SPORTSCOPE : Waves, Bruins in Hunt for Water Polo Title

The Pepperdine water polo team is seeded second and UCLA is third for the NCAA championships, which begin Friday and end Sunday at the Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach.

California (23-1) is the top-seeded team.

On Friday, the Waves (22-6) will play No. 7 Slippery Rock (25-5) at 4:30 p.m., and the Bruins (17-9) will meet No. 6 UC San Diego (21-14) at 6.

Pepperdine, which has won 12 of 14 matches, is coming off a 9-7 victory over Cal State Long Beach. Zachary Holder led the Waves with three goals.

UCLA ended the regular season with an 8-7 loss to USC.

Pepperdine scoring leaders are Geoffrey Clark with 75 goals and Henry Rabello with 45.

Oliver Will has a team-high 52 goals for the Bruins and Gary O’Brien has 43.

The UCLA men’s soccer team will play host to No. 6 Santa Clara (18-1-1) in the championship match of the NCAA West Regional at 1 p.m. Sunday at UCLA’s North Soccer Field.

In second-round playoff matches, the Bruins (18-3) shut out Portland, 3-0, and the Broncos beat Fresno State, 3-0.

UCLA, the defending NCAA champion and ranked third nationally, leads the series with Santa Clara, 10-4-4, but is 0-1-2 in the past three meetings.

The UCLA women’s basketball team (1-0) will play host to Santa Clara (2-0) at 2 p.m. Sunday at the John Wooden Center.

Nicole Anderson and Rehema Stephens each scored 20 points to lead the Bruins to a season-opening 80-67 victory over Pepperdine. Santa Clara opened with a 79-68 victory over California and 80-50 win over San Jose State.

The Pepperdine women’s basketball team (1-1 at the start of the week) will play host to Cal State Northridge (0-1 at the start of the week) at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Firestone Fieldhouse.

Nikki Brodowy and Kelsey Kline each scored 12 points to lead Pepperdine to a 78-61 victory over UC Irvine on Monday. Northridge opened by losing to Cal State Los Angeles, 69-56.

The No. 16 Pepperdine women’s volleyball team (22-6) will end the regular season this weekend in a tournament at Cal State Long Beach.

The Waves will meet Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at 6 p.m. Friday and No. 2 Long Beach at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Steve Raack, a West Los Angeles College freshman from Westchester High, set a school record with an 86-yard punt in a season-ending 22-0 loss to L.A. Southwest.

Raack’s father, Jim, the West Los Angeles athletic director, said that the punt traveled 65 yards in the air and rolled to the Southwest one-yard line. The Oilers finished 2-8.

Emily MacDonald was a triple winner as the Pepperdine women’s swim team routed Cal State San Bernardino, 176-80, last week. MacDonald won the 100-meter breaststroke in 1 minute 10.95 seconds, the 200 breaststroke in 2:31.69 and the 200 individual medley in 2:20.45. Double winners for the Waves were Kristina Lewis, Carol Rowley and Denise Salvatore.

Brentwood School tennis player David Manpearl, the most valuable player in the Delphic League last season, has signed a national letter of intent to attend the University of Kansas.