Club volleyball off to national tournament

The UA men's club volleyball team begins its title defense today at the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association Volleyball Sport Club Championships in Columbus, Ohio.

The Wildcats' A team, the defending national champions and the No. 2 ranked team in the country will seek its fourth title in the past six years. The B team, which is ranked No. 19 and won the Division II championship last year, will not get a chance to defend its title, as it has moved up to Division I for this season.

The action starts today with the first round of pool play, while the "Challenge Rounds," the second round of pool play, is set for tomorrow. The elimination portion of the tournament begins Friday.

Last year, Arizona pulled the amazing feat of having its A team go undefeated with all three of its teams winning championships, the only school to ever do that. UA has just two teams this season and will be sending both to the 60-team Division I tournament.

The women's team is also in action as the 12th seeded team in the Division I championship. The women's B team is the No. 5 seed in Division II.

FILE PHOTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat Laxcat midfielder Joe Mills fights for a ground ball against UCLA in the first matchup of the season. Mills and the Laxcats lost to Chapman 9-8 last weekend.

Laxcats narrowly fall to No. 13 Chapman

Despite the Laxcats' ability to hold the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League leading scorer to one goal, No. 13 Chapman provided to be tougher than advertised for the Arizona Lacrosse team.

The No. 8 Laxcats (8-5, 3-3) were unable to finish off the Panthers, losing 9-8 after holding a three-goal lead in the fourth quarter.

After Chapman scored near the end of the third, three quick Panther goals in the fourth gave them the lead by one. A last minute goal by attackman Josh Morrison forced the game into overtime, but Chapman midfielder Matt Goto scored his third goal of the game in the extra frame.

Chapman scored the most goals all season on the highly touted Arizona defense, but the Laxcats held Danny Metoyer, who has 50 goals in 11 games to just a single goal.

This weekend, the Laxcats head to Southern California to take on No. 23 UC San Diego (8-3, 3-2) tomorrow, Southern California (5-6, 2-3) on Saturday and NCAA Division III No. 2 Whittier (10-0) on Sunday.

UCSD is led by the dynamic duo of attackman Ross Stensrud, who has 41 goals, and attackman Nick Dean, who has 29 goals and 26 assists. The high scoring pair is currently holding the second and third spots in the WCLL in points, behind Metoyer.

USC is coming off a 7-3 win over Division II Claremont last week followed by a tough match against No. 2 UC Santa Barbara last night. USC is new to Division I, as last year the Trojans won the WCLL's B Division championship though.

Whittier has not been shy about facing top club teams, most notably the Poets' 23-7 spanking of then United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Associates No. 6 Michigan.