Tuesday, November 17, 1998
Bruised heel likely
By Cindy Luis
to keep Sudduth out
Star-BulletinIt was one of those good news-bad news days when the good definitely outweighed the bad for the Hawaii women's volleyball team.
Wahine sophomore hitter Jessica Sudduth has a deep bruise to her left heel bone, and not a potentially season-ending stress fracture as feared. She missed two games and all practices since landing on her foot awkwardly against Brigham Young-Hawaii last Monday.
Sudduth is listed as doubtful for Hawaii's final road trip of the regular season. The Wahine, who remained No. 7 in yesterday's USA Today/AVCA Top 25 poll, finish WAC play this weekend when they travel to San Jose State Friday and Fresno State Saturday.
The bad news yesterday concerned Hawaii's seeding in next week's WAC Tournament. Hawaii lost out in the selection process during a conference call with the WAC office.
Should the Wahine and Brigham Young remain tied for the Pacific Division title, the Cougars will be seeded first and Hawaii second when play begins in Las Vegas next week. In next Wednesday's quarterfinal, the Wahine would play the winner of Tuesday's first-round match between the Mountain-3 and Pacific-6; the Cougars take on the winner of the Pacific-3 and Mountain-6 match.
The conference standings are so jumbled that Hawaii's opponent could be one of six teams: UNLV, Wyoming, Rice, San Diego State, UTEP or New Mexico. The same is true for BYU, which will see either Utah, San Jose State, Fresno State, TCU, Air Force or Tulsa.
"It is disappointing not to be the top seed but we still want to win two this week regardless," Hawaii coach Dave Shoji said. "We may have to play a more difficult team in the semis but, if form holds true, we'll see BYU in the final.
"We want to make sure we win two this week for national significance."
Hawaii is fourth in the regional ranking behind Long Beach State, Brigham Young and UC Santa Barbara. Hawaii is expecting to be one of 16 teams that will host the first- and second-round matches; those matches are tentatively scheduled for Dec. 5 and 6 at the Stan Sheriff Center.
AVCA/USA Top 25
NCAA Division I
First-place votes in parentheses
W L Pts LW 1. Long Beach (34) 26 0 1,474 1 2. Penn St (24) 26 0 1,459 2 3. Nebraska (2) 25 0 1,387 3 4. Stanford 23 2 1,317 4 5. Florida 26 2 1,233 5 6. BYU 24 2 1,200 6 7. Hawaii 24 2 1,148 7 8. Wisconsin 21 4 1,061 8 9. Pacific 22 5 1,012 9 10. UCSB 24 5 948 10 11. USC 19 4 911 11 12. Texas 21 3 888 12 13. Arkansas 24 3 768 13 14. Michigan St 21 4 722 14 15. Colorado 20 4 666 15 16. UCLA 13 10 560 16 17. Kansas St 17 8 539 17 18. San Diego 21 4 473 18 19. Arizona 19 6 412 19 20. Illinios 17 9 327 20 21. L. Marym’nt 18 7 275 21 22. Texas A&M 16 8 227 22 23. Louisville 22 4 125 24 24. Texas Tech 19 10 110 23 25. Northern Iowa 23 2 77 --Other WAC teams receiving points: 26. Colorado State 46.
1998 UH Wahine Volleyball Schedule
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
