WSU, UW Open Tournament At Home Host Cougars Play Lehigh Saturday In First Round; Huskies Get Chattanooga

Washington State University and the University of Washington will host first- and second-round action in the NCAA Volleyball Championships that open this weekend.

Defending national champion Stanford, along with Long Beach State, Penn State and Wisconsin earned No. 1 seeds and will host the regional finals, barring upsets, as well as the initial rounds.

Four second seeds, UC Santa Barbara, Nebraska, Brigham Young and Florida, also earned first-round byes. Pairings were announced Sunday.

If the seeds hold, the four top teams will make up the field at the Final Four, Dec. 18 and 20 at the Spokane Arena. However, a lot of volleyball will be played before then, beginning Friday at 16 sites across the nation.

WSU and UW are among the other first- and second-round hosts in the tournament’s 56-team field.

WSU’s Cougars, who finished the regular season at 24-6, will face Lehigh University Saturday in the first round. The match will be the second played in Bohler Gym, following a 6 p.m. match between American University (30-3) and Colorado State (26-5).

Lehigh (18-12), from Bethlehem, Pa., is a first-time tournament participant that gained its spot through a pre-tournament playoff. Colorado State, coached by former Idaho coach Tom Hilbert, finished third in the Western Athletic Conference behind Long Beach State and Hawaii.

Saturday’s winners will play at 2 p.m. Sunday. That winner will travel to Madison, Wis., site of the Central Regional. If Wisconsin (26-2) gets tripped up by Clemson or Central Florida, the venue will move to No. 2 seed Florida (30-2).

“The first words out of my mouth were ‘I’m so happy we don’t have to play Oral Roberts or Stanford,’ ” Washington State coach Cindy Fredrick said. The Cougars have qualified for the NCAA Tournament each of the past five seasons. Two years ago, they were upset by Oral Roberts in the second round. Last year, they lost to Stanford in the Pacific Regional final.

Another positive working for the Cougars is that they are the only Pac-10 team playing in the Central region. Their six losses this season were against conference teams. The committee awarded the Pac-10 five bids with Stanford (28-2) and Arizona (20-6) in the Mountain region and Southern California (21-5) and Washington (18-9) in the Pacific region.

The Huskies open against Tennessee-Chattanooga. The winner will face Big Sky Conference champion Sacramento State or Pacific of the Big West Conference. Pacific, Stanford, Penn State and UCSB have qualified for all 17 NCAA tourneys.

Lehigh joins Sacramento State, American, Butler, Tennessee-Chattanooga, Fairfield, Liberty, Michigan, Morgan State, Temple, Tennessee Tech and Villanova as first-time participants.

Eastern Washington (22-6), runner-up to Sacramento State during the Big Sky’s regular season, did not receive an invitation. The Eagles lost in the conference semifinals.

Washington State had a taste of long-distance volleyball early in the season, when it traveled East to play Rhode Island, Providence and Villanova. The Cougars swept the field.

With the Cougars now hoping they will win a trip to the Midwest, Fredrick said the earlier trip may have served as a good tune-up.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: NCAA women’s volleyball championship