't have those options last year. We have a pretty strong outside
hitter corps.''
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