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By Sam Spiller
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 31, 1996
The unthinkable happened this weekend in Pacific 10 Conference volleyball play: Stanford lost in four games to Washington State. Granted, the Cougars are ranked 11th in the nation, but Stanford had a 33-match winning streak in Pac-10 play, dating back to Nov. 5, 1994. The loss caused the Cardinal to drop to No. 4 in the polls.Despite the loss, Stanford still leads the Pac-10 standings. Two games behind the Cardinal, the Washington schools are tied with records of 8-3. Washington is ranked 14th in the nation, while Southern Cal remains at 12th, fourth in the conference. Rounding out the national standings are UCLA and Oregon State, at 20th and 25th, respectively. OSU was beaten in three games this weekend by unranked Arizona, which received 33 votes in this week's poll.
If it was boxing, Saturday's match pitting Stanford against No. 1 Hawaii could be billed as "The Island Showdown." The Rainbows, who have held the top spot all season, are 22-0 and face Western Athletic Conference foe Utah tomorrow.
More on Stanford: Junior outside hitter Kristen Folkl announced last Thursday that she would not play basketball this season for the Cardinal in order to concentrate on volleyball and academics.
"This was a very difficult decision to make, but physically I'm just worn out," Folkl said. "It's also hard emotionally to keep the intensity up for so long, but I will definitely keep the door open to play basketball again in the future."
Folkl averaged 9.9 points and 5.5 rebounds a game as a freshman and was named a 1996-97 first team All-American by Dick Vitale's College Basketball Preview.
In volleyball, Folkl was a two-time All-Pac-10 team member and was also a member of the U.S. National Team last year. She was named as the Olympic team's first alternate. This season she has 287 kills, 151 digs and 59 blocks.
WSU's senior middle blocker Sarah Silvernail was named Pac-10 player of the week after leading the Cougars to victories over California and Stanford. Silvernail had 35 kills, 24 digs and 15 blocks for the weekend. She also became Washington State's career leader in kills at 1,577. Silvernail was also named player of the week on Sept. 16.
Other nominees for player of the week were Arizona's Barb Bell, Oregon's Madeline Ernst, Stanford's Eileen Murfee, UCLA's Kara Milling and USC's Jasmina Marinkovic.
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