Dec. 12, 2012

STANFORD, Calif. - Stanford has been picked to finish fourth in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation by a vote of men's volleyball coaches.

The Cardinal is coming off a 22-7 season. It tied for second in the MPSF and reached the conference tournament final. Stanford returns three starters and nine letterwinners from the team that finished with a No. 3 national ranking and was one set away from advancing to the four-team NCAA tournament.

Stanford has had five consecutive winning seasons under coach John Kosty, all resulting in top-10 national finishes and top-four MPSF placings.

However, the MPSF poll has traditionally undersold Stanford. Over the past four years, Stanford has finished higher than predicted three times and matched it once.

This year, the coaches among the now-13-team conference (with the addition of Cal Baptist) have chosen defending NCAA champion UC Irvine to win, followed by BYU, Pepperdine, and Stanford.

The Cardinal is coming off is best conference record (17-5) in 15 years and features all-conference juniors Brian Cook and Steven Irvin at outside hitter and Eric Mochalski at middle blocker. In addition, Stanford boasts a strong recruiting class that includes setter-outside hitter James Shaw, a U.S. youth national team standout and son of former Stanford men's and women's head coach Don Shaw.