To her left was Cassidy Lichtman, a Stanford-bound junior. To her right were seniors Alexis Crusey, Alli Hillgren and Sarah Wolfe, on their way to Yale, USC and Lehigh, respectively.

Next to them was the rest of Francis Parker High's 2004 Division IV state champion volleyball team, save but one graduated senior.

Benjamin did the math, and her starting as a freshman libero on a high school dream team didn't add up.

“I was really super nervous and not confident at all because of the type of players I was surrounded by,” she said. “Our team was pretty much made up of seniors, and then there was me, this new girl, this freshman.”

Coach Eric Sato had seen these doubts before – in himself.

“This is when I sat her down and talked to her about my Olympic experience,” Sato said.

At age 22, Sato was the youngest player on the 1988 U.S. national volleyball team. At 5-foot-11, he was also the shortest, prompting coach Marvin Dunphy to call his defensive specialist “the Spud Webb of volleyball.”

Sato's brother Gary was an assistant coach on the team. Given Sato's age and height, some people figured his relation to Gary was the reason he made the squad.

Amid the distractions, Dunphy gave Sato a piece of advice. It was the same advice Sato relayed to Benjamin 17 years later.

“I told her that you are going to have a lot of critics saying you can't do this,” Sato said. “My coach told me, 'Don't say anything. Just take care of business, and let your play do the talking. That is how you will earn your teammates' respect.'”

Sato went on to play an integral part in the United States' gold medal run in the '88 Summer Olympics in South Korea, silencing critics and earning the respect of his teammates.

Hearing Sato's story, Benjamin bought in.

“Coach Sato instilled in me the confidence he had to find in himself when he was playing,” Benjamin said. “No one thought he would be able to do the job for the USA. But he worked through it, and the confidence he had in himself made him the great player he was.”

As Benjamin embraced the underdog role, Sato watched her confidence grow. At the end of Benjamin's freshman year, in the most important match of the season, her confidence was put to the test.

In November 2005, Francis Parker faced top-seeded rival Los Angeles Marymount in the Southern California Region final.

“I remember Marymount was going after her, serving every single ball at her,” Sato said. “They went after the freshman.”

Benjamin stood her ground, handling Marymount's jump serves in stride during Francis Parker's 26-24, 24-26, 25-19, 25-19 win. Three days later, the Lancers swept St. Mary's of Berkeley for the school's second-straight state championship.

“For a freshman to exemplify such poise and composure on the court, I think she really got the attention of a lot of college coaches,” Sato said. “She was only a freshman, playing with these college-bound girls. That was the story of Hannah Benjamin.”

Her story isn't over.

Benjamin, who carries a 4.4 grade-point average, is entering her final season this fall at Francis Parker. In November, the 5-foot-10 senior plans to sign a national letter of intent to play for Stanford, where she will become the first libero to be allotted a full scholarship in the program's history.

Benjamin said she is “super excited” about her future as a Cardinal and credited Sato's inspirational story for helping her reach this point.

Sato has one more thing to tell her.

“I always tell the senior class that if you're going to leave your legacy, you're going to need to go out with a bang,” he said. “To win a title would be a great way to end your volleyball career. Go out with a bang.”

 Michael Gehlken is a Union-Tribune intern: michael.gehlken@uniontrib.com