Just two weeks ago, the No. 10 Stanford men’s volleyball team (17-11, 14-8 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) was tied for seventh place in-conference, unsure if it would even move on to postseason play, as only the top eight teams advance to the MPSF Tournament.

The Cardinal was looking to finish the season with a flurry of victories and Stanford has been able to do just that, ending the regular season riding five-match win streak.

Not only did the streak put the Cardinal in the playoffs, but with its two wins over the past weekend, Stanford clinched a quarterfinal match at home.

“That’s the main thing [about this weekend’s wins],” coach Don Shaw said. “It’s great that we don’t have to travel, but we’d like to have a good crowd. We’d really like to have a big crowd out there behind us.”

Stanford capped off its climb up the standings with sweeps over No. 11 UCLA (15-14, 10-12 MPSF) and No. 6 UC-Irvine (19-10, 12-10 MPSF) — the Cardinal will take on the Anteaters again next Saturday to begin the conference tournament.

Stanford pulled out Friday’s win over the Bruins with superior team defense.

“Against UCLA, we weren’t outstanding offensively,” Shaw said. “This was as good a weekend defensively as we have had all year, though.”

Stanford out-blocked the Bruins 13-10.5 and held a 10-dig advantage, as redshirt sophomore setter Kevin Hansen and sophomore libero David Vogel led the Cardinal in digs with 11 and 10, respectively.

Even though Stanford did not come up with its best offensive performance, senior outside hitter Billy Strickland was predictably solid individually, coming up with 11 kills on a .429 hitting percentage.

Senior opposite hitter and current MPSF Player of the Week Curt Toppel led the team in kills with 12, but was held to just a .194 hitting percentage. Toppel also added 5 digs, 3 blocks and a service ace.

Although Stanford came away with another sweep against Irvine, Saturday night’s match was much tighter, but the Cardinal was able to make key plays to come away with the win.

“Statistically, Irvine is about the best team in the country defensively, so I was pretty happy with our play,” Shaw said. “We did a great job positioning and coming up with digs.”

The defensive efforts of the two teams were extremely well-matched. While the Anteaters out-blocked the Cardinal 11-9, Stanford edged out Irvine in digs, 34-31.

The Cardinal defense was especially strong against Irvine’s toughest hitter, junior Jimmy Pelzel. Although the outside hitter recorded 16 kills, he was held to just a .211 hitting percentage.

For Stanford, Toppel again led the way, racking up 14 kills, four digs, four blocks and two service aces.

Senior middle blocker Paul Bocage also excelled for Stanford, recording 13 kills on a stunning .706 hitting percentage.

Hansen was also impressive as he posted team-highs in assists and digs, with 50 and 8, respectively.

Against the Anteaters, the Cardinal came away not only with a win, but it was able to show its ability to make plays during crunch time.

Stanford was able to pull ahead in a very close third game, 32-30, to close out the match and clinch homecourt advantage.

As the team enters the playoffs, strong play under pressure will mean the difference between a win and a loss as every team in the tournament has a legitimate shot of taking it all.

“We’re on a roll and playing with a very high level of confidence,” Shaw said. “It was a real team effort this weekend. And even though we didn’t use a lot of our bench, all those guys are really ready to play and I think that’s a real sign of a championship team.”