By Tom FitzGerald

The final of Stanford’s NCAA women’s volleyball regional will be a rematch of last year’s national final. Stanford won that one 3-1 over Texas and would be delighted to pull a repeat, this time on their own court.

The No. 3-seeded Cardinal spotted unseeded Wisconsin the first set before storming back for a 22-25, 25-20, 25-21, 25-19 victory Friday night in the semifinals at Maples Pavilion.

The Cardinal (29-3) will play the No. 6 Longhorns (27-2) in the final Saturday at 7 p.m. Texas outlasted No. 11 Utah, 25-19, 6-25, 24-26, 25-21, 16-14 in a 2½-hour match.

Saturday’s winner will earn a trip to the Final Four Dec. 14-16 in Kansas City. Stanford is gunning for a 21st Final Four appearance and an eighth national title.

Kathryn Plummer had 22 kills to lead the Cardinal, while Merete Lutz had 16. Setter Jenna Gray had 53 assists, and Stanford hit .436 to just .315 for Wisconsin.

Gray “uses the players in great ways,” head coach Kevin Hambly said. “She’s the best I’ve seen and the best I’ve been around. A lot of credit goes to Jenna.”

Tony Avelar/Special to The Chronicle

The Badgers’ twin freshman threats, Grace Loberg and Dana Rettke, had 20 and 13 kills respectively.

“In the first set we didn’t execute the game plan the way we wanted to,” Plummer said. “We didn’t have the defensive mentality that we usually have, all across the board.”

Libero Morgan Hentz helped fire up her teammates, Plummer said. “You could see the shift in the defense that escalated our game, and then the offensive took over.”

Despite being ranked No. 11 in the final coaches’ poll, Wisconsin (22-10) was not one of the 16 seeds in the tournament. The Badgers gave the Cardinal a tussle, especially in the first set.

Rettke, the Big Ten freshman of the year, led the Badgers in kills (3.42 per set) and hitting percentage (.446). The 6-foot-8 middle blocker delivered the decisive kill in the first set, her sixth. Loberg had seven kills in the set, and the Badgers hit .593.

“We were executing at a high level,” Hambly said, “but they were executing better than us.”

Despite four service errors, Stanford evened up in the second set as Plummer had seven kills. The Cardinal took the lead for good at 9-8 and had a .471 hitting percentage in the set, to just .278 for the Badgers.

The third set was similar to the second. Stanford took the edge at 14-13 and maintained it the rest of the way. This time Wisconsin had the four service errors, including one on set point. Plummer had six kills and Lutz five in the set.

With a 12-9 lead in the fourth set, Stanford libero Morgan Hentz made a great diving dig, getting the ball to Gray, who set up Plummer for an apparent kill. But the point was erased when a replay review called by Wisconsin detected a Stanford net violation. Undaunted, the Cardinal scored the next four points.

“I was cheating backwards; I wasn’t very balanced on the play,” Hentz said. “I think it fired us up that they took that play away from us.”

Plummer said her team decided, “We’ve got to get more points because that (dig) was freaking awesome.”

In the earlier semifinal, had 16 kills, Micaya White 13 kills and 20 digs and Ashley Shook 50 assists as Texas won its 20th straight match. Adora Anae delivered 2 kills for the Utes (24-10), but Texas had a huge hitting advantage, .429 to .224.

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald