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12/02/1999 Match #1 (1/64) against the Florida Atlantic Lady Owls
All the Way...A Decade of Victories
Lindsey Yamasaki: Volleyball Samurai Princess

As soon as I found out that the tickets were on-sale, I bought the reserved ticket for the first and second games.

However, it was not that easy. I must admit that I was emotionally traumatized by the experience. I've never done anything like this...You see, I graduated from Cal Berkley with both my BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition, during my high school junior and senior years I was in a special program for which I attended Cal during both summers and throughout the school year on Saturdays. I even attended a summer computer programming class at Cal's Lawrence Hall of Science during my high school sophomore year.  So I literally was involved with Cal for about 8 years. Stanford has been an arch rival for Cal. So it was exceedingly difficult to order the tickets over the phone by dialing 1-800-BEAT-CAL!

Fortunately a Stanford graduate student that's working part-time at Intel consoled me by saying that the same phone number can also be spelled as 1-800-BE-AT-CAL :-) So I didn't feel bad anymore.

The starters were introduced.

Right after work I left for the Maples Pavilion at Stanford. This was my first time there. I enjoyed the first match between Santa Clara Broncos and the hapless Cincinnati Bearcats. Santa Clara won handily with scores of 15-13, 15-12, 9-15, 15-5.

While I was taking a picture of the infamous Stanford band, the Stanford players, including Logan Tom, walked right past me. Yes, I got to look up to them--most of them are 6 feet or taller--even two players at 6 feet and 3 inches!

The band was loud. (Other derogatory comments about the Stanford band have been censored from this WEB :-)

Stanford won the first game easily by beating the Florida Atlantic with a score of 15-3.

The Lady Cardinals should be embarrassed. They should be embarrassed because they have so many good players. Kerri Walsh is one of their most famous senior outside hitters. I came to this game because I wanted to see Logan Tom in action. Logan is a national freshman player-of-the-year candidate.  Tonight they both played well. However, Lindsey Yamasaki was even more impressive. How can you not been impressed by a 6-2 outside hitter/middle blocker?! On the drive home I was thinking about another title for this story as it's my tradition. I settled on "Lindsey Yamasaki:   Volleyball Samurai Princess" as being the most appropriate.

[Photo of Lindsey Yamasaki by Dave Gonzales] from ( www.fansonly.com/schools/stan/sports/w-volley/mtt/stan-w-volley-mtt.html ).

Several more photos of Lindsey.

Stanford rolled over the Florida Atlantic like a steam roller. It's a pity for the Atlantic Lady Owls. They flew all this way across the continent to lose the second game to Stanford by a score of 1-15!

This is the famous Stanford tree mascot. Can you imagine having a tree as a mascot? I refrained from tackling the tree because I didn't want to get kicked out by security. :-) Where is Rondo, my pet dog, when I needed him? :-) Surely Rondo would have gone up to the tree and avenge the last Big Game loss by the Cal football team...

By now you know that I always include food as part of my adventure! I ate a chocolate malt ice cream. This is one of my favorite snacks while watching a ball game.

Having won the first two games, at this point of the game Stanford was ahead 14-5. Could this be the last serve of the game? At this point Kerri and Logan have been pulled from the game to give the other players some playing times. Lindsey stayed in and played. Boy, did she play! She scored several very impressive kills. How can she move so fast even though she is 6-2? I guess maybe it's because she also plays basketball for Stanford. She  is a two-sport athlete. Amazing.

It was only appropriate for Lindsey to score the final kill. Stanford won 15-5.

The Lady Cardinals gathered and celebrated. The Stanford tree looked happy. Looked like the tree is tuning up for his appearance at the Rose Bowl since Stanford will be playing against the Wisconsin Badgers. (Go Badgers! Sorry Stanford fans. Being a Cal alumni, I do have certain limits. Besides, my eldest brother did get this Ph.D. in food science from Wisconsin!)

So Stanford is one step closer to the NCAA championship: "All the Way...A Decade of Victories."

Best of all, I bought a tee-shirt for myself and a jersey for Theresa. Stay tuned for the next game.

  www.gostanford.com/sports/w-volley/   has the official story:

No. 2 Stanford And Santa Clara Win First Round NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament Matches

Stanford dominated its first round match with a 15-3, 15-1, 15-5 win over Florida Atlantic (17-13) as the Cardinal won its 16th straight match overall and its 19th consecutive first round NCAA Tournament contest. Freshman outside hitter Lindsey Yamasaki paced the club with 11 kills and added a .389 attack percentage. National Freshman of the Year candidate Logan Tom had a productive evening with nine kills and a .533 attack percentage, while sophomore middle blocker Sara Sandrik posted a perfect attack percentage (1.000) on six attempts. The Cardinal hit .415 as a team, compared to an .000 attack percentage for the Lady Owls. Stanford had a huge second game with an .846 attack percentage (11K, 0E, 13E).