Nation's best play in MPSF

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By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Only in the dessert-before-salad world of NCAA men's volleyball does a qualifying tournament offer a better menu of competition than the national tournament.

The nation's four best teams — Pepperdine, Hawai'i, Brigham Young and Stanford — will play in the eight-team Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament, but only two will join tournament champions from the Midwest and East in advancing to next month's NCAA final four.

"When you're in our league," BYU coach Tom Petersen said, "you're playing a top-10 team every week."

It has long been established that the West is where the sun sets and the volleyball shines. In the 33 years of the NCAA final four, only one non-West team — Penn State, in 1994 — has won a national title. Petersen was the head coach of that team.

UC San Diego, which has won more than one MPSF match in a season only once, defeated No. 14 Ohio State twice this season.

"Every team in our league is good and every match is a challenge," Pepperdine coach Marv Dunphy said.

Petersen said the teams that advance from the MPSF Tournament will be sufficiently battle-tested. Champions from the East and Midwest "play against half of the teams you wonder where they're located," Petersen said. In the MPSF, "we're playing tough teams."

Here's a look at the MPSF Tournament teams, in order of seeding:

1. Pepperdine

Records: 22-4, 19-3 MPSF.

Opener: Long Beach State.

Head coach: Marv Dunphy.

Quick set: The Waves replaced four departing starters from last year's tournament championship team. While outside hitter Fred Winters continues to improve, the development of setter John Mayer has had the biggest impact. "He's still a green pea," Dunphy said, "but he's been pretty steady. When we started in January, we weren't meeting a lot of the standards we're used to meeting. He's improved, and that's helped us."

2. Brigham Young

Records: 19-6, 17-5 MPSF.

Opener: Cal State Northridge.

Head coach: Tom Petersen.

Quick sets: Despite finishing in a second-place tie, the Cougars have been inconsistent, the likely result of playing on back-to-back nights 13 times this season. "We're an emotional team with emotional players, and if we're on, that's great, but it's hard to always be on two nights in a row," Petersen said. Setter Carlos Moreno has skillfully distributed the offense, but he has missed three practices this week with a sprained ankle. Middle blocker Chris Gorny is questionable because of an elbow injury.

3. Hawai'i

Records: 23-5, 17-5 MPSF.

Opener: Pacific.

Head coach: Mike Wilton.

Quick sets: The Warriors have won 13 in a row, but eight came against three teams that didn't qualify for the playoffs and one from the Midwest. Middle blocker Delano Thomas, who has worn a special vest to alleviate back spasms, vowed to be ready. Libero Jake Muise has played most of the season with a badly sprained left wrist that requires a hard cast when he is not playing.

4. Stanford

Records: 17-11, 14-8 MPSF.

Opener: UC Irvine.

Head coach: Don Shaw.

Quick sets: The Cardinal's best hitter, Curt Toppel, missed nearly two months because of a fractured left thumb and strained abdominal muscle. Toppel is back, and taking more than 50 percent of the Cardinal's swings, and his supporting cast has improved. "Hopefully," Shaw said of Toppel's hiatus, "it was a blessing in disguise. It was a tribute to the guys that they could lose one of the best players in the country and still hang in there."

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5. UC Irvine

Records: 19-10, 12-10 MPSF.

Opener: Stanford.

Head coach: John Speraw.

Quick sets: Is it a coincidence that Speraw, who was Al Scates' right-hand man at UCLA, takes three months to transform the Anteaters into a playoff team for the third time in the program's history? Or that UCLA missed the postseason for the first time? Although the Anteaters struggled after earning the No. 1 ranking in January, they have played well in recent matches. Also, outside hitter Jimmy Pelzel has rebounded. "He was in a little bit of a slump," Speraw said. Middle blocker Kyle Weichert (sprained ankle) and setter David Kniffin (sore back) are healthy.

6. Pacific

Records: 18-13, 12-10 MPSF.

Opener: Hawai'i.

Head coach: Joe Wortmann.

Quick sets: In the first of two matches against UH last month, opposite hitter Nils Dauburs was benched after committing errors on seven of his first 10 swings. The next night, Dauburs started at middle blocker and Saint Louis School graduate Brian Zodrow opened at outside hitter. The moves quickened the Tigers' middle attack. Wortmann has stuck with the lineup ever since.

