Pair of St. James alumni end Stanford volleyball careers with national championship

Former St. James Academy teammates Jenna Gray and Audriana Fitzmorris closed the book on their Stanford volleyball career as national champions.

Again.

Stanford won its second straight national championship — ninth overall — with a 3-0 sweep of Wisconsin in Saturday’s championship match at Pittsburgh. Stanford cruised, winning 25-16, 25-17, 25-20.

The result means Gray and Fitzmorris finish their tenure with the Cardinal as three-time national champions in four years.

Both were major contributors in the championship match. Gray, a setter, recorded a team-high 39 assists, while Fitzmorris finished with eight kills and three blocks. Two-time national player of the year Kathryn Plummer led the Cardinal (30-4) with 22 kills.

“Obviously it feels incredible,” said Gray, named to the all-tournament team along with Plummer, who earned her second straight Most Outstanding Player of the national tourney honor. “I feel it’s a whirlwind of emotions. We took a different path than I was expecting. The season didn’t go really how I expected it to go at all, but I think the ending is all that matters. So, perfect ending for us.”

Stanford never trailed in the first two sets. In the third, the Badgers had three leads and were tied at 19 before Plummer and Madeleine Gates scored five straight points for Stanford. Gates hit the winner for her 10th kill.

Afterward, Gray was effusive in her praise of teammate Plummer.

“My jaw will drop,” Stanford setter Jenna Gray said. “There was a couple times where I couldn’t even celebrate because I was so caught off-guard. It’s just like, `She really just did that?’

“She continues to grow and become a better player and surprise us with how much better she can get. You think she hits her ceiling and then she just proves you wrong.”

Gray and fellow St. James Thunder standout Fitzmorris were plenty impressive in their own right throughout their senior year at Stanford. Fitzmorris finished the season with 400 points and 336 kills, while Gray piled up 1,395 assists. The next-closest player on the Cardinal finished with 151.

Gray and FItzmorris are part of a group of Stanford seniors that becomes the second class in program history to win three national titles, finishing with a cumulative record of 121-16 — including a 22-1 mark in NCAA tournaments.

The Cardinal completed this year’s tournament by winning all but two sets over six matches. They swept three Big Ten schools en route to the crown: Penn State, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Under third-year coach Kevin Hambly, Stanford has now gone 16-1 in NCAA tourney matches.

Hambly becomes the seventh head coach to lead a school to back-to-back titles, joining Russ Rose (Penn State), Mick Haley (USC), Don Shaw (Stanford), Andy Banachowski (UCLA), John Dunning (Pacific) and Dave Shoji (Hawai’i).

Wisconsin (27-7) is still seeking its first volleyball national championship.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published December 22, 2019 at 12:29 AM.