CHRIS CODUTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat Freshman setter Stephanie Butkus is 142 assists away from entering Arizona's top 10 list for most assists in a single season.

To make its quest to finish above .500 a little easier, the UA volleyball team added on a week's notice a home match with Northern Arizona on the same day the men's basketball team hosts the Lumberjacks.

Yesterday, Arizona head coach Dave Rubio announced that the No. 25 Wildcats (14-13, 8-8 Pacific 10 Conference) added NAU (13-14, 7-7 Big Sky Conference) to their schedule for a match Monday at 10:30 a.m. in McKale Center. Admission to the game is free.

The UA would need to win two of its four remaining matches to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Still remaining on its schedule are No. 11 Washington (18-7, 9-7), Washington State (8-19, 4-12), the Lumberjacks and No. 19 UC Santa Barbara (18-7, 14-3 Big West Conference).

"It was a match that we wanted to schedule to finish out our play dates," Rubio said. "We're allowed 28 play dates and we had 27. It happens at the end of the season, which I think is good. We need to schedule actually as many matches as we can just to help us in our bid for the postseason."

Rubio was grateful to the Lumberjacks for agreeing to come down to Tucson on such short notice.

"They were gracious enough to come down and play us. I'm thankful that they are going to come down and give us a match."

The Wildcats will now play in Flagstaff next year or the year after.

"They certainly didn't have to come down," Rubio said. "The men's basketball team is playing that evening, so there are a couple of things that work out for them. I think it's a good situation when you can play your in-state universities."

Rubio said he didn't need special permission from the NCAA to add the game, though he has never scheduled a match this late in the season.

"This is basically just to help us in our bid to get to postseason play," Rubio admitted. "As long as you're not over the 28 match dates, you're fine. The approval you need is from the administration and they gave us the green light on that."

This weekend, the Lumberjacks invade McKale Center. The women's basketball team plays NAU on Saturday and the men's hoops team plays NAU Monday night.

Rubio said he didn't need special permission from the school to schedule the match, saying it shouldn't "conflict at all." He said the match is scheduled for Monday because that's the easiest time for the Lumberjacks to travel to Tucson.

"It just worked out that that was the best date for NAU," Rubio said.

Adding NAU helps the UA get back a match it lost when UCSB couldn't get another team for its early season tournament. The three were supposed to play next week, Rubio said.

Starting on Thursday, NAU, which is the No. 5 seed, plays in the Big Sky Tournament, which could last three matches. It is at Eastern Washington (21-7, 13-1), the No. 1 seed, which the UA beat this year, 3-0.

Because the league would lose money and it hurts the players' academics too much, Rubio said to not look for a tournament in the Pac-10 in the near future, though the conference is widely considered the nation's top volleyball conference.

"We'll never have a Pac-10 tournament in volleyball," Rubio said. "Financially, it's just not smart and we get tired of beating each other up, anyway, in the conference. Why do it again, another three rounds? It just doesn't make sense."

Wildcats climb back into national rankings

Arizona moved up to No. 25 in the latest USA TODAY/American Volleyball Coaches Association Coaches' poll after spending seven long weeks on the outside looking in.

In the Sept. 29 poll, the UA fell out of the top 25 for the first time since 1998 - a string of 83 polls in a row.

As for Arizona's Pac-10 comrades, USC remained No. 1 after capturing the league title, Stanford stayed at No. 7, UCLA stayed at No. 9, Cal remained at No. 10 and Washington was 11th again, just 19 points out of the top 10.

Volleyball sign pair of high school standouts

Just because it doesn't have as many scholarships to give away as it had the last couple years doesn't mean the UA can't haul in another top class.

The Wildcats signed Sandpoint (Idaho) High School setter Amy Dyck and Chandler (Ariz.) outside hitter Dominique Lamb to National Letters of Intent last week.

"I believe that this is an exceptional class," Rubio said. "Both Dominique and Amy will improve the athleticism of an already athletic team. That alone speaks for what they're going to bring to the floor."

Dyck, who is 5-foot-9, was ranked No. 17 in the country before the season and was the Idaho player of the year in 2002. Lamb, 6-foot-1, has been ranked the 18th best player in the land.

Dyck choose Arizona over Stanford.

"I just really felt like it was the right place for me," Dyck said. "I got along with the girls real well."

Rubio and Amy's father, Jack, grew up together in Southern California and played high school volleyball together.

"They've been real good friends," Dyck said.

Butkus moving up assist lists

Statistically, Arizona already has a very good setter.

True freshman Stephanie Butkus, who leads Arizona with 1,056 assists this season, needs 142 to move into the school's single-season top 10 list. Last weekend, she had 105 assists in two matches that only lasted a combined seven games.

The Wildcat record is 1,562 assists by former All-American Dana Burkholder, who started all four years at Arizona, in 2000. Butkus is already in 10th place on the school's all-time list, 132 behind ninth-place Valerie Campbell (1982-85).