WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL / NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS : Bruins in Final Again, but Not Just <i> Any </i> Final

For UCLA’s five starting seniors and one starting junior, the NCAA Division I women’s volleyball championship match is familiar territory.

But no player, from any team, has experienced what the top-ranked Bruins hope to accomplish tonight.

UCLA, with a 33-0 record, seeks an unprecedented third consecutive national championship when it plays second-ranked Stanford (30-2) in tonight’s NCAA final at New Mexico’s University Arena.

If UCLA wins, it also will be the second team in women’s volleyball history to finish the season undefeated. The first was the 1977 USC team.

But Natalie Williams, a UCLA senior who was selected as the most valuable player of the last two NCAA tournaments, is taking the possibility of making history in stride.

“I think there is the same pressure (as the last two finals),” Williams said. “But I feel that we’re comfortable as a team. . . . We’ve played (Stanford) twice this year, we know a lot of things that they do and we’re really excited to play them.”

In UCLA’s two victories over Stanford, the Bruins came back a from two-game deficit to win in five games at Stanford on Oct. 3, and then needed only three games to defeat Stanford at UCLA on Oct. 30. The only other time UCLA has been pushed to five games was on Nov. 19 at unranked Arizona.

The only other time Stanford and UCLA have met in a final was in 1984, when the Bruins defeated the Cardinal in five games at Pauley Pavilion.

UCLA has won three NCAA championships, in 1984, 1990 and ’91.

Stanford makes its first appearance in an NCAA final since 1987, when it lost to Hawaii. Stanford has finished as NCAA runner-up three times, in 1984, ’85 and ‘87, but has never won a national championship.

The Bruins have won 43 consecutive matches. UCLA’s last defeat was a four-game setback at Stanford on Nov. 15, 1991.

Williams, the American Volleyball Coaches Assn.’s player of the year, leads the Bruins offensively with 472 kills in 845 attempts, including 114 errors, a .424 hitting percentage. She had a season-high 31 kills to lead UCLA against Florida in the semifinals here Thursday.

Stanford is led by Bev Oden, a 6-2 senior hitter. Oden is the only four-time AVCA first-team All-American.

Oden is the younger sister of Kim and Elaina Oden, who both started on the 1992 U.S. Olympic team.

She had 21 kills in Stanford’s semifinal victory over Long Beach.