SAN DIEGO - No one was quite sure what to expect of the 2001 Stanford women’s volleyball team - not even new head coach John Dunning. But as the season progressed, everyone could sense something magical was happening.
The Cardinal played its first 11 matches on the road to open the season, and went 10-1 with a four-game loss to Long Beach State near the end of the trip. Stanford would encounter its next roadblock in conference play in Los Angeles, falling to USC in four games.
That loss would prove to be the last for Stanford in 2001. A string of 19 consecutive wins followed - some easy, some hard – but all built character. In the match to decide the Pac-10 Championship, the Cardinal fell behind 0-2 to Arizona, but rallied to win the final three games and take the match. The victory gave Stanford its seventh Pac-10 title in eight years and the knowledge that it could win big games.
Stanford breezed past Nevada, San Jose State, Utah and Texas A&M to reach the Final Four, where second-ranked Nebraska was waiting. The Cardinal swept the Huskers and found itself in its ninth national championship match. And so the season came down to this - Stanford would face top-ranked and undefeated Long Beach State for the title, the same team the Cardinal had lost to early in the season. But this wasn’t the same Cardinal that had faced the 49ers in late September.
Long Beach State reached game point at 29-27 in the first game, but the Cardinal battled and earned a 31-29 come-from-behind win. Stanford won another tight contest in the second game, taking a 30-28 decision from the 49ers. In game three, Stanford continued to fight and a Cardinal block by Logan Tom and Tara Conrad closed out the game and the match at 30-25, giving Stanford (33-2) an unprecedented fifth national championship.
National Player of the Year Logan Tom was tabbed MVP of the Final Four while teammates Ashley Ivy, Ogonna Nnamani and Robyn Lewis earned all-tournament honors.