After a whirlwind week filled with a devastating Big Spike loss to No. 4 Cal in Berkeley, followed by back-to-back sweeps of the Arizona schools at Maples Pavilion, the No. 2 Stanford women’s volleyball team managed to come out on top, earning its fifth consecutive Pac-10 title and the No. 3 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

On Nov. 19, Stanford (24-3, 15-3 Pac-10) headed to Berkeley (25-3, 15-3 Pac-10) hoping to avenge a loss to the Golden Bears earlier this season. The stakes were especially high—both squads entered the match with identical 13-2 conference records, and with only two matches remaining against unranked Arizona State and No. 20 Arizona. The winner of the Big Spike would seemingly emerge as the 2010 Pac-10 champion.

Playing in front of a crowd of more than 4,300, the Card came up short, narrowly winning the first set, 28-26, but falling to Cal in the following three, 25-17, 25-17, 25-20. Stanford outhit Berkeley .450 to .349 in the first set, but hit no better than .190 in the remaining three while Cal’s offense heated up. Defensively, Cal had 13 blocks to Stanford’s five.

“Cal is a great team, and they played their best game against us,” said senior setter/opposite Cassidy Lichtman. “We did not start strong in any of the sets and we struggled a lot defensively.”

Lichtman registered 12 kills, 24 assists and 10 digs to earn her third triple-double of the season, and senior outside hitter Alix Klineman, who was recently named the Pac-10’s player of the year, had 24 kills and 11 digs for her 12th double-double of the year.

For Cal, senior setter Carli Lloyd posted 56 assists, 13 digs and four blocks. Junior outside hitter Tarah Murrey matched Klineman’s 24 kills, and freshman outside hitter Adrienne Gehan and sophomore opposite Correy Johnson tallied 12 kills apiece.

With little time to recover, Stanford closed the Pac-10 schedule in six sets with back-to-back sweeps over No. 20 Arizona (20-11, 9-9) and Arizona State (13-18, 7-11) over Thanksgiving break.

The Card finished off the Wildcats in straight sets Wednesday night, despite 30 combined kills from Arizona outside hitters Courtney Karst and Tiffany Owens. Stanford combined to hit .384 on the night—led by Spelman, who put down 10 kills—against Arizona’s .284 hitting percentage.

Each of Stanford’s six starting hitters contributed six or more kills, a testament to the ability of the Cardinal setters—both Lichtman and sophomore Karissa Cook—to utilize the entire offense, which created defensive difficulties for Arizona.

Both teams posted high digging averages, but Cardinal senior libero Gabi Ailes led the match, adding 15 digs to her already record-breaking career total. At the end of the weekend, Ailes had reached 2,086 career digs, dwarfing the Stanford program’s previous career record of 1,597.

However, it was the nine blocks posted by Stanford that gave the team the defensive advantage over the Wildcats. Freshman middle blocker Carly Wopat contributed four blocks, while Arizona totaled three blocks overall. Wopat remains Stanford’s leading blocker for the season.

The Wildcat’s statistics were strong considering Stanford’s evident offensive advantage throughout the match. Arizona State—which had just come off a major upset at Cal two nights before—was less successful on both offense and defense in Maples on Friday night.

The Card, whose conference title hopes were revived in light of Cal’s loss, came out fired up for Friday’s match, as a win would ensure a share of the Pac-10 crown.

“We know that anything can happen in the Pac-10 in any given match so we went into the match with the mindset that the championship was not going to be decided until the last match was played,” Lichtman said. “Actually seeing the results when Cal lost though was awesome. We were pretty excited to play on Friday.”

The match marked the last home conference match for Stanford’s seniors, Klineman, Lichtman and Ailes. The three All-Americans have been imperative to Stanford’s success this season, leading the Card in kills, assists and digs, respectively. Their senior night was one to be remembered, as Stanford held the Sun Devils to a .174 hitting percentage, while Klineman, Lichtman and redshirt sophomore middle blocker Jessica Walker all hit over .500 on the night.

With the victory over Arizona State, the Card clinched a share of the Pac-10 title, the fourth conference championship for this year’s senior class.

“Winning the Pac-10 once is an achievement. Winning it every year is unbelievable,” Lichtman said. “Each year it feels like it comes down to the last match because there are so many good teams. It says so much about the consistency of our program that we’ve been able to come out on top every time.”

With the Pac-10 season complete, Stanford will appear in its 30th-straight NCAA Tournament as the No. 3 overall seed, and the top seed in the Dayton Region. The Card will host the first two rounds of the tournament, with its first match on Friday against Albany (22-8).

Albany, which was riding a seven-match win streak until losing its final match of the season, claimed the America East Conference title on Nov. 20, its fifth title in the last seven years. The Great Danes are led by senior outside hitter Teresa Coppiellie, the 2010 America East Player of the Year, and junior defensive specialist Laurie Gonzalez. Coppiellie recorded 13 double-doubles this season and led the conference with 4.17 kills per set, while Gonzalez led the conference in digs (5.13 per set).

On Saturday, the winner of the Stanford-Albany match will play the winner of the other first round matchup at Maples on Friday between No. 16 Colorado State (25-4) and No. 24 Cal State Fullerton (26-5). Should Stanford emerge victorious from the first two rounds, the Card will travel to Dayton, Ohio for the Dayton Regional on Dec. 10 and 11, where it could face a Pac-10 rival, No. 5 USC (25-4), the tournament’s sixth overall seed and the second highest seed in the region.

“We are really excited for the postseason to start,” Lichtman said. “It’s almost like having a blank slate and I think it helps renew our focus. Mentally, it’s somewhat refreshing to know that we have new teams to play and we feel like we have a good path set up for us. Physically I think we’re all just desperately trying to stay healthy enough and to improve a little bit in our last few practices.”

Stanford will face Albany on Friday at 7 p.m. in Maples Pavilion.