It almost got away from them, but the top-seeded Stanford women’s volleyball team dug deep to pull out a five-game match against fifth-seeded Southern California Thursday night in the national semifinals to earn a spot in Saturday’s NCAA championship match against Penn State.

In front of 13,048 fans in Sacramento, the Cardinal (32-2) came back from a first-game loss to gut out a thrilling 23-30, 30-20, 30-25, 20-30, 16-14 victory over the Trojans. USC (29-5) led at the midway point of the deciding fifth game, but Stanford fought off a match point to earn the 16-14 win and clinch a spot in the title game.

Junior middle blocker Foluke Akinradewo showed why she is a First Team All-American with a team-high 26 kills on .523 hitting with nine blocks. Freshman outside hitter Alix Klineman – a Second Team selection – struggled offensively with only 14 kills, but became only the fourth player in school history to record 30 digs in a match.

After a one-one tie, USC led wire to wire in the first frame. A long run turned a 12-11 lead into a 17-11 Trojan advantage and Stanford could not close the gap, losing the game 30-23.

In the second game, it was Stanford coming out hot and putting USC on its heels, scoring four of the first five points – one kill by Akinradewo and two by Klineman, combined with a USC error – en route to a 30-20 win and a tied match.

Stanford made it two games to one with a 30-25 win in the third frame. Up 14-5 to start the game after three straight kills by First Team All-American junior outside hitter Cynthia Barboza, Stanford saw its lead shrink but remain at least four down the stretch, closing the game out on a USC hitting error.

The Trojans came out with renewed vigor in the fourth game and Stanford fell flat, losing the 30-20 frame that pushed the match to five games. The Cardinal rebounded from a 7-2 deficit at the start of the fourth game to tie the score at 10, but led only once, at 12-11. From there, the Trojans went on a 19-8 run before winning the game on a Stanford ball-handling error.

USC carried the momentum of the lopsided fourth game into the fifth frame, holding a one-point lead and not letting Stanford get on top. Facing match point at 13-14, the Cardinal got lucky when USC senior star Asia Kaczor missed a serve. Stanford led for the first time in the fifth game at 15-14 after Barboza and senior middle blocker Franci Girard blocked Kaczor. On the Cardinal’s first match point, Barboza hit the ball hard off the USC block and out of bounds to send the Cardinal into Saturday’s final.

Behind Akinradewo on offense, Barboza had 17 kills, Klineman had 14 and Girard and Waller were also in double digits with 12 and 10, respectively. Kaczor’s 29 for USC were a match high.

Senior setter and First Team All-American Bryn Kehoe recorded 70 assists - it was the fourth 70-plus match of her career. She is the all-time leader in assists at Stanford and last night broke her own record for assists in a single season.

Klineman’s 30 digs led a 104-dig effort that featured five players in double digits, with freshman libero Gabi Ailes' 25 second on the team. Ailes now has the most digs ever in a single season by a Stanford player (523), breaking the previous record of 502 set in 2004 by Kristin Richards ’07.

Akinradewo had nine blocks total, with two solos, out of 11 for Stanford. USC totaled nine.

In Saturday night's final, the Cardinal will face third-seeded Penn State, which easily dispatched 10th seed California in the other semifinal, 30-28, 30-25, 30-16. Stanford beat the Nittany Lions (33-2) in five games on Sept. 15, handing Penn State its last loss of the season.

Fittingly, Saturday's championship match pits the only two programs to have played in every NCAA tournament since its inception in 1981. The 2007 postseason marks the 27th for both Stanford and Penn State, which this year combined for six First Team All-Americans - Kehoe, Akinradewo and Barboza for the Cardinal; Nicole Fawcett, Megan Hodge and Christa Harmotto for the Nittany Lions. Joining Stanford's Klineman on the Second Team is Penn State's Alisha Glass.

The NCAA final will be the Cardinal’s third in four years, following a loss to Nebraska in last year’s title game and a sweep of Minnesota for the 2004 championship. While Penn State has won the NCAA tournament just once, in 1999, Stanford has won a record six national titles in women's volleyball and will be looking for its seventh Saturday night.