BYU men's volleyball: Off to MPSF semifinals

Here’s how the MSPF Tournament looks heading into Thursday’s quarterfinals at Long Beach State:
Third-ranked and No. 2 seed BYU vs. fourth-ranked Cal State Northridge at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time.
Second-ranked and No. 1 seed Long Beach State vs. fifth-ranked and No. 5 seed Pepperdine, 8 p.m. Pacific Time.
BYU advanced with a four-set quarterfinal win Saturday in Provo over defending national champion UC Irvine, while Northridge swept Stanford in three. Long Beach State, as the top seed, had a quarterfinal bye, while Pepperdine logged the first upset of the ’08 MPSF Tournament by beating fourth-seeded UCLA in four to advance to the semis.
Semifinal winners from Thursday pair off in Saturday’s MPSF championship match. The winner receives the federation’s automatic berth in the NCAA Final Four (along with the champions of the other two collegiate conferences, the MIVA and EIVA). The finals loser hopes to receive the sole at-large invitation to the Final Four, rounding out the elite quartet.
BYU swept the two regular-season meetings with CSUN earlier this year, play in Provo. The Matadors then reeled off 14 straight match wins en route to a No. 1 national ranking before splitting their four final regular-season matches
In the other two volleyball leagues, top-ranked and once-beaten Penn State is hosting the EIVA tournament, while ninth-ranked Ohio State is hosting the MIVA tourney. Those two are favored to win their respective tournaments on their home courts and move on to the Final Four.