UH men keep grip on No. 1 ranking

Advertiser Staff

The University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team yesterday retained its No. 1 ranking in this week's USA Today/American Volleyball Coaches Association top-15 poll.

The Warriors (10-2) earned 236 points and 13 first-place votes from the panel of 16 coaches.

"The way I'm looking at it, 'Thank you for putting us there,' and that's the end of that deal," UH coach Mike Wilton said.

Of the other top six teams, Wilton noted, "We've played zero. We're 0-0 against the top six."

That changes tomorrow when UH plays second-ranked UCLA (12-2) in the Stan Sheriff Center. The Bruins received 218 points and one No. 1 vote.

Long Beach State (13-3), which received the other two No. 1 votes, is third, followed by Brigham Young (9-3) and Pepperdine (9-3).

BYU defeated Long Beach State twice. Long Beach State beat UCLA.

"I'm thinking," Wilton said, "there's a lot of season left."

School (First-place votes) Record Points

1. Hawai'i (13) 10-2 236
2. UCLA (1) 12-2 218
3. Long Beach State (1) 13-3 212
4. Brigham Young 9-3 198
5. Pepperdine 9-3 173
6. Cal State Northridge 10-5 163
7. UC Santa Barbara 8-6 137
8. Ball State 10-2 121
9. UC Irvine 7-9 108
10. Penn State 9-4 90
11. IPFW 7-2 87
12. Stanford 5-11 51
13. Lewis 8-6 44
14. UC San Diego 6-9 42
15. Pacific 4-11 17