Following in Footsteps of Her Sisters : Volleyball: Stanford’s Bev Oden is becoming a national-caliber player like her siblings Kim and Elaina.

Bev Oden has always studied the size of her older sisters’ shadows.

She has explored the vastness of them all her life, playing volleyball within the boundaries laid out by Kim and Elaina.

She excelled as they did but could never pass them. The shadows have done as shadows do: With every step Bev takes forward, her sisters move forward, too, leaving Bev’s reach to forever exceed her grasp.

There were times when Bev struggled against these expectations, but no more. When she chose to take her volleyball game from Irvine High School to Stanford two years ago, she did it even though she knew she would be following Kim, twice selected national player of the year for the Cardinal.

And why not? Bev had grown accustomed to her sisters’ example after 18 years. Wouldn’t she be acknowledging the pressure more if she chose not to follow her own desire only because it had been Kim’s as well? So what if neither time nor distance nor the transience of a college-town population could make Bev anonymous in Palo Alto.

“Even when I go to the post office, people recognize me as Kim’s sister--the workers, even the maintenance people,” Bev said, laughing.

Bev, who led Irvine to two state championships, succeeded immediately at Stanford, being selected an All-American as a freshman, and she is playing even better this year.

Kim and Elaina, both out of college, are likely on their way to being teammates at the 1992 Olympics.

And a funny thing is happening. Bev might be gaining on the shadows.

It looked that way one night in Westwood last month, when Bev carried her game to its highest level in a match against No. 1 UCLA.

Stanford went ahead, two games to one, and led, 12-4, in the fourth as Bev lurked and leaped and swatted the ball.

UCLA came back to tie the score, and Stanford then twice served for the match at 15-14 before losing the game.

The match lasted 3 hours 16 minutes, and Bev had been dominating. At the end, she had 92 attacks, a school record. And she had finished with 41 kills, demolishing the school record of 32.

That record used to be Kim’s.

It was a concrete example of Bev surpassing Kim, and it will be written on paper, for anyone to see.

Bev didn’t learn she had broken the record until later, when she had returned to school. It meant something to her, not because of sibling rivalry, but as a measure of her progress.

“To know that I’m getting closer to her level is great for me,” Bev said. “I look forward to getting better each year, getting closer to her. Doing things just like that proves I’m getting there, slowly.”

She may yet surpass her sisters in other ways.

There has been an Oden on the national championship team before, and there has been an Oden named player of the year.

But never at the same time. It has always been an either/or proposition.

Kim was the national player of the year twice at Stanford but never won a national championship.

Elaina helped win two national championships at the University of the Pacific but was never player of the year.

Now Bev has three chances ahead of her to do either or both.

Stanford is ranked third in the country, behind UCLA and Nebraska, and awaiting the NCAA pairings after finishing the regular season 25-3.

And Bev, who has far surpassed an outstanding freshman season, is one of a handful of players in the running for national player of the year.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she is player of the year this year as a sophomore. She has improved tremendously,” said her coach, Don Shaw, who considers UCLA’s Natalie Williams, Nebraska’s Val Novak, UCLA’s Jenny Evans (formerly of Newport Harbor High) and Hawaii’s Karrie Trieschman the other contenders.

This year, Shaw moved Bev from a middle blocker/middle hitter position into one opposite the setter, which gives her more opportunities to hit and more responsibility in blocking and defense.

As for comparisons with Kim, who was an All-American at Stanford from 1982-85 and player of the year in ’84 and ‘85, they are kept to a minimum.

“We don’t even talk about it,” Shaw said. “Occasionally, if she’s doing something well, I’ll tell her ‘Hey, it took Kim three or four years to do that.’ ” Bev still doesn’t see herself as approaching the abilities of her sisters.

Said Oden, “I don’t think I’ve gotten to that state, (and) I still see them being so far ahead of me, in their games and in their lives. Kim being seven years older has always been like a Mom. But we are getting closer, especially in the things we talk about at home.”

One of the things they do not talk about much is Kim’s disappointment about never winning an NCAA championship at Stanford--a school that has never won it despite six trips to the Final Four.

“It’s not a big topic of conversation (with Kim),” Bev said. “It’s understood. We all know how she feels about it. I know it hurts, so we don’t bring it up a lot. That’s another reason I don’t want to go through the same thing, getting to the final four and losing.”

Bev would like to be player of the year some time in her college career, but she is emphatic about her preference if she, like her sisters, will be limited to one of the two big prizes in college volleyball.

“If the choice is between winning the national championship and player of the year, I’d rather win the national championship,” Bev said. “I’m more worried about actually coming out on top once. It would be so much more of an accomplishment.

“For us, it would be kind of proving something to ourselves. It would be the ultimate satisfaction after working this hard so many years. Knowing we can do it and doing it--there’s such a big difference between knowing you can do it and losing and going all the way and winning and finishing. It adds a lot to it that we’ve never won a national championship.”

That would be an accomplishment that neither Stanford--nor any Oden who played there--has known.