Farm Report

SPORTS: SPORTS NOTEBOOK   A Brilliant Career, But a Disappointing Finish The plan was for volleyball star Kerri Walsh to cap a brilliant college career -- two NCAA titles and three Final Four appearances -- with one last win. Instead the Cardinal (31-3) fell to top-ranked Penn State in a disappointing performance in the national championship game, 15-2, 15-10, 15-7. Walsh, the co-national player of the year, led the Cardinal with 11 kills, but the Nittany Lions dominated the December 18 match in Honolulu by outblocking Stanford. Walsh isn't ready to retire yet: both she and Stanford teammate Logan Tom, a freshman, have been added to the national training team, from which the 2000 Olympic squad will be chosen.   Two Cardinal Golfers Head to England Stanford juniors Hilary Homeyer and Stephanie Keever know where they will be spending part of their summer vacation. The pair was selected by the U.S. Golf Association Women's Committee to play in the 2000 Curtis Cup. The competition, which pits an amateur team from the United States against one from the British Isles, will be held in North Yorkshire, England, beginning June 24. Homeyer and Keever are two of only four collegiate golfers on the American team. Homeyer had her best finish of the last two years as the 1999 runner-up at the Women's Western Amateur. Keever advanced to the quarter-final round of the U.S. Women's Amateur in each of the past two years.   Women Swimmers Are Cruising Stanford's women are in the swim. The third-ranked squad posted early-season wins over two Pac-10 opponents in January. In the key home matchup against No. 2 Arizona, the Cardinal led wire-to-wire and won 10 of the meet's 13 events, with four swimmers winning a pair of events each for a final score of 131-112. The day before that win, the team had cruised to a 147-92 victory over No. 18 Arizona State. The Cardinal, runner-up at the NCAA championships last season after winning six of the previous seven national titles, won a pair of dual meets during the fall season with victories over Texas and British Columbia.   For the Men, a Test in the Early Going They are perennial favorites to win the Pac-10 and compete for a national title. But none of that means Stanford's swimmers get through the season untested. The second-ranked men's squad ran into rough waters in January and was edged by No. 3 Arizona, 124-119. That loss knocked the Cardinal to 3-3 overall on the season and 1-1 in the Pac-10. Despite the loss, junior Adam Messner managed to record an automatic NCAA qualifying time of 1:36.33 in the 200 freestyle. The men bounced back later in the month and touched the wall first in nine of 11 events to beat the University of the Pacific, 118-82.