SPORTSCOPE : UCLA Soccer Team Plays Air Force and Wake Forest

The sixth annual UCLA/Met Life soccer tournament will be held Friday night at El Camino College and Sunday at UCLA’s north soccer field.

On Friday, San Diego State (8-5-2) will meet Wake Forest (7-5-2) at 6 p.m., and third-ranked UCLA (11-1-3) will play No. 16 Air Force (8-4-1) at 8 p.m. On Sunday, San Diego State will face Air Force at noon, and UCLA will play Wake Forest at 2 p.m.

Top players in the tournament include UCLA All-American Billy Thompson, who leads the team in scoring with 30 points on 12 goals and six assists. Wake Forest’s two-time All-American Neil Covone was one of three collegians on the 1990 U.S. World Cup team, and UCLA’s Chris Henderson was another.

In last week’s Rutgers tournament, the Bruins lost their first game of the season, falling to Rutgers, 2-1, but they defeated Princeton, 2-1, in overtime. Against Princeton, Sean Henderson, the brother of Chris, scored the winning goal, and teammate Joe-Max Moore scored the other, his eighth of the season. In the Rutgers match, Cobi Jones scored for UCLA.

The Santa Monica College men’s soccer team (4-4-2 and 2-2-1 in the Western State Conference at the start of the week) will play at Glendale College at 3 p.m. Friday and play host to Bakersfield at 3 p.m. Tuesday at Clover Park in Santa Monica.

Last week the Corsairs were routed by the state’s top-ranked team, Moorpark, 9-2, but defeated Los Angeles Mission College, 1-0. Scott Fite scored both SMC goals against Moorpark, and Thierry Vernier scored the game-winner against Mission.

The top-ranked UCLA women’s volleyball team (17-1 and 9-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference) will play host to No. 6 Stanford (13-12, 8-1) at 7 p.m. Friday and to California (6-10, 2-7) at 7 p.m. Saturday (10-20) at the John Wooden Center.

Last week the Bruins won their 13th and 14th consecutive matches, defeating Arizona in four games, and Arizona State in five. Natalie Williams had 15 kills against Arizona and 18 against Arizona State. She leads the Bruins with 270 kills and a .284 hitting average.

The No. 10 Pepperdine women’s volleyball team (14-4 and 5-0 in the West Coast Conference as the week began) will play host to Santa Clara (7-7, 0-3) at 7:30 p.m. Friday and the University of San Diego (10-10, 2-2) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Firestone Fieldhouse.

Last week the Waves took sole possession of first place in the conference by beating Gonzaga on the road in four games. It was Gonzaga’s first conference loss. Pepperdine also defeated Portland in three games. Cari Delson had a team-high 17 kills against Gonzaga and leads the team with 235 kills.

The Santa Monica College women’s volleyball team (6-5, 4-5 in the Western State Conference as the week began) will play host to Glendale at 7 p.m. Friday in the on-campus Pavilion and play at Cuesta at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Last week the Corsairs beat Bakersfield and lost to Santa Barbara City. In the two matches, SMC’s Kit Spath had 36 kills, and teammate Stacy Pierce had 24 blocks.

The second-ranked UCLA water polo team (19-1 and 1-0 in the Pac-10) will play Friday at No. 3 Stanford (16-3, 1-1) and Saturday (10-20) at No. 1 California (18-1, 2-0).

Stefan Pollman leads UCLA with 79 goals, Stanford’s Rick McNair and Greg Olson each has 34 goals to top the team, and Cal’s Chris Humbert has a team-high 68 goals.

In last week’s Bruin Invitational, UCLA defeated Loyola Marymount, 21-7; Cal State Long Beach, 10-7, and UC Riverside, 19-3, but the Bruins lost two exhibition matches in the tournament to the Harvard Water Polo Club, many of whose players are UCLA alumni.

Coming off a 12-11 upset over top-ranked California on the road, the No. 6 Pepperdine water polo team (10-7, 3-1 in the Big West Conference) will play host to No. 4 UC Santa Barbara (14-5, 5-0) at 3 p.m. Friday at Raleigh Runnels Pool.

The Waves ended Cal’s 18-match winning streak and also won conference road games with Fresno State, 12-10, and the University of the Pacific, 11-6. Pepperdine’s Geoffrey Clark, coming back from a broken finger on his right hand, scored 17 goals in the three matches, including seven against the Golden Bears.

The Pepperdine women’s tennis team, ranked 11th nationally in the preseason, will play its second dual match when it plays host to Mississippi at 1:30 p.m. Monday.

Returning Wave players are Janna Kovacevich, Anna Brunstrom, Camilla Ohrman, Noelle Porter and Kirstin Smith. Kovacevich, a three-time All-American, is ranked 10th nationally in singles.

Kovacevich and other Pepperdine players are expected to play in the Riviera Women’s All-American Tennis Championships sponsored by Nissan. The tournament will be held Monday through Oct. 28 at the Riviera Tennis Club in Pacific Palisades.

The UCLA women’s and men’s cross-country teams will compete Saturday at the Bronco Invitational at Cal Poly Pomona.

The Bruin women finished third behind first-place UC Irvine at last week’s Cal Poly San Luis Obispo invitational, and UCLA’s Nicole Nugent was seventh over 5,000 meters in 17:17. The UCLA men did not compete as a team in the meet, but Karl Polivka led the Bruins who ran as individuals by finishing third over 8,000 meters in 26:02.

The Pepperdine women’s cross-country team won the Caltech Invitational, and the Wave men finished second behind first-place Caltech. For Pepperdine, Shelly Gravel finished second over 3.2 miles in 21:57, Jenny McGuire was third in 22:00, and Sheila Logan was fourth in 22:03. John Romero led the Wave men, finishing second over 5.2 miles in 30:11.