Pepperdine Starts Strong in MPSF Tournament

A runner-up to Hawaii in the NCAA tournament last season, the Pepperdine men’s volleyball team started its quest for a national title in fine fashion Saturday night.

Sean Rooney and Brad Keenan powered the top-ranked Waves to a convincing 32-30, 30-25, 30-20 victory over Long Beach State in the first round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament in front of 1,647 at Firestone Fieldhouse.

Pepperdine, the top-seeded team in the tournament, will play host to the semifinals and championship match next week. The Waves (23-4) will face UC Irvine on Thursday night, and Brigham Young will play Hawaii in the other semifinal.

Facing game point at 29-26, the Waves scored four consecutive points on two hitting errors, and kills by Keenan and Fred Winters.

Winters made a serving error to allow the 49ers to tie the score, 30-30, but Rooney delivered consecutive kills to cap the rally.

Pepperdine controlled the match from then on. The Waves hit .460 and out-blocked Long Beach, 13-1. Rooney had a match-high 19 kills and Keenan, the reigning national player of the year, had 16 kills and five blocks.

Irvine (20-10) won its first MPSF tournament match in school history by defeating Stanford, 27-30, 30-28, 30-24, 31-29.

Junior Jimmy Pelzel had a match-high 29 kills and 10 digs.

Brigham Young advanced by defeating Cal State Northridge, 34-32, 22-30, 30-25, 30-25. Joe Nargi had 24 kills for the Matadors, who finished with an 18-12 record.

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In baseball, Pepperdine swept three games at San Francisco to increase its winning streak to a season-high seven games and its West Coast Conference winning streak to 10.

Junior first baseman Chris Kelly homered in two games for the Waves (26-15, 15-3), who got victories from all of their weekend starters.

Senior Greg Ramirez struck out a career-high 13 in an 8-5 victory Friday.

UCLA (19-24, 5-7), which had lost seven in a row, surprised fourth-ranked Arizona State by winning two of three Pacific 10 Conference games at Tempe, Ariz.

Chris Jensen ended a ninth-inning tie with a double and scored a run on a wild pitch in a 9-8 victory Friday. Billy Susdorf hit a game-winning homer in an 8-7 victory in 13 innings Saturday.

California’s Conor Jackson had three hits in consecutive games to power the Golden Bears to 11-2 and 8-3 victories over USC (20-19, 6-6) in taking the series.

Loyola Marymount (22-19, 9-9) fell off the pace in the WCC by losing a doubleheader to Gonzaga at home.

Cal State Fullerton has won six in a row and 10 of 11 after sweeping UC Santa Barbara.

Third baseman Ronnie Prettyman went nine for 16 with four runs batted in and five runs scored for the second-ranked Titans (34-8, 8-1).

Long Beach (26-12, 7-2) kept pace by winning three at home against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

UC Riverside (29-11, 6-3) sits two games behind the Titans in conference play after winning two of three at Northridge (9-34, 3-6).

Irvine (16-25, 4-5) got its only victory Saturday at Pacific as Paul French struck out seven in 7 2/3 innings of a 6-1 victory.