Track kicks off at Washington Indoor Preview

The Stanford men’s and women’s track teams begin their indoor track seasons this weekend at the Washington Indoor Preview in Seattle, Wash. Both squads come into the competition with high prospects — the women are No. 5 in the country while the men are ranked No. 5, according to a poll conducted by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

The Cardinal women are headlined by senior Erica McLain who looks to defend her 2007 national title in the triple jump. The team also expects to see major contributions from many of its long distance runners, still fresh off the afterglow of capturing this past year’s national championship in cross country. Seniors Arianna Lambie, Lauren Centrowitz and Teresa McWalters hold down the team’s distance running while sophomore Griffin Matthew is the Cardinal’s best in the long jump.

The men will be led by junior distance runners Garrett Heath, Hakon DeVries and Hari Mix. Sophomore Zach Chandy will compete in the 200 and 400 meters while Graeme Hoste leads the team in the pole vault.

Akinradewo named best player in the nation

Junior middle blocker Foluke Akinradewo was honored with the Honda Sports Award yesterday, given to the nation’s top collegiate female volleyball player.

Akinradewo — an integral part of a Stanford squad that made it to the NCAA Championship game for the second year in a row — beat out three other candidates for the award: junior Christa Harmotto (Penn State), sophomore Megan Hodge (Penn State) and Asia Kaczor (USC).

“When I found out I won the award I was in Colorado Springs training with the U.S. National Team, and I felt quite undeserving, considering that there were so many great players all around me,” Akinradewo said to GoStanford.com. “It’s always an honor to be nominated for such a prestigious award. It surprised me last year, and this year as well.”

Despite her humble words, the junior certainly earned the award: Akinradewo led the nation in hitting percentage at .499, nearly setting an NCAA record for hitting percentage in a single season. She was also named the AVCA Pac-10 Player of the Year and had a career-best 26 kills in Stanford’s win over USC in semifinals of the NCAA Tournament.

A junior majoring in Human Biology, Akinradewo is the sixth Cardinal player to win the award. She will now be in the running for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year across all sports.

Gymnastics takes on No. 5 Cal tonight

Currently 6-0 on the year, the No. 1 Stanford men’s gymnastics team faces No. 5 Cal on the road tonight.

The Cardinal is fresh off of an impressive performance at last weekend’s Windy City Invitational where it swept a slew of top ten opponents from the Big Ten Conference. Stanford bested No. 9 Iowa, No. 7 Minnesota, No. 4 Ohio State, and No. 6 Michigan after concluding the event with a final score of 354.450.

Tonight’s match-up with Cal, which takes place at 7:30 p.m. in Berkeley, will be the first of four this year against the rival Golden Bears.