7. Cal State Northridge

Records: 18-11, 12-10 MPSF.

Opener: Brigham Young.

Head coach: Jeff Campbell.

Quick sets: This is the Matadors' second consecutive postseason appearance after being left out from 1997 to 2001. While Ty Tramblie tries to evenly distribute the offense, the Matadors are at their best when Joe Nargi is receiving most of the sets.

8. Long Beach State

Records: 17-12, 11-11 MPSF.

Opener: Pepperdine.

Head coach: Alan Knipe.

Quick sets: With five returning starters, the 49ers, who will host the NCAA final four, had hoped to do better than squeak into the postseason. Freshmen setter Tyler Hildebrand and middle blocker Duncan Budinger have been the steadiest players in recent matches.

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By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Roll up the safety nets and close down the mulligan booth.
"It's playoff time," said middle blocker Brian Nordberg, whose Hawai'i volleyball team will host Pacific tonight in the opening round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament.

After a 22-match regular season that disqualified four MPSF teams, the Warriors enter the eight-team, single-elimination stage.

"It's time for business," UH outside hitter Eyal Zimet said. "This is what we practice for and play for all season. You can't afford to lose one match. You don't have a chance to mess up."

The Warriors began the week with an R&R beach outing in Waikiki. But by Wednesday, the players' mood had turned heart-attack serious, and UH coach Mike Wilton, who usually comments without censors, told television reporters he only would address questions dealing with Pacific.

The tension, the players insist, is more of a nervous outlet, and they readily admit that they welcome this time when matches are measured in brackets instead of standings.

"There's a lot of pressure," UH setter Kimo Tuyay said. "Everybody wants to win, and nobody wants to go home early. If you're a player, you love being in this situation. This is the main reason you play sports."

Zimet said the Warriors are poised to duplicate last year's run to a national championship.

"This isn't something that can be done externally," Zimet said. "The players have made that commitment internally. We made it, and we're going to hold on to it for the rest of the season."

The Warriors believe they need to reach the tournament final to, at the least, earn an at-large berth in next month's NCAA final four. The Tigers seek to win the tournament and earn the MPSF's automatic berth in the final four. As a No. 6 seed, the Tigers have no chance for an at-large berth.

Here's a closer look at the teams:

PACIFIC TIGERS

Who says there's nothing educational on television? Following a four-game loss to UH on March 21, the Tiger coaches returned to their Waikiki hotel room, turned the channel to K5's rebroadcast of the match, and listened as the announcers repeatedly spoke of opposite hitter Nils Daubers' troubles.

"Quite frankly," Pacific coach Joe Wortmann said, "I was tired of (the announcers) saying, 'Oh, my gosh, Nils Daubers made another attacking error.' I knew we had to do something."

Wortmann decided to move Daubers, who was benched after committing errors on seven of his first 10 swings, to middle blocker for the next night's rematch.

The move was designed, in part, "to give us a quicker middle attack," Wortmann said.

That opened the way for Brian Zodrow, a former Saint Louis School standout, to start at opposite.

"Brian does exactly what we ask him to do as a player," Wortmann said. "If we tell him to block a certain way, he does it. His backcourt defense has been very good. His attacking has also been very good. He's made a minimal amount of errors, and that's been important."

The Tigers have used the revised lineup ever since. The moves were helpful last week when middle blocker Sean Rodgers, suffering from a respiratory illness and knee injury, did not play. Daubers and Tim Jenson, who had started until the second UH match, provided experience in the middle.

Rodgers and Daubers, who has been slowed by a variety of injuries, are expected to start tonight.

HAWAI'I WARRIORS

Any Joker knows the way to control a fight is to contain Batman's sidekick.

While opposite hitter Costas Theocharidis is the dynamic duo's better player, left-side hitter Tony Ching has been more valuable in recent matches.

At the beginning of the Warriors' 13-match winning streak, Theocharidis was moved from outside hitter to opposite, where he receives sets at all six rotation spots. The tradeoff was Theocharidis had to relinquish most of his duties as a passer. Now Ching and Zimet help libero Jake Muise in UH's two-passer offense.

