COLLEGE VOLLEYBALL : No. 1 UCLA Set for MPSF Semifinals

If all goes according to form in tonight’s semifinals of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men’s volleyball tournament at Pauley Pavilion, the nation’s top two teams, No. 1 UCLA and No. 2 Hawaii, will meet in Saturday night’s final.

Hawaii (18-5) will play No. 5 UC Santa Barbara (17-8) at 5 p.m., and UCLA (27-1) will follow against No. 8 Brigham Young (14-7). The tournament champion will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA final four May 5-6 at Springfield College in Springfield, Mass. The tournament runner-up probably will get an at-large bid.

No. 4 Penn State (25-3), representing the East Region, and No. 7 Ball State (24-8), representing the Midwest Region, have already qualified for the NCAA tournament.

UCLA glided through the regular season, suffering its only loss to Ball State on March 3 in the Hall of Fame Classic at Springfield College. In that match, UCLA was caught looking ahead to a probable final matchup the next night against Penn State, which defeated the Bruins in last season’s NCAA final. Ball State took advantage of UCLA’s inattention.

UCLA can’t look past any of the three other teams in the MPSF tournament and expect to be successful. Even though UCLA is 7-0 this season against those teams, UCLA was pushed to five games by BYU on Feb. 25 and by Hawaii on March 8.

The Bruins are led by Jeff Nygaard, a 6-foot-8 senior quick hitter who was recently named the MPSF player of the year for the second consecutive year, and Paul Nihipali, a 6-7 sophomore opposite hitter. UCLA defeated No. 11 USC, 15-13, 15-13, 15-11, in the first round on April 22.

Brigham Young is led by Kevin Hambly, a 6-7 senior middle blocker who leads the nation with 2.04 blocks a game. Brigham Young defeated No. 3 Stanford, 5-15, 11-15, 15-10, 15-13, 16-14, in the first round.