Pepperdine packs
for another final 4

MALIBU, Calif. » Leave nothing to chance. Or a committee.

Top-ranked Pepperdine won't have to wait for today's decision on an at-large berth into this week's NCAA tournament. Thanks to a 31-29, 30-21, 30-21 victory over No. 3 Long Beach State last night at Firestone Fieldhouse, the Waves (23-2) can start packing their bags for the short trip to UCLA and their 11th final-four appearance.

A crowd of 2,107 saw Sean Rooney put down a match-high 16 kills to lead Pepperdine's balanced attack in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament championship match. John Parfitt added 13 kills and Andy Hein and John Mayer 10 each as the Waves completed an unbeaten season at home at 14-0.

The 49ers will learn today whether their season continues or is over at 22-10. The at-large berth has traditionally gone to the MPSF runner-up, but there is an outside chance that NCAA tournament host UCLA -- ranked No. 1 for most of the year -- would get the at-large berth.

The Bruins (25-6) lost in the MPSF tournament quarterfinals to Cal State Northridge, their third loss in four matches, and "there's never been a team that lost that early that has been considered for an at-large," Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe said. "If they're going to give it to UCLA, why did we bother having the playoffs?

"I feel confident that it should be ours, based on all the criteria they say they use. We made the conference final, we played well down the stretch."

Coming into the MPSF tournament, the 49ers had won 12 of 14, including sweeps of Pepperdine and Hawaii as well as a 3-1 victory over UCLA. Last night, however, The Beach did not play well down the stretch, losing leads late in Games 1 and 3.

Pepperdine trailed by as much as 16-10 before catching the 49ers at 26. Long Beach held off one game point to tie it at 29 only to have a kill by Parfitt and a hitting error by Teddy Liles.

"Somewhere along the way, we started thinking, 'One play, one game, one match at a time,'" Pepperdine coach Marv Dunphy said after to advancing to his third final four in four years. "Winning Game 1 was very important. You never know how the rest of the match is going to go. I am real pleased that it went three."

The victory capped a big day for Pepperdine's senior libero James Ka. The Kamehameha Schools product went through graduation ceremonies yesterday morning, receiving his degree in public relations.

"It was a great win and ended the day on a very positive note for me," Ka said. "Winning was huge. Nobody wanted to wait around to find out if we'd still be playing. We wanted to get the momentum, take it to the final four and hopefully carry it to the national championship."

Pepperdine has won four NCAA titles, the last coming in 1992. Long Beach won its only title in 1991, finishing second five times, including last season in the Stan Sheriff Center to BYU.

Note: The other two berths were decided yesterday. No. 2 Penn State defeated No. 14 George Mason 30-20, 30-19, 30-32, 30-24 for the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.

The Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association's representative will be No. 10 Ohio State (24-7), which beat unranked IPFW (13-17) 30-23, 30-18, 27-30, 30-24.