Her Dad Wants a Final Four

Joy McKienzie will be trying to win one for a friend this holiday season.

McKienzie, a defensive specialist for the Cal State Long Beach women’s volleyball team, found out in October that her father, Bill, had been diagnosed to have leukemia.

She immediately returned home to Denver, missing two weeks early in the season. She then came back to Long Beach to continue in her role as 49er co-captain.

With McKienzie as the defensive complement to starting outside hitter Alicia Mills, third-ranked Long Beach won 27 consecutive matches before losing its last match of the regular season. Friday night, the 49ers defeated Arkansas State, 13-15, 15-8, 15-11, in the first round of the NCAA Division I tournament.

Long Beach (28-2) is one of few teams that has the ability to challenge top-ranked UCLA (30-0) for the national title in Albuquerque, N.M., on Dec. 19.

Through it all, McKienzie waits to hear if her father’s disease has responded to treatment.

“I don’t know what direction I would take if my father was sick like that,” said Brian Gimmillaro, Long Beach coach, “but she seems to maintain this same calm demeanor all the time, and it’s not that she’s holding anything in or withdrawing or anything like that. She’s just very determined, without getting emotional about it.”

McKienzie could have been a starting setter for virtually any team, except Long Beach, which has Sabrina Hernandez. McKienzie says she has been satisfied serving the 49ers’ defensive needs.

She is a team player on a team that needs to pull together for more reasons than simply the impending national championship.

“We’ve been through the most injuries that we’ve ever been through, the most tragedies,” McKienzie said.

Lauri Jones, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker who would have been a second-year starter this season, quit in October.

Nichelle Burton, second on the team in kills behind Danielle Scott, returned home to Phoenix last week to attend a funeral for a relative. Burton returned to Long Beach just in time to play in the 49ers’ first-round match.

Scott, the Big West player of the year, sprained her left ankle last week for the second time this season.

“It’s been rough, but the team will pull through,” McKienzie said.

To reach the national championship match, the 49ers must outlast a competitive field in the Northwest Regional. What’s more, for the first time, the 49ers will play host to the regional championship.

In the regional semifinals on Dec. 10, Long Beach will play Illinois State (30-3), which upset 24th-ranked Houston (19-14) in the first round. The 49ers are expected to meet fourth-ranked Pacific (26-5) in the regional final on Dec. 11. If Long Beach advances to the final four in Albuquerque, it probably would meet second-ranked Stanford (27-2) in the semifinal on Dec. 17.

“We play probably one of the harder paths,” McKienzie said. “I just think that we need to polish up some things that we do and not be afraid of anything.

McKienzie embodies the image of the 49ers, who have a different style of play than in the past. Once pictured as a group of power hitters paced by outside hitter Antoinnette White, the 1991 American Volleyball Coaches Assn. player of the year, Long Beach no longer fits that description. The 49ers rely more on defense and their transition game.

When McKienzie comes off the bench, she brings savvy and quiet leadership.

Some people have a way of showing strength, though outwardly they are silent. On the inside, McKienzie’s will to win is strong.

“He’s a motivation thing,” McKienzie said of her father. “He wants to go to the Final Four.”

Terry Schroeder, captain of the U.S. Olympic water polo team, Pepperdine coach and chiropractor, is a model of sportsmanship.

At the NCAA Division I men’s water polo tournament Nov. 27-29, the Waves lost their first-round game to UC Irvine and fell into the consolation bracket.

By the side of the Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach, Schroeder lent his chiropractic skills to Wolf Wigo, Stanford’s star two-meter man who was suffering from a back injury.

Wigo had not played in Stanford’s final regular-season game or in its first two games of the tournament. After receiving treatment from Schroeder, Wigo said that his back felt better. He figured prominently in Stanford’s triple-overtime loss to Cal, 12-11, in the championship final.

Pepperdine finished fifth.

Notes

The NCAA Division I women’s volleyball West Regional final Dec. 12 will be the nightcap of a doubleheader at Pauley Pavilion. The UCLA men’s basketball team plays the University of San Diego at 4:30 p.m., with the volleyball match to follow.

Natalie Williams of the UCLA women’s volleyball team is 21 kills shy of the school record of 2,044, held by assistant coach Liz Masakayan, who played for UCLA from 1982-85. Masakayan, a two-time All-American for UCLA, was a member of the 1988 U.S. Olympic team. . . .

The Loyola Marymount women’s volleyball team completed pool play in the National Invitational championship tournament at Kansas City on Saturday with a 3-1 record, failing to advance to Sunday’s semifinals. The Lions finished the season 22-13 overall, 10-4 and in second place in the West Coast Conference behind Santa Clara 21-11, 13-1 in WCC. It was Loyola Marymount’s best season since 1986, when it was 24-8 and WCC champion.

The Pepperdine women’s basketball team was picked to finish in second place in the WCC in a preseason poll conducted by the conference coaches. Four starters return from last season, when the Waves finished 17-11 overall, their most victories since 1980-81. Pepperdine finished 9-5 in the WCC last season, one game behind tri-champions Portland, San Francisco and Santa Clara. The Waves are 2-0.