In December 2004, Franci Girard and Bryn Kehoe were celebrating a national championship win over Minnesota. The middle blocker and setter for the top-ranked Stanford women’s volleyball team, now seniors, are hoping to see their final season on the Farm end the same way that their first did.

The pair had their season end early as sophomores, losing in the second round when the Cardinal was depleted by injuries, including a broken hand that prevented Kehoe from setting. Last year, Stanford returned to the Final Four in top form, but lost a four-game match to Nebraska. A rematch between the two teams, the top seeds in the 2007 postseason, would be the perfect end to this season in the minds of the seniors.

The Cardinal had little trouble advancing to the Sweet Sixteen this past weekend and will host three teams it has already beaten this year in this weekend’s Stanford Regional. Stanford beat No. 16 Cal Poly in a preseason tournament in Maples and recorded two victories over Oregon and No. 8 UCLA in the Pac-10, with a sweep and a four-game win over each.

“You can say you’ve played a team already in the season, but playoffs brings out something entirely different in every team,” junior outside hitter Cynthia Barboza said after Saturday’s win. “Just because we beat them before doesn’t mean really anything.”

While Stanford did not drop even a game last weekend, other top seeds have not fared so well. No. 6 Washington, No. 7 Wisconsin, No. 9 Kansas State, No. 11 Hawaii, No. 14 Colorado State and No. 15 Dayton all lost on Saturday night, leaving one Regional with only one seeded team. The Stanford Regional saw only one upset, with Oregon outlasting Kansas State.

“[There were] some amazing upsets,” head coach John Dunning said in a press conference on Saturday. “It’s just a sign of parity in the sport. There are so many good teams. [Sacramento State head coach] Debby Colberg and I were talking about that before the match. Women’s volleyball is amazing — the number of good players and the skill level — all the teams are good.”

Stanford is not short on tradition — with NCAA titles in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2001 and 2004 — and is having one of its best seasons in Dunning’s tenure. Coming into the playoffs, the Cardinal had lost only twice, the fewest since the 2001 championship season.

If the Cardinal can win twice this weekend, the team will travel 126 miles to Sacramento’s Arco Arena at the end of finals week for the third Final Four of Kehoe and Girard’s career. The winner of the Stanford Regional will face the winner from the Florida Regional in one semifinal match while the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Regional winners will face off in the other.

The Florida Regional has all four seeded teams still in the mix, with the Elite Eight most likely featuring No. 4 Texas and No. 5 Southern California.

No. 3 Penn State is the only seeded team left in the Pennsylvania Regional — this weekend’s upsets were concentrated on the opposite side of the bracket from Stanford — while No. 2 Nebraska will need to get past Michigan and likely No. 10 California to get to Sacramento.

The next team standing in Stanford’s way on the road to Sacramento is Cal Poly (23-7). The Mustangs, who beat Xavier and then Purdue in subregional play, are in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1985. The Cardinal has played Cal Poly 10 times before, with six wins including one in September of this year.

Stanford swept that match behind 15 kills at a .636 clip by junior middle blocker Foluke Akinradewo. Kylie Atherstone led the Mustangs with 12 kills in that match and is the offensive leader this season.

Awaiting the winner of the Stanford-Cal Poly match will be either Oregon or UCLA. The conference foes split their matches in Pac-10 play, each winning at home. Most recently, the Ducks swept the Bruins in Eugene.

Oregon came back from a two-game deficit to upset Kansas State in Kansas last week. Gorana Maricic spearheads the Ducks’ attack and gave the Cardinal some trouble earlier this season, averaging more than five kills per game against Stanford.

The Bruins swept Alabama A&M and beat Clemson in four games in their subregional. Ali Daley and Kaitlin Sather are tied for the team lead in kills while setter Nellie Spicer is second only to Kehoe in assists per game in the Pac-10.

Regardless of how the season ends, 2007 will be a season to remember for the Cardinal, and Kehoe and Girard will have left their mark on the program. Kehoe broke the career assists record earlier this season, despite missing seven matches and not setting in two more in 2005. With 5,701 assists to date, Kehoe has surpassed the old mark by nearly 700 and will have even more by season’s end.

Akinradewo has amassed an otherworldly .498 hitting percentage on the season, demolishing the Pac-10 single season record of .448 and closing in on the NCAA record of .504. Freshman libero Gabi Ailes has anchored the Cardinal’s floor defense all season and is only 34 blocks shy of the Stanford single-season record set by Kristin Richards ‘07 in 2006.

Stanford will play in Friday night’s second match, scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. with Saturday’s Regional final set for 8:30 p.m.