So all is right in the Stanford Athletics universe.

The No. 1 seed Stanford men’s volleyball team put on a clinic Saturday night over No. 3 seed Penn State to win the NCAA title, extending the athletic department’s streak to 34 consecutive years with a championship.

Bob Bowlsby & Co. can sleep easily knowing the streak is intact.

The volleyball team’s performance is astonishing. The Cardinal won its first Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title since 1997 to receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship, which Stanford was serendipitously scheduled to host.

With its “Worst to First” mantra – stemming from its 3-25 season in 2007 – the Cardinal was simply unstoppable on its home court. After winning in straight sets over Ohio State in the semifinals, Stanford kept its foot on the pedal in the championship.

The Cardinal’s championship run is a great story, and the players deserve all the accolades they have and will receive. Yet before the victory, the volleyball team was being painted as the savior of Stanford sports – the idea being that if Stanford didn’t win an NCAA title, it would be a down year for the Cardinal.

Was that ever true, though? If Stanford fell to Penn State on Saturday, would we really look back on this year as an athletic failure?

Doubtful.

By nearly every count, Stanford is having one of its characteristically dominant years.

The women’s soccer team had a perfect regular season and came within one goal of capturing the national title. The men’s team had its best season in recent memory, earning its first NCAA bid since 2002, advancing to the round of 16.

Football went bowling for the first time since 2001. Women’s basketball was one half away from winning the championship (and a shocking upset over undefeated UConn). The men’s water polo team was the top-ranked team in the nation for a good chunk of the season.

Men’s swimming earned fourth place at NCAAs, while the women took home second place. Synchronized swimming finished second at nationals.

Men’s gymnastics was the national runner-up after losing to Michigan by 0.7 points in the final rotation. The women’s team finished the season in fourth – one spot away from the best finish in team history.

And let’s not forget baseball, softball, men’s and women’s tennis and rowing all still have a legitimate shot at a national title this year, too.

Simply put, Stanford is not having a bad year. Unsatisfying? Maybe. Bad? Not even by our standards.

It’s easy to read the season recaps and focus on the words “almost” and “close” and use that as an excuse to say Stanford came up short. Soccer, basketball and gymnastics all had their chances – these teams just didn’t quite get it done.

That’s no way of measuring greatness, though. Winning a national title requires a tremendous amount of luck. The fact that the Cardinal has won a title 34 consecutive years is odds-defying. Sooner or later, that streak will end, and it will have nothing to do with the strength of the athletic program.

So should we look at volleyball’s victory as a salvation of our season? No. If anything, it should be an exclamation point.

Really, taking volleyball’s championship out of context doesn’t do it justice. The title isn’t special for what it means to the Stanford Athletics Department, the alumni or the student body. It’s special for what it means to the players.

Going from laughingstock to the envy of the nation, from pushover to bully, from Worst to First – that’s why this title is special. What the players had to endure, especially the seniors who bore the brunt of the losing, was painful.

The title is pure joy. Nothing else, nothing more.

Mike Lazarus has been promoted to Stanford Athletics Department press secretary. Send your congratulations to mlazarus “at” stanford.edu.