SPORTSCOPE : UCLA Volleyball Tournament Draws Nation’s Top Teams

UCLA’s 15th annual men’s volleyball tournament, featuring top-ranked and defending NCAA champion USC (20-0) and No. 2 Cal State Long Beach (23-2), will be held Friday and Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.

On Friday, the Trojans will play the 49ers at 5:30 p.m. and No. 6 UCLA (9-7) will meet No. 10 UC Santa Barbara (10-12) at 7:30. On Saturday, the consolation match is at 5:30 p.m. and the final at 7:30.

In each of the previous 14 tournaments, one of the teams in the field has gone on to win the NCAA championship. UCLA has won the tournament seven times and USC five times, including the past three.

The No. 7 Pepperdine men’s volleyball team (10-7 overall, 7-7 in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. play) will challenge Brigham Young (2-22, 1-11) on Friday and Saturday.

Last week the Waves swept matches from Hawaii and UC Santa Barbara. Pepperdine leaders are Tom Sorenson with 333 kills, Brian Merrick with 76 digs and Duane Cameron with 105 blocks.

The top-ranked UCLA men’s tennis team (21-0, 4-0 in the Pacific-10 Conference Southern Division play as the week began) will play host to No. 3 Stanford (11-1, 2-0) at 1:30 p.m. Friday and California (11-2, 1-0) at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on campus.

The Bruins have no singles or doubles players ranked in the nation’s top 10. Top UCLA singles records at the start of the week were held by Jason Sher, 19-0 at No. 6 singles; Bill Behrens, 18-1 at No. 3 and Fritz Bissell, 17-3 at No. 4.

The No. 4 UCLA women’s tennis team (15-2, 5-0 in the Pac-10 Southern Division play at the start of the week) will travel to ninth-ranked California (12-7, 1-4) on Friday and second-ranked Stanford (16-1, 5-0) on Saturday.

Last week the Bruins beat Brown, 9-0, Arizona State, 8-1, and Arizona, 9-0.

The No. 5 Pepperdine women’s tennis team (22-4) is idle until the West Coast Conference championships, which will be held April 19-21 at Pepperdine. Last week No. 2 Stanford shut out the Waves, 6-0, snapping Pepperdine’s 15-match winning streak at home. The Waves then won at Texas A & M, 6-0, and lost at No. 12 Texas, 6-3.

The No. 7 Pepperdine men’s tennis team (18-1) will play host to No. 25 San Diego State at 1:30 p.m. Friday and Fresno State at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Last week the Waves beat Utah, 8-1, and Georgia Tech, 9-0. On Monday, they routed Nevada Las Vegas, 9-0.

The No. 3 UCLA men’s gymnastics team, led by Pacific 10 Conference gymnast of the year Scott Keswick, will compete Saturday in the NCAA West Regional at Norman, Okla.

The field includes No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 2 Stanford, No. 6 Nebraska, No. 8 Arizona State and No. 9 New Mexico.

The UCLA women’s gymnastics team is seeded second behind No. 1 Oregon State in the NCAA West Regional on Saturday at Corvallis, Ore.

Other teams in the competition include No. 3 seed Washington, No. 4 California, No. 5 Boise State, No. 6 Cal State Fullerton and No. 7 Stanford.

The No. 1 UCLA women’s softball team (33-1, 3-0 in Pac-10 play) will play host for double-headers against No. 3 Arizona at 1 p.m. Saturday and Arizona State at 1 p.m. Monday at the Sunset Canyon field.

In last week’s Hawaii tournament, the Bruins lost to UC Santa Barbara, 1-0, in nine innings. UCLA went on to beat Sacramento State twice, UCSB and Hawaii to win the consolation title.

UCLA’s Lisa Fernandez extended her hitting streak to seven consecutive games by going 11 for 19 with six runs batted in. But Bruin Yvonne Gutierrez’s hitting streak was stopped at 14 games in the first game against Santa Barbara. In the five tournament games, however, Gutierrez went 10 for 21 with a home run and five RBIs.

The No. 7 Pepperdine baseball team (21-5-1, 12-3 in the West Coast Conference play as the week began) will play host to the University of San Diego in a three-game series. There will be a single game at 2:30 p.m. Friday and a double-header at noon Saturday.

The Waves will play at No. 2 USC at 7 p.m. Tuesday and play host to Cal Poly Pomona at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The UCLA men’s and women’s crews will begin their final season Saturday and Sunday at the San Diego competition on Mission Bay.

The men’s field includes Harvard, Washington, California, Stanford, Navy and Virginia. Women’s crews include Washington, Stanford, California, Boston University, Virginia and Northeastern.

The UCLA women won at San Diego last year and Harvard finished first among the men as UCLA finished second.

UCLA will drop the crew teams as intercollegiate sports after this season as part of an economy measure.

The UCLA men’s track team will compete Saturday at the Sun Angel Invitational at Arizona State.

The Bruin women will compete as split squads in the Sun Angel meet and the Texas Relays at Austin.

In last week’s double-dual meet against Cal and Arizona at Berkeley, the women beat the Bears, 92-52, but were tied by Arizona, 72-72, which ended the Bruins’ streak of 23 consecutive victories in dual meets.

After the meet at Cal, UCLA’s Janeene Vickers and Dawn Dumble were named the Pac-10 athletes of the week. Vickers won the 100-meter hurdles in 13.96 seconds, the 200 dash in 24.09 and the 400 run in 55.68. Dumble was first in the shot put at 53 feet, 8 1/4 inches (the second-best throw in UCLA history and her personal-best), second in the discus at 170-7 and third in the javelin at 126-5.

The Bruin men beat Cal, 86-77, and Arizona, 92-64. UCLA was led by Eric Bergreen, who won the hammer in a personal-best 207-7 and the shot put at 61-11. Beck won the 400 hurdles in a personal-best 50.63 and qualified for the NCAA meet.

The UCLA men’s swim team placed 10th at last week’s NCAA championships at the University of Texas. Texas won the national championship for the fourth year in a row. UCLA’s Andrea Cecchi won the 100-yard breaststroke in a career-best 53.50.

The No. 3 UCLA women’s golf team finished second with a 927 score at the Hawaii tournament. No. 2 Arizona won with 919. UCLA’s Lisa Kiggens tied for fifth with 230.

The UCLA and Pepperdine men’s golf teams will compete Monday and Tuesday at the USC-Southwestern Invitational at the North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village. In last week’s San Jose State Western Intercollegiate tournament, the Bruins tied for 11th with 906, and Pepperdine tied for 14th with 911.