Y. looks to return to MPSF playoff-winning ways

PROVO — If the BYU men's volleyball team hopes to return to the NCAA Final Four for the first time since winning the 2004 national title, the Cougars will have to do something they haven't done since downing Long Beach State in a five-game thriller over Long Beach State in the '04 championship.

Win a postseason match.

Second-ranked BYU (22-5) can to do just that tonight as it plays host to Cal State Northridge (18-14).

One of three Mountain Pacific Sports Federation quarterfinals being contested, the BYU-CSUN match is set for 7 p.m. in the Smith Fieldhouse.

Against the Matadors, the Cougars will look for their first playoff victory in three seasons, a rare postseason drought for a program that won the 1999, 2001 and 2004 NCAA titles.

Two seasons ago, BYU suffered a five-game quarterfinal upset by visiting UC Santa Barbara in which the Cougars dropped the first two games and rallied to win the next two before faltering 15-13 in the fifth. It was BYU's first-ever postseason loss suffered on its home court.

Last year, the Cougars made a rare road trip to open the MPSF playoffs — their fifth-place regular-season league being the team's worst in a decade — and BYU fell in four games at Long Beach State.

This year, the Cougars are riding the momentum of a pair of Nos. 2 — national ranking and MPSF seeding — and a seven-match winning streak into the postseason. However, BYU's most recent loss came at the hands of this same Matador team in the first of two late-March matches played at Northridge, Calif.

CSUN claimed only two '07 victories against the MPSF's top six teams — the four-game win over BYU and a victory over UC Santa Barbara. However, the Matadors did take defending champion UCLA and top-ranked Pepperdine to the five-game maximums before falling in a pair of January matches.

Seeded seventh and ranked No. 7 nationally, Northridge earned its trip to Provo after sweeping Southern California in three games in Wednesday's play-in game between the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds.

In other MSPF matches, UCLA travels to UC Santa Barbara, while UC Irvine plays host to Hawaii. Regular-season champion Pepperdine enjoys both a quarterfinal bye and the right to host next week's semifinals and finals.

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Millar, 3 other ex-Y. standouts honored by MSPF

WOODLAND, Calif. — Mountain Pacific Sports Federation executive director Al Beaird has announced the Federation's Men's Volleyball 15th Anniversary Teams.