2001 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Tournament - National Championship: Long Beach State Vs. Stanford

National Championship: Long Beach State Vs. Stanford

Teams Game 1 Game 2 Game 3
LBSU 29 28 25
STAN 31 30 30

In the title match, Stanford stunned top ranked and previously undefeated Long Beach State in three sets.

In game 1, Stanford went up 20-14 before Long Beach State closed the gap to 23-22. Down 26-24, Long Beach State rallied off four straight points, and eventually earned game point at 29-27. The 49'ers squandered both opportunities, with a Logan Tom kill and a Long Beach hitting error tying it up at 29. A Tom kill gave Stanford the game, 31-29. It was the first time all season that Long Beach lost the first game of a match.

In game 2, Stanford went up 11-7, then extended the lead to 20-13. Stanford remained in control, going up 27-20 and earning game point at 29-23. Long Beach State, however, did not go away and reeled off five consecutive points to cut the deficit to 29-28. The comeback ended, however, on a 49er service error giving Stanford the game, 30-28.

Game 3 remained even midway through. Stanford led 15-14 at the media timeout, before a Logan Tom service ace gave the Cardinal some separation at 25-21. Stanford remained ahead, going up 28-24 after an Ogonna Nnamani kill, before earning championship point after a Tom kill. A Stanford block ended the match, 30-25, ending Long Beach State's undefeated season, while Stanford ended their season at 33-2 - with one of the losses coming from Long Beach State earlier in the year.

Stanford won their fifth NCAA title. The win over Long Beach improved Stanford's record to 2-0 against undefeated teams in the national championship, as Stanford beat previously undefeated UCLA in the 1992 final. Stanford head coach John Dunning became the first Division I coach to win the national championship at two different schools, as he led Pacific to back-to-back titles in 1985 and 1986.

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