The regular season concludes Friday night against No. 6 Stanford at Maples Pavilion, but it may as well be the first match of the NCAA tournament for the No. 11 Cal volleyball team.

"Two weeks ago we went through the schedule up to the final four and said, 'Here is what we have to plan for,'" coach Rich Feller said. "They've been expecting this for a while. We need to take care of business for the next four or five weeks starting now."

Friday's result will determine a number of things for the Bears, all of which will determine their seeding and strength of opponents in the upcoming NCAA tournament.

A win could mean second place in the Pac-10, a higher tournament seeding and stronger chance at hosting the first two rounds of the tournament.

A loss could mean fourth place in the Pac-10, a lower seed and almost guarantees that they will have to travel to another site for their opening matches of the postseason.

Add in that the Cardinal are the opponent and this almost certainly becomes the most pivotal game of the year. Rivalries aside, the winner of this match will probably be chosen as a regional host given the schools' proximity to one another.

Sunday's 3-1 loss at Arizona halted Cal's momentum and six-game winning streak, but Feller believes his team will be at full strength come Friday night.

"They know that this match means seeding in the NCAA Tournament," Feller said. "We can't win the Pac-10, so we're keeping in mind seeding and the chance at hosting with this win. The players play with a lot of pressure on themselves and are well-aware of these situations."

Like most conference games, the win will not come easily. Cal has not won both regular season matches against the volleyball juggernaut Cardinal since 1979. The Bears' 2008 victory against Stanford at Maples Pavilion was their first in 29 years.

With a victory, the Cardinal guarantee that they will finish at least tied for first-place in the conference. A Washington loss at either Oregon or Oregon State would give the Cardinal an outright first-place finish, but the Huskies control the tie-breaker for the automatic conference bid, which would mean a higher overall seed.

While juniors Alix Klineman and Cassidy Lichtman are almost surefire all-conference selections, Cal might be most worried about middle blocker Janet Okogbaa. The senior is second in the conference in blocks and is a potent offensive threat from the middle. Okogbaa posted 14 kills in the Cardinal's 3-2 loss at Haas Pavilion to open conference play.

Star outside hitter Hana Cutura struggled the last time she faced one of the conference's premiere blocking units. UCLA's Amanda Gil, the Pac-10's leading blocker, held Cutura to a rather pedestrian- by her standards- 15 kills and forced the senior into nine errors.

Stanford's higher ranking means that Cal will enter Maples Pavilion as an underdog, a role that Feller says he would "rather have."

The match kicks off at 7 p.m.

Tags: RICH FELLER, HANA CUTURA, CAL VOLLEYBALL