SPORTSCOPE : Top Teams in UCLA Water Polo Invitational

The fourth annual UCLA invitational water polo tournament will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Sunset Canyon Recreation Center on campus.

Teams include the second-ranked Bruins, No. 10 Cal State Long Beach, Loyola Marymount, UC Riverside and the Harvard Water Polo Foundation club.

Last week, UCLA (16-1) defeated No. 4 USC (9-8) in overtime but lost to No. 5 UC Santa Barbara, 11-9. Stefan Pollmann leads UCLA with 65 goals. Bruin goalkeeper Dan Hackett has 79 saves in 10 games.

The No. 6 Pepperdine water polo team (7-7 and 1-1 in the Big West Conference) will play road matches on Friday night at Fresno State (8-12, 0-2), on Saturday at University of the Pacific (10-8, 1-2) and on Sunday at No. 1 California.

Last week, the Waves lost their conference opener to No. 5 UC Santa Barbara, 8-5, but came back to defeat Big West foe Cal State Long Beach, 11-5. Henry Rabello leads Pepperdine with 39 goals, and Geoffrey Clark has 24.

The top-ranked UCLA women’s volleyball team (15-1 and 7-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference) will play Friday night at No. 19 Arizona (12-6, 3-4) and Saturday night at Arizona State (9-9, 2-5).

The Bruins, winners of 12 consecutive matches, last week defeated No. 13 Pepperdine in four games and No. 20 USC in three. In the two matches, Natalie Williams led UCLA with 41 kills, 17 digs, 11 blocks and five service aces. Williams tops the team with 237 kills and a .306 hitting average.

The No. 13 Pepperdine women’s volleyball team (11-4 and 3-0 in the West Coast Conference as the week began) will play Friday night at Gonzaga (13-3, 4-0) and Saturday night at Portland (1-3, 9-8). Pepperdine will play host to No. 8 UC Santa Barbara at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Firestone Fieldhouse.

Last week the Waves lost to UCLA in four games, but won conference matches against St. Mary’s and the University of San Francisco, each in three games. Pepperdine leaders are Cari Delson with 196 kills, Carolyn Hueth with 194 digs and Lesli Asplund with 67 blocks.

The top-ranked UCLA men’s soccer team (9-0-3) will compete in the Rutgers tournament, meeting Princeton on Saturday and Rutgers on Sunday.

The Bruins defeated Nevada Las Vegas, 2-1, last week. UCLA goals were scored by Joe-Max Moore and Cobi Jones. Bruin Billy Thompson has eight goals and five assists and Moore has seven goals and three assists. UCLA goalkeeper Brad Friedel has a goals-against average of 0.65.

The UCLA men’s and women’s cross-country teams will compete Saturday in the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Invitational. At last week’s Stanford Invitational, the Bruin women were eighth out of 14 teams, and the men were 11th out of 15. Brigham Young was the women’s winner and Arkansas won the men’s race. UCLA’s Nicole Nugent was 16th in 17:26 over 5,000 meters, and Karen Hecox was 17th in 17:27. For the Bruin men, Eliazar Herrera was 27th over 8,000 meters in 25:00.

The Pepperdine women’s and men’s cross-country teams will compete Saturday in the Cal Tech Invitational. In last week’s Biola Invitational, the Wave women were second out of five teams and the men were fourth out of four. Cal State Fullerton won the women’s and men’s races. Shelly Gravel led the Wave women with a seventh-place finish, running 5,000 meters in 20.5, and teammate Lee Hendrix was ninth in 21:05. Pepperdine’s John Romero finished 18th over five miles in 28:47.

The No. 5 UCLA women’s golf team finished ninth with a 948 score at the Ohio State Invitational last week. San Jose State won with 914. Top Bruins were Elizabeth Bowman and Lisa Kiggens, who each had 232 and tied for 16th place, and Debbi Koyama, who was 19th with 234.

The Pepperdine men’s golf team finished fourth among 18 teams in the New Mexico State tournament. The Waves shot 890 to 869 for first-place New Mexico State. Pepperdine’s John Geiberger and New Mexico State’s Travis Williams each shot 217 to tie for second.

The Pepperdine women’s tennis team will compete today through Sunday in the Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Assn./Rolex Regional Championships at UC Irvine.