Win Over UCLA Suits Stanford

Maybe it’s the jacket.

The Stanford women’s volleyball team defeated UCLA, 15-10, 5-15, 16-14, 15-13, on Saturday to win the NCAA championship before 8,312 in the Frank Erwin Center at the University of Texas.

Stanford Coach Don Shaw wore the same sports coat he wore for the 1992 final between the teams, which the Cardinal also won. A Stanford publicity director said it is only the second time he has ever seen Shaw wear a suit coat.

Shaw denied he was being superstitious.

“It’s one of my better jackets,” he said.

While the coat’s role was debatable, the role of Kristin Folkl, Stanford’s star freshman, was not.

Folkl, who is 6 feet 2 and one of the most dominant players in the sport, had a career-high 25 kills to lead Stanford to its second national title.

The match featured the top two teams in the Pacific 10 Conference. The Cardinal, 32-1 overall, won the conference title with a 17-1 record and UCLA (32-5, 16-2) placed second. They split their two regular-season matches, each winning at home.

In the championship final, the difference was Folkl.

“We played our hearts out tonight,” said UCLA Coach Andy Banachowski. “She’s a pretty powerful player. We couldn’t turn it around when we needed to.”

For UCLA, the fatal turn came in the third game. Leading, 14-11, the Bruins could not score the winning point in eight opportunities. Folkl had four kills and Anne Wicks and Lisa Sharpley combined on two consecutive blocks against Annett Buckner to wrest the game away from UCLA.

“We can’t let it slip away like that, that’s our mistake,” UCLA’s Jenny Johnson said.

Banachowski merely shook his head.

“We thought we had it won at one point and Stanford did too good a job siding out,” he said.

After Stanford took a 6-0 lead in the fourth game, Banachowski substituted Kim Coleman in at setter for Kelly Flannigan and UCLA battled back to take a 13-10 lead.

In the end, however, depth became a factor for UCLA. The only other reserve who played was Michelle Mauney, and she played sparingly. The tired Bruins watched as Folkl led the Cardinal back, contributing three kills on a 4-0 run to put the Cardinal ahead, 14-13.

“I thought we were a little drained at the end of the evening,” Banachowski said. “I think our players are in excellent shape but it is a long season. I think we gave it all we had.”

Stanford won when Eileen Murfee, a reserve middle blocker, and Cary Wendell, a junior setter-outside hitter, reached up and stuffed a spike by Johnson back on UCLA’s side of the court.