Cougars at No. 9 Stanford for 2

PROVO — Likely wanting to keep an eye on the standings and action elsewhere in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's volleyball action this weekend, BYU needs to keep its focus close to matters at hand as the Cougars conclude the 2005 regular season with a pair of matches at Stanford.

The sixth-ranked Cougars (18-9, 13-7 MPSF) will face the No. 9 Cardinal (10-10, 11-12) at 8 p.m. MDT both tonight and Saturday. The Saturday match will be televised on CSTV.

BYU is tied with Hawaii (17-8, 13-7) for third place in the 12-team standings, with the eight tournament berths already locked up. Still at stake in the final weekend of league play is seeding going into the MPSF Tournament.

The Cougars, who hold the tiebreaker advantage over Hawaii by having defeated the Warriors in their two MSPF meetings this season, could finish anywhere from third to fifth place in the final standings. Being seeded third or fourth in the tournament means hosting a quarterfinal match; a No. 3 seed means not having to face the top MPSF seed — which hosts the semifinal and final matches — until the championship round.

However, of the three teams battling for the Nos. 3 and 4 seeds, the Cougars have the toughest two matches remaining. Fifth-ranked Hawaii plays host to 13th-ranked Pacific - which failed to make the postseason - for a pair of matches in Honolulu. Fourth-ranked Long Beach State (18-9, 12-8), which faced top-ranked UCLA in a late match Thursday night, finishes the regular season at No. 12 UC Irvine, another tournament nonqualifier.

Coming off a pair of 3-0 victories over MSPF cellar-dweller UC San Diego, the Cougars will look to continue their strong play — not only to solidify its seeding for the tournament but to establish momentum going into the postseason.

Meanwhile, the Cardinal — winners of four of its last five — seems likely to finish in seventh place, meaning a play-in game against eighth-place CS Northridge for the chance to meet the No. 2 seed in the quarterfinals.

BYU holds a 16-8 advantage over Stanford in the overall series, with the Cougars having won 10 of 11 matches since 1999, including the last six.

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