Who's in first in volleyball, BYUH or HPU?

By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer

In a matchup of the two top teams in the conference, the Brigham Young-Hawai'i women's volleyball team defeated Hawai'i Pacific on Friday and Saturday and leapfrogged into first place in the Pacific West Conference.

With the two victories, fourth-ranked BYUH knocked 25th-ranked HPU into a second-place tie with Chaminade. BYUH's domination served notice that it was the team to beat in the conference and positioned itself to earn the automatic postseason berth for winning the conference.

But wait a minute.

In a bizarre turn of events, Hawai'i Pacific said it still holds a share of first place because Saturday's match should have been a non-conference match. The Sea Warriors said conference officials overlooked an earlier schedule change and mistakenly counted Saturday's match in the conference standings.

"Saturday's match was a non-conference match," HPU coach Tita Ahuna said. "I don't know what happened. We have to double check with the conference."

To prove their point, HPU officials e-mailed commissioner Woody Hahn about the disputed standings and faxed him signed documents of the schedule changes. Hahn was not available for comment yesterday, but PacWest spokesman Travis Elam told HPU that an official ruling will be made by Hahn.

"Hopefully, Woody can clarify this," said HPU sports information director Jarnett Lono.

Until a ruling is made, BYUH will continue to hold first place in the conference standings, followed by HPU and Chaminade, which are tied for second. BYUH is 14-1 overall, and because of the disputed standings, is either 5-1 or 4-1 in the conference, while HPU (9-5 overall) is either 4-2 or 4-1. Chaminade (11-3) is an undisputed 4-2 in the conference. The team that wins the conference gets an automatic berth to the NCAA West Region Championship next month. HPU is the defending conference champion.

To complicate matters, HPU's and BYUH's 2002 schedules conflicted on whether Saturday's match was a non-conference or conference match. HPU's schedule listed the match as non-conference, while BYUH's schedule said otherwise.

"On our schedule, we have the match as a conference match," said BYUH athletic director Randy Day, who planned to talk with HPU athletic director Russell Dung about the status of the match.

BYUH volleyball coach Wilfred Navalta was not available for comment yesterday. BYUH sports information director Scott Lowe deferred action to the conference.

Lowe said BYUH coaches went into Saturday's match thinking it was a conference game.

"Wil was asking me leading up to Saturday's contest, 'now is this conference or non-conference?' " Lowe said. "I kept checking and everything I had said it was a conference match. He went into the match thinking it was a conference match. Maybe Tita went into the match thinking it was non-conference. Regardless, a coach is going to play to win anyway."

The HPU and BYUH schedules were changed multiple times before the season. HPU's Lono said the three matches were originally scheduled for Oct. 5, Nov. 15 and Nov. 16, but because of various reasons by both schools, the dates were changed to Oct. 11, Oct. 12 and Nov. 16, with the conference matches on Oct. 11 at BYUH and Nov. 16 at HPU.

The changes were approved by HPU, BYUH and the Pacific West Conference in April and May, according to Dung.

Dung said Navalta initiated a schedule change with Ahuna earlier this season and HPU approved the change. HPU then switched the second conference game from Oct. 12 to Nov. 16 to make the conference season "climactic for the standings" because HPU and BYUH traditionally battle for the conference title, Dung said.

Dung, who typed out the schedule-change request, yesterday said he is confident that the correct changes will be made and will be reflected in the standings.