Former Menlo School standout Selina Xu goes primetime with Stanford volleyball

Xu missed her senior year at Menlo after suffering the first of two ACL tears in her left knee, just days prior to an international tournament in Mexico with the U.S. Junior National Team. Then in 2019, just prior to the NCAA postseason and Stanford’s ninth all-time national championship victory, Xu reinjured her ACL, sidelining her for eight months.

“My recovery has gone really, really well,” Xu said. “I was playing full games in August. And obviously, if things were normal ... I’d definitely have been ready to play. … My knee has been feeling great and I’m feeling better than I did before.”

Now, Xu is taking over for legendary Stanford setter Jenna Gray — a three-time All-American and second in program history in career assists — who during her senior campaign also served as Xu’s mentor.

It was an extraordinary but strange situation for Xu who, for the first time in her standout volleyball career, was relegated to a bench role. But there, Xu said she absorbed all she could from Gray: “Sitting, watching, learning from the best.”

“That was by far one of the coolest experiences because I look up to her so much,” Xu said. “Not only is she such an amazing volleyball player but she is such an amazing person. … Not many people get the opportunity to get to do that. I learned so much from her.”

Gray is the latest in a decorated line of Stanford setters, one of the secrets of the program’s success. The Cardinal own more national championships than any team in NCAA volleyball history but are now facing a rebuilding year after graduating most of a powerhouse roster. Stanford now boasts just one senior in outside hitter Meghan McClure.

After McClure, there is little experience to speak of. Sophomore outside hitter Kendall Kipp entered the year having played in 23 career matches. Xu was tied for fourth on the team in total matches played, having appeared in four.

“I think every year you really reinvent the team,” Stanford head coach Kevin Hambly said. “Every year you try to change, even the last two years. I know we won two championships and had a good run … but our team looked different with the personnel, and the way we managed things, and the way we played. … So, I think we’re always reinventing. It’s what’s really fun about this job … is it’s dynamic. It’s constantly changing.”

Hambly knows plenty about taking over for a legend. Four years ago, he was hired to replace the winningest coach in Stanford history, John Dunning, with the Cardinal coming off a 2016 national title.

Now, with Hambly already just five wins away from his 100th career win on The Farm, his message to Xu is simple: Just be yourself.

“I think she realizes it’s a lot harder than it looks when you sit on the sideline,” Hambly said. “She’s getting better at it all the time and she’s working really hard. I think in all cases, it seems a lot easier than it actually is, and Jenna made a lot of things look easy. That’s a real credit to Selina. She’s worked really hard to be the best player she can be with whatever time we’ve had, which has been pretty limited. But I think my message to Selina … you don’t want to try to be Jenna, you just want to be yourself.”

For Stanford, however, finding its identity on the volleyball court has been a tall challenge. The Pac-12 volleyball season was postponed from its usual fall schedule due to COVID-19. And now, with the season finally getting underway Feb. 5, the Cardinal have been forced to cancel more matches than they’ve played due to coronavirus protocols. Most recently, Stanford called off last weekend’s two-match road trip to Oregon State.

Since shutting down all volleyball activities last March, the team returned to outdoor practices in August. But guidelines were stringent. Then came another shutdown. The players sojourned to San Diego for unofficial practices over the winter. The Stanford program, however, wasn’t cleared to reenter Maples Pavilion for regular indoor practices until Jan. 26, just nine days before the season opener in Arizona.

Xu said she was cleared to play last August and would have been ready for action had the regularly scheduled season proceeded as planned. The additional five-month layoff, however, may have helped her health wise, according to Hambly.

“Physically, I think she’s pretty much a hundred percent,” Hambly said. “This extra time actually helped her at some level to get back to being a hundred percent physically, so she’s good there.”

Through four matches, Xu is already hitting stride. In Stanford’s second match of the year, a four-set loss at Arizona, Xu posted her first career double-double with 39 assists and 11 digs. She went on to total a career-high 45 assists Feb. 12 in a five-set loss to Cal.

“I think what she’s contributing is she’s … our starting setter and she’s running the team,” Hambly said. “And she’s trying to figure out what all that means … she’s trying to figure out how to run and lead a program. And she’s getting better every single day, to be honest.”

While Xu continues to develop her identity in Cardinal red, she still holds true to the legacy of Gray’s golden era of Stanford volleyball, which Xu got to share in for most of one season. It was a “bummer,” her word, that she couldn’t fly to Pittsburgh to take part in the 2019 national championship celebration. Xu actually watched on TV at her family home in Belmont as Hambly’s first generation of players reveled in their crowning swan song.

“That class is just super amazing, and I still look up to them,” Xu said. “They are amazing athletes and what they’ve accomplished at Stanford, it’s just something I wish I could accomplish a fraction of what they have.”