WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL : Blue Devils Next Step for Bruins

UCLA, playing in the South Region of the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament, is expected to have the easiest time of the three local teams playing today and Friday in regional semifinal games.

UCLA (29-3) will play Duke (24-5) today at 2 p.m. PST in the NCAA South Region semifinals at Gainesville, Fla., and USC will play Arizona at 6 p.m. in the West Region semifinals at Stanford. Long Beach State (26-5) will play host to Hawaii (25-4) on Friday at 8 p.m. in the Northwest Region semifinals in the Gold Mine.

The South and West regional finals will be held on Friday, and the Northwest regional final will be held on Saturday at their respective sites. Winners will advance to the final four Dec. 15 and 17 at Austin, Tex.

Third-ranked UCLA is top-seeded in the South Region and should have a relatively easy time at that regional tournament, where no other team is ranked higher than No. 14.

The road has become a familiar place for the Bruins, who started the season with three tournaments--at Honolulu, at Tallahassee, Fla., and at La Grange, Ill.

UCLA, which won NCAA titles in 1984, 1990 and 1991, was shut out by BYU in the West Regional final at UCLA last year and failed to advance to the NCAA final four for the first time since 1987. Annett Buckner, the Pacific 10 player of the year who leads the conference with 4.95 kills per game, will try to lead the Bruins back to the NCAA semifinals.

In the other South Regional semifinal, No. 14 Florida (28-5) will play No. 17 Houston (25-6). The semifinal winners will play Friday at 4:30 p.m.

For No. 10 USC, the West Regional tournament is packed with four teams from the powerful Pac-10, including second-ranked Stanford.

The Trojans (21-7) are trying to advance to the NCAA semifinals for the first time since 1985.

No. 16 Arizona (17-9) is led by Barb Bell, a sophomore who averages 4.52 kills.

In the other West Regional semifinal, No. 15 Arizona State (18-9) will play Stanford (28-1).