Denise Corlett, associate head coach of Stanford women’s volleyball, will retire after 31 years with the program. The school will begin a national search for her replacement.

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After losing a disappointing five-set match on Jan. 8, seventh-ranked men’s volleyball rebounded to win the AVCA Showcase in Fairfax, VA. The Cardinal earned the title with a 3-1 victory over New Jersey Institute on Jan. 10 and a sweep of George Mason on Jan. 11.

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For the 10th-straight year, No. 19 men’s swimming and diving drowned the University of Pacific. The Cardinal opened their 2020 winter dual meet season with a comfortable 198-82 victory, winning all 16 events.

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Stanford named Dan Schemmel as the sixth head coach of the men’s swimming and diving program in May of 2019. Schemmel was the head of both the men’s and women’s programs at Hawaii, where the Rainbow Warriors and Wahines enjoyed new levels of success.

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St. Francis stunned the seventh-ranked men’s volleyball team with a five-set win in Loretto, PA, on Wednesday night. The Cardinal won the first two sets before collapsing and dropping their first match of the 2020 season.

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For the second-straight year, men’s volleyball opened its season by hosting Menlo College and UC Santa Cruz. Mirroring last season’s efforts, the seventh-ranked Cardinal (2-0, 0-0 MPSF) took down both opponents in straight sets. All available players listed on the roster saw action on the court, with six men making their collegiate debuts.

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No. 3 Stanford dropped fourth-seeded Wisconsin in straight sets to claim the program’s nation-leading ninth national championship. The 25-16, 25-17, 25-20 win is already Stanford’s third of the year, and brings the school total to a NCAA-best 126.

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Stanford punched its ticket to the NCAA national championship with a sweep over Minnesota on Saturday evening. The 25-19, 25-22, 25-22 victory avenged an early-season loss to the Golden Gophers. The third-seeded Cardinal will battle No. 4-seed Wisconsin for the title on Saturday.

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Thursday marks the beginning of the final leg of the volleyball team’s journey this year. The Cardinal will be competing in their fourth-straight Final Four match with the ultimate goal of securing their third national title in four years.

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The No. 3 Cardinal had their best offensive performance of the season, sweeping away the No. 11 Nittany Lions in under 90 minutes. After overcoming a six-point deficit in the first set, Stanford never looked back. The Cardinal would finish with a 75% side-out rate, and Penn State’s only other lead would come at 0-1 to start the second set.

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In a bona-fide Pac-12 slugfest, No. 3 Stanford outlasted Utah in five sets on Friday night. The Utes did their best to harness some Friday-the-13th spookiness, but each Cardinal player on the floor did her job and held fast. For its efforts, Stanford has won an Elite Eight date with Penn State in Maples — the exact scenario the title-winning team was put in last year.

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Stanford had one of its best offensive outings of the season, sweeping the Mustangs in three sets to advance to the Sweet Sixteen for the fourth consecutive year. Five of six Cardinal attackers hit .300 or better, and the passers did not concede an ace.

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Senior outside Kathryn Plummer had more than double anyone else’s kills. The Cardinal serve was aggressive and highly effective. The defense held Denver to its second-worst offensive outing of the season. It was a textbook Stanford win, and it came in the opening round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament. In just over an hour, the defending champion Cardinal sent the Pioneers packing with a three-set sweep.

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For the 39th consecutive year, the women’s volleyball team will be competing in the NCAA tournament. Selected as the third-overall seed, the Cardinal will have four rounds of home-court advantage. The first round of the tournament will commence on Friday, with Denver visiting the Farm.

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For the first time in seven years, the women’s basketball team has opened its season with eight-straight wins. The third-ranked Cardinal entered Thanksgiving break with four W’s to their name, and they now emerge with four more in a seven-day span. The week started with a tough win over Buffalo, and then Stanford traveled to Victoria, Canada for its first taste of tourney play.

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Make it three years and three conference titles for women’s volleyball. Since head coach Kevin Hambly took the reigns in 2017, the Cardinal have stayed on top of the Pac-12, going 56-3 in that span. After earning at least a share of the championship earlier this weekend, No. 3 Stanford claimed the title outright with a three-set sweep of No. 25 Washington State.

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Last season, Buffalo forced Stanford to play tough for all 48 minutes, with the Cardinal escaping New York victorious 62-55 behind 30 points from Alanna Smith ’19. This year, third-ranked Stanford showed it had learned from the previous outing, as the team lead the Bulls wire-to-wire in the 88-69 victory.

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Sunday afternoon saw fourth-ranked Stanford (20-4, 14-2 Pac-12) exact their revenge in terrifying fashion, dominating the Bruins in all aspects of the game. In front of the Maples faithful, the Cardinal out-hit, out-blocked, out-dug and out-served UCLA (14-11, 9-7 Pac-12) for three full sets.

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Senior setter Jenna Gray moved into second place in program history for career assists as the fourth-ranked Cardinal trounced USC in four sets. The 25-12, 25-17, 22-25, 25-20 match was the result of extremely tough defensive play which held the Women of Troy to their second-worst offensive match of the season (.142 hitting percentage).

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The Los Angeles schools are coming to town, and this time much more is riding on the matches than just petty in-state rivalries. Three weeks ago, UCLA swept Stanford for the first time since 2015, before any current member of the team was even on the Farm. Two days later, USC nearly made it six-straight losing sets before the Cardinal rallied and pulled off the reverse sweep. With senior outside hitter Kathryn Plummer back on the court for Stanford, the matches this weekend will be a clash of offensive titans.

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An intense debate has broken out in the Maples locker room of the women’s volleyball team as to whether the numbered dial on the toaster corresponds to the toasting time (in minutes) or some enigmatic level of toastiness. The bagels spring back up, and the distraction means an official verdict is never reached. Each player finds a spot on a couch or the floor and the conversations turn from toasters to Oregon.

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Senior setter Jenna Gray broke 5,000 career assists on Saturday evening when No. 5 Stanford (18-4, 12-2 Pac-12) downed Arizona (12-14, 2-12 Pac-12) 25-16, 25-17, 25-16. Gray is the active career assists leader (5,008) in Division I, and she is just seven away from holding the No. 2 spot in the school’s record books (Madi Bugg, 2012-15; 5,014 assists).

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Outside of the win itself, the best news for the Cardinal was the fact that senior outside hitter Kathryn Plummer made a cameo, ending a 10-match absence due to an undisclosed injury.

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No. 5 Stanford (12-1-2, 5-1-1 Pac-12) is set to play Oregon State (7-5-1, 4-2-1 Pac-12) for the second time this season tonight. The last time the teams met was on Oct. 6, and the game ended in a 1-1 tie after double-overtime.

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