National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship

Dates and site: The national semifinals and final are May 4 and 6 at Penn State.

Field: Four teams, three automatically qualifying from the East, Midwest and West regions. The fourth team is selected at large.

Selection date: April 30.

2005 champion: Pepperdine.

Top contenders: The top five teams in the American Volleyball Coaches Association/

College Sports Television poll as of April 16 were UC Irvine, Hawaii, Cal State Northridge, Brigham Young and Long Beach State.

Championship notes: UC Irvine finished in the top four of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation for the first time in program history. The Anteaters’ previous best finish in the standings was fifth in 2003 ... As of April 14, Hawaii led the nation in hitting percentage at .345 ... Cal State Northridge was ranked third on April 10, the highest a Matadors team has been ranked since March 12, 1996 ... Brigham Young’s Russell Holmes was hitting .462 on the season and averaging 2.46 kills and 1.50 blocks per game as of April 13 ... Senior setter Tyler Hildebrand became the career assist leader at Long Beach State April 6. Hildebrand had 6,432 career assists as of April 14.

National Collegiate Women’s Water Polo Championship

Dates and sites: The finals are May 12-14 at the UC Davis Schaal Aquatics Center.

Field: Eight teams, including automatic qualifiers from the Collegiate Water Polo Association, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the Western Water Polo Association. The remaining teams are selected at large without geographical restrictions.

Selection date: May 1.

2005 champion: UCLA.

Top contenders: According to an April 12 National Collegiate Women’s Top 20 poll, Southern California, Stanford, UCLA, Loyola Marymount and Hawaii were the top five teams.

Championship notes: Southern California was undefeated through mid-April, capitalizing on the strength of redshirt freshman goaltender Whitney Morgan ... Stanford freshman Lauren Silver recorded a hat trick during the Cardinal’s April 8 game against San Diego State. Silver leads the team in goals scored this season ... Reigning champion UCLA’s only losses this season have been to Southern California twice and once to Stanford ... Hawