Five Top-10 Teams in Women’s Volleyball Tournament at UCLA

Five of the top 10 Division I women’s teams in the nation, and 9 of the top 20, will compete in the UCLA National Invitational volleyball tournament starting today at Pauley Pavilion.

Today’s pool-play round, with matches between 4 and 8:30 p.m. at 90-minute intervals match No. 7-ranked Brigham Young (15-2) against Cal State Northridge (16-1), the top-ranked team in Division II; No. 2 University of the Pacific (11-1) against No. 17 Oregon (8-6), and No. 11 UC Santa Barbara (10-4) against BYU.

Other top 20 teams from the volleyball coaches’ poll in the tournament are No. 4 Hawaii (10-1), No. 6 UCLA (11-5), No. 10 Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (11-4), No. 15 Pepperdine (9-3) and No. 19 Texas Arlington. Also in the field are Cal State Long Beach (5-7), USC (1-10), Fresno State (4-7), California (10-6), Wyoming (7-4) and Northern Illinois (6-8).

Pacific, the defending NCAA champion, is led by sophomore star Elaina Oden, considered by many to be the top college player in the country.