After an impressive showing two weeks ago, when the Cardinal women’s tennis team lit up the Las Vegas courts, Stanford now sets it sights on a place not often seen in competition thus far this season — home.

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Mehmet Inonu

Celia Durkin / SO / photo from Women's ITA Tournament on 10.23.05

The last time the Cardinal women met a challenge at the Taube Tennis Center was about three months ago, in the ITA Regionals Oct. 21-24. Since then, Stanford has been on the road in Arizona, Ohio, Hawaii, Southern California and Las Vegas and, for the most part, has been as successful as in past years.

Stanford sophomore Celia Durkin is coming off her title-winning performance at the UNLV Freeman Memorial Championship. She wasn’t the only one that left Las Vegas with big winnings, however. Stanford swept the Freeman Memorial titles, as Alice Barnes and Anne Yelsey paired up for their third doubles championship together. Durkin defeated UCLA’s Laura Gordon, 6-2, 6-0, and the Cardinal tandem defeated Arizona State’s duo, 9-7.

Hawaii comes to the Farm for the Rainbow Wahine’s second matchup against the Cardinal tomorrow. Stanford hosts Fresno State on Friday.

Two from women’s volleyball squad named All Americans

As a testament to the incredible individual performances that highlighted the women’s volleyball team’s 2005 campaign, junior Kristen Richards and freshman Foluke Akinradewo continued to garner superlative postseason accolades this week.

Richards, who paced the Cardinal offense with 544 kills this year, was recently named a first-team All American by ASICS/Volleyball for her play at outside hitter this season. It was the second first-team All-American nomination Richards has received this year — she was also named to the All-American first team by the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) in December.

With her senior season still to play, Richards’1,422 career kills already rank her ninth on the Stanford all-time kills list. She also holds the fifth-best Cardinal career digs total with 1,247 — further evidence of her invaluable role on the women’s squad.

Akinradewo, earlier named the 2005 Pacific-10 Conference Freshman of the Year for her dominant play at middle blocker, was named a second-team All American by ASICS/Volleyball. In her first year on the Farm, Akinradewo finished third in the Pac-10 and 10th in the nation with a .397 hitting percentage. Additionally, the freshman contributed a team-high 1.09 blocks per game in her impressive rookie season.