The 2007 NCAA women’s volleyball Final Four championships will be held Thursday and Saturday in Sacramento at Arco Arena and the event will be hosted by Sacramento State.

Sac State earned the right to host the event because in 2001 the school submitted a bid along with the Sacramento Sports Commission to host the event.

Competing in this year’s Final Four are Stanford, USC, Penn State and Cal.

In order to get to the Final Four, each team had to win at Regionals last weekend. Stanford defeated UCLA 3-1, USC defeated Texas 3-0, Penn State defeated BYU 3-0 and Cal swept Nebraska 3-0.

Last year Stanford was defeated by Nebraska in the championship match.

On Thursday, both semi-finals will take place to determine which teams will be playing in the championship match on Saturday.

Stanford, which beat Sac State in the second round of tournament action earlier this month, will take on USC at 6 p.m on Thursday.

If Stanford defeats USC, the team will be making its 13th appearance in the NCAA championship game since 1981.

After that match, Cal will take on Penn State at approximately 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday is when the action starts for the athletes. The day is filled with practices, interviews, and press conferences.

The finale will be on Saturday as the winners of the semi-finals will play at 6 p.m. for the championship title.

The winner of the final match will be named the National Champions for the 2007 women’s volleyball season.

Alicia de la Garza can be reached at adelagarza