SportsScope : Bruin, Cardinal Women Take Aim at Vollyball Top Spot

Eighth-ranked UCLA and No. 10 Stanford, both 14-1 in women’s volleyball in the Pac-10 Conference as the week began, will probably be fighting for first place when they meet at 7:30 p.m. Friday at UCLA’s John Wooden Center.

The Bruins, 28-9 overall, also will play host to Cal, 16-17 overall and 6-9 in conference at the start of the week, at 7:30 tonight at the Wooden Center.

Last week UCLA got by No. 16 Pepperdine in five games and finished third in the Wendy’s Classic won by host University of the Pacific. At the tourney, the Bruins lost to No. 6 Nebraska but defeated USC for third.

The Pepperdine women’s volleyball team, which pulled into a tie for first with Loyola Marymount in the West Coast Athletic Conference last week, will end conference play at home this weekend, as will Loyola.

The Waves, 17-14 overall and 8-2 in conference, will entertain U.S. International at 7:30 p.m. Friday and meet the University of San Diego at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Firestone Fieldhouse.

Loyola (21-7 overall) plays the same two teams this weekend, meeting San Diego at 7:30 p.m. Friday and USIU at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Gersten Pavilion.

If USIU (7-3 and 18-14) beats both Westside teams and the local teams defeat winless San Diego as expected, the WCAC race would end in a three-way tie. If there’s a two-way tie, there will be a playoff to decide the league champion, but the conference had made no provision at press time for a three-way tie, according to a Pepperdine spokesman.

UCLA, defending NCAA men’s soccer champion and unbeaten in its last 39 matches, will meet Fresno State, the last team to beat the Bruins, in the NCAA West Regional Championship at 2 p.m. Sunday at Fresno’s Bulldog Stadium.

The Bruins, a 3-0 winner over Cal State Fullerton in a playoff opener last week, are 16-0-5. Their unbeaten string is the longest in the nation this season. Fresno, which opened the playoffs with a 1-0 victory over USF, is 16-4-2. The Bulldogs defeated the Bruins, 2-1, in 1985, and this season the teams played a 1-1 tie.

Last week’s shutout of Fullerton was UCLA goalkeeper Anton Nistl’s 11th of the season, tying him for second place at UCLA in shutouts for a year. Goals against the Titans were by juniors Peter Pelle and Jeff Hooker and freshman Lucas Martin.

At last week’s NCAA District 8 cross-country meet at Fresno, the UCLA women’s team won, placing three runners in the top 10. The Bruin men were sixth.

The women qualified for the NCAA Championships, which will be held Monday at the University of Arizona, but Mark Junkermann was the only Bruin man to qualify for the NCAA meet.

The top finishers for the Bruin women were Polly Plumer, second to Oregon’s Penny Graves in 16:44.7; Laurie Chapman, fourth in 16:46.6, and Kathy Kiernan, eighth in 17:09.0.

Junkermann ran a 30:30.4 over the 10,000-meter course and edged Stanford’s Marc Oleson, Pac-10 Conference champion, for the last qualifying spot for individuals at the NCAA meet. The top three teams at Fresno were Pac-10 champion Arizona, Oregon and UC Irvine.

The Pepperdine water polo team, ranked third nationally last week, will try to clinch at least a tie for first in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. when it meets Cal State Long Beach at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach.

The Waves are 21-9 overall, 10-1 in the PCAA, and tied for first in the league with UC Irvine, which handed Pepperdine its first conference loss, 11-9 in overtime, last week. If the two finish in a tie, they will be declared PCAA co-champions. The Waves also lost to UCLA, 13-11, last week.

Bids for the eight-team NCAA tournament, Nov. 28-30 at the Belmont Plaza pool, will be announced Sunday. Pepperdine Coach Terry Schroeder said he thinks that Stanford, UCLA and Cal “have guaranteed spots based on their records” and that Irvine and Pepperdine also deserve to be in the tourney.

The No. 4 UCLA water polo team, 22-7 overall and 2-3 in the Pac-10, a winner over Cal and Pepperdine last week, will play host to USC (15-10, 0-5) at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center on campus.

Freshman Alex Rousseau had three-goal games against both Cal and Pepperdine. The win over the Bears avenged an earlier loss.

Rousseau is UCLA’s leading scorer with 59 goals. The defense has been paced by sophomore All-American Fernando Carsalade and goalie Chuck Brown.

Loyola’s water polo team, 18-9, overall, will play in its second National Invitational tournament in three years, Friday through Sunday at UC San Diego. The Lions’ first-year head coach is Jim McMillan.

In basketball, the Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount men will play intrasquad games this week, and the UCLA women will open with an exhibition.

The Waves will play at 7 tonight at Firestone Fieldhouse and the Lions at 1 p.m. Saturday at Gersten Pavilion. Last week Pepperdine opened with an 82-69 win over the University of Alberta and the Lions with a 95-70 victory over the Hungarian national team.

UCLA Coach Billie Moore, with 10 letter winners and four freshmen, will play host to the Canadian national team at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the John Wooden Center.

The Pepperdine women’s swim team, paced by sophomores Jennifer Gutierrez and diver Bridget Kenehan, will compete Saturday afternoon at Northern Arizona.

In a loss to Cal State Long Beach last week, Gutierrez set three school records and Kenehan won as usual in the one- and three-meter dives. Gutierrez’s records were in the 200 freestyle in 1:58.10, the 200 individual medley in 2:20.30 and the 500 free in 5:15.00. Wave sophomore Khoon-Ying Tay also set a school mark in the 100 backstroke in 1:06.80.

The UCLA women’s swim team was handed its first season loss last week, falling to defending NCAA champion Texas, 424-339, in a two-day meet. But UCLA All-American diver Karla Goltman won the one-meter event with 420.5 points.