Los Angeles - When the NCAA Championship Committee announced the 56-team field for the 1997 NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship, UCLA received its 16th selection to the event. Competing in the Mountain region, the Bruins will face Pepperdine University in the first round in a match to be played at UC Santa Barbara on Saturday, Dec. 6 at 8:00 pm. The winner of that match will advance to play UCSB, the region's number two-seed, on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 7:00 pm. Both matches will be played at The Thunderdome in Santa Barbara.

UCLA finished the regular-season with a 16-12 overall record and ranked No. 24 by the AVCA. Ironically, UCLA's last regular-season match was a 3-1 (15-8, 15-7, 11-15, 15-6) win over No. 13 Pepperdine in the consolation match of the 19th Annual Community Bankers Classic at Pacific last night (Sat., Nov. 29). Pepperdine finished with a 23-5 overall record. UCLA has also already faced UC Santa Barbara this season, falling 3-1 (8-15, 12-15, 15-13, 14-16) at UCSB on Oct. 14. UCSB finished ranked No. 5 by the AVCA with a 30-4 overall record Three of UCSB's losses came at the hands of Long Beach State and the other to Pepperdine.

The field for the 1997 Championship Tournament consists of 56 teams, 26 automatic qualifiers, 2 play-in qualifiers and 28 at-large selections. The top- eight teams are seeded nationally into four regions and receive first round byes. The single-elimination, best three-of-five game match championship structure has 16 first and second round matches scheduled to be played Dec. 4-7. Winners advance to four regional tournaments (Dec. 11-14) also to be played on the campus of competing institutions. The four regional winners will meet for the championship Dec. 18 and 20 at the Spokane Arena in Spokane, Washington with Washington State University serving as host.

The top-eight seeds for the tournament are: 1. Penn State, 2. Long Beach State, 3. Stanford, 4. Wisconsin, 5. Florida, 6. UC Santa Barbara, 7. Nebraska and 8. Brigham Young.

The Pac-10 is one of three conferences to have six teams selected to this year's tournament. The Big-10 and Big-12 also received six selections. Pac-10 Conference Champion Stanford is the top-seed in the Mountain region, where UCLA and Arizona will also compete. Arizona, which UCLA defeated in its final conference match, faces Oral Roberts in the first round and Stanford hosts Oklahoma vs. Houston match then faces the winner. Pac-10 foe Washington State was moved to the Central region and will host Lehigh in the first round. Pac-10 opponents Washington and USC both landed in the Pacific region. USC will host Morgan State in the first round, while Washington hosts Chattanooga. Other local schools of interest in the Pacific region include top-seed Long Beach State who will host the Hawaii vs. Loyola Marymount match, then play the winner.

Complete pairings are available on the NCAA website (www.ncaa.org) or fax-on- demand service (770) 399-3066, passcode 1905 and request number 1678 for dates and sites, 1679 for a bracket and schedule and 1680 for ticket information.