Ching's accurate passes have helped setter Tuyay, who, in turn, often looks to Ching for important points. Last week, Southern California assigned three defenders — two blockers and a corner passer — to track Theocharidis. That opened the way for Ching, who often is aligned in the same row as Theocharidis.

"They're complementary, for sure," Wilton said of Ching and Theocharidis.

The Tigers have crammed for Ching, who did not play in the regular-season meetings because of flu-like symptoms.

Theocharidis said the Warriors' strategy is to "play with a lot of heart and soul, play as a team and play well. We can't be overconfident. We have to play without making mistakes. The team that makes the fewest mistakes wins."

"No, Costas," Ching interjected. "The team that scores the most points wins."

Line-ups
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Hawaii opens the MPSF tournament against Pacific tonight

By Grace Wen
[e-mail]

Break out those dancing shoes.

If Hawaii fans could have their way, today's 7 p.m. Mountain Pacific Sports Federation showdown between No. 2 Hawaii and No. 7 Pacific would really be about two contests.

The first would be the volleyball playoff match, and the second battle would be a dance-off between Warriors coach Mike Wilton and Tigers coach Joe Wortmann.

The Pacific coach delighted fans earlier this season when he joined the dance circle his team formed during a power outage at the Stan Sheriff Center. As the lights came back up, Wortmann was caught boogieing down with his players.

Last weekend it was Wilton sashaying on the taraflex court on Senior Night after Hawaii defeated USC. The normally impassive Wilton surprised his players and most of the fans in attendance. But Wilton said a dance contest this weekend was "not happening."

Wortmann sided with Wilton and said that he had packed only his "coaching shoes" for the trip.

"In basketball, they call this the big dance, so the players are the ones that need to go out there and dance," Wortmann said.

The sixth-seeded Tigers need to strut all the way through the MPSF tournament to earn a spot in the NCAA championship at Long Beach State in two weeks. Pacific has gone through a rough spell the past two weeks, dropping its last three matches, to Stanford, UC Irvine and UCLA. But two of those losses came when the Tigers were without the services of all-conference middle blocker Sean Rodgers, who was too sick to travel to Los Angeles.

Pacific (18-13) was hoping to host a first-round playoff match, but the loss to Stanford meant the Tigers would be going on the road. When home isn't an option, Wortmann said there is no better road venue than the Stan Sheriff Center.

"My players would prefer to play here than any of the other sites. And not just because it's a beautiful place to play," Wortmann said. "It's just the greatest place to compete with the best crowd. ... They really appreciate good volleyball. If you're going to play a playoff game, this is where you want to play.

"Getting here is hard sometimes. ... We have four seniors on the team and they want to play on just as hard as Hawaii's four seniors. What's great is this is match play. It is a tournament and what counts is tomorrow."

The third-seeded Warriors (23-5) don't need to be reminded. Hawaii might have a shot at an NCAA at-large bid if it doesn't win the MPSF tournament, but the Warriors need to at least advance to next weekend's league title game. The Warriors know a long summer is always just one match away in the postseason.

"The at-large bid is not a sure thing, so you have to try your best to go all the way," senior Costas Theocharidis said. "You just never know. I wasn't that confident we would get the at-large bid last year. Thank goodness we got it.

"You don't know what criteria they're going to choose. People say if we beat BYU, we'll be fine, but we still have to play well to win the MPSF championship."

Should the top four seeds of the tournament advance this weekend, Hawaii would see BYU in the MPSF semifinals.

Not that the Warriors can afford to look past the Tigers. Pacific has proved capable of beating anyone. After dropping two four-game matches in Honolulu last month, they went home and upset top-ranked Pepperdine in a sweep.

"We're just glad to be playing somebody. Everybody that made the playoffs is a good team," Wilton said. "Every first-round match should be a good one. I'm sure they would say the same thing too, but they didn't get to see us with Tony (Ching)."

Ching, a senior, missed both matches against Pacific because of the flu. He could provide the spark Hawaii needs to beat the same team three times in one season.

"I'm really excited to play them. Those were the games I was sick. Hopefully, I'll be a little surprise for them," Ching said. "We're definitely ready. After going all the way last year, we've reflected back and we know what it takes to get there.

"It's small steps. That experience under our belt is valuable to this run and being able to concentrate on the moment. We're pretty focused on UOP."