After the Stanford women’s volleyball team lost to Long Beach State, 3-1, in late September, first-year head coach John Dunning spoke candidly with his players in the locker room. “They’re better than we are. They deserved to win,” he remembers saying. “If you want to change this result, you have a lot of work to do. But we have time. We have two months left.”
His players were listening. Two months later, the Cardinal squad stormed through the NCAA tournament, dropping only three games in five matches. One last hurdle stood between them and the national title: a rematch with top-ranked and still unbeaten Long Beach State.
On December 15, before a San Diego crowd of 10,067, national player of the year Logan Tom and fifth-year senior setter Robyn Lewis led the Cardinal past the 49ers to capture Stanford’s fifth national championship, an NCAA record. And they did it in improbable fashion—a three-game sweep. “It was remarkable,” says Dunning. “It had a fairy-tale sense to it.”
Tom, ’03, led the match with 25 kills and finished the season with 621—a single-season Stanford record. Lewis, the only remaining player from the 1997 championship team, logged 56 assists to finish fourth on Stanford’s career assist list.
With the win, Dunning became the only Division I volleyball coach to garner national titles at two different schools. In 1985 and 1986, Dunning’s University of Pacific team captured the championship during his first two seasons as head coach. But this year’s team, he says, was special.
“I may not have ever had a team that was as good at carrying out a game plan,” he says. “They were very smart and they were motivated to do what they had to do to be successful.”
Seniors Michelle Chambers and Sara Sandrik, whose playing time was more limited than in previous years, excelled as defensive specialists. Volleyball Magazine’s freshman of the year, Ogonna Nnamani, thrived as Tom’s complement at outside hitter. Senior middle blocker Tara Conrad’s consistent play provided stability and versatility. “It was like a puzzle where the pieces actually fit,” Dunning says.
Stanford must overcome the loss of five seniors if it is to challenge again for the title. Dunning thinks it can. “You can’t replace people. But the good thing about sports is you don’t have to—it’s just a different puzzle. And we still have some extraordinary pieces.”
