Cougars to Face UCLA In Conference Tournament

PROVO -- The sixth-ranked BYU men's volleyball team will travel to UCLA on Saturday, April 22, for the first round of the MPSF Tournament. UCLA (24-5, 14-5) enters the tournament as the No. 4 seed, while BYU (18-8, 13-6) enters as the fifth seed. Saturday's match will be held at Pauley Pavilion, beginning at 7 p.m. (PDT).

"We've been playing very well lately," BYU head coach Carl McGown said. "Our matches against UCSB were very well-played. Over the past week, we've had some good practices and we're really looking forward to going back to historic Pauley Pavilion and playing UCLA again."

The Cougars met the Bruins at Pauley Pavilion earlier this season, dropping both matches, 1-3, 1-3. UCLA holds a 20-5 record in the series, which dates back to 1990 when the Cougars first started competition as an NCAA-sanctioned program. The Bruins are 11-1 at Pauley Pavilion against the Cougars since 1990.

"We played very well against UCLA earlier this year," McGown said. "With a couple breaks here or there, who knows what might have happened. We had some injuries back then to some key players and a couple guys were battling illness. We know we can compete with them and so we'll just have to see what happens."

In other MPSF first-round action, No. 8 Loyola Marymount will travel to top-seeded Long Beach State on Friday, April 21. No. 2 Pepperdine will host No. 7 Stanford and No. 6 Hawai'I will travel to No. 3 USC on Saturday, Aril 22.