UCI Volleyball Situation Has Complications

Men’s volleyball coaches at UC Irvine thought all they needed to qualify for the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation playoffs was to win one game in Wednesday’s match against Loyola Marymount.

Well, the Anteaters won one game, but still haven’t qualified. Seems they are trapped in a complicated tiebreaker scenario.

UCI (10-8 in conference), USC (10-7), Loyola Marymount (9-9) and Pacific (10-9) are battling for the final three playoff spots.

Tiebreakers are first decided by head-to-head competition. If that doesn’t resolve the situation, then they are decided by match play results within the conference’s two divisions.

Ninth-ranked Irvine can qualify outright with a victory over No. 15 Stanford or a Loyola loss to fourth-ranked Pepperdine. Both matches are on Saturday.

Pacific’s season has concluded. USC plays two matches at No. 7 Hawaii over the weekend.