By Lindsey Besecker
Assistant Sports Editor
Five important matches loom ahead of the Pepperdine women’s volleyball team – five matches that help determine the team’s seeding for the NCAA tournament.
The American Volleyball Coaches Association polls rank University of Southern California, Hawaii, Florida, Pepperdine and Kansas State as the top five teams, respectively.
However, the rankings that matter most are those for the NCAA tournament. If Pepperdine is seeded high up, it could help the team move along to the Final Four.
The four regional spots – Florida, Long Beach, Hawaii and Nebraska – will host the top seeds and winners from the first two rounds of play.
If Pepperdine is the top seed in one of these regional spots, other top teams would play at different locations and potentially, Pepperdine would not face them until the Final Four in Dallas.
All of this weighs on the last five matches, and the team is heavily Senior middle blocker Lyndsey
focused on those before jumping Hache has played a key role for
ahead to the tournament. the Waves since they began
dominating the WCC more than
“These next few games will prepare us two years ago.
for (the tournament),” junior Kristin
Shultz said. “We’re probably going to get a pretty good seed because we put ourselves in such a good position.”
Head Coach Nina Matthies and other players said they are first focused on West Coast Conference play and their last match against UCLA before they think about the tournament.
“We’re basically just concentrating on the tournament and staying undefeated in WCC right now,” Wilkins said.
However, the tournament does bring excitement to the players, and they are looking forward to the beginning. Wilkins said she would like to face USC later in the tournament, but she said other than that, the Pepperdine team would be well-matched with other top-ranked teams.
“We’re up there pretty much with everyone else,” Wilkins said. “All those teams, like Hawaii and Florida, are pretty good, but I think we’re pretty even with all those teams.”
Matthies pointed to USC, Hawaii, Florida, Kansas State, UCLA, Nebraska, University of California Berkeley and Stanford as the toughest competition in the tournament. She added that these are all teams the Waves hope to see later in the tournament.
The only top-ranked team Waves have faced is USC – which holds a 24-0 record.
“We match up a lot better against other teams,” Matthies said. “We are as prepared as we can be. We’re all good teams.
“All we can do is watch tapes and scout,” she added. “We’ve gone through and done our job, we’re just taking control over what we can control.”
To prepare for the tournament, Pepperdine has faced a handful of top 20 teams.
Now they have to complete the season and wait for the seedings to come out during Thanksgiving weekend.
November 13, 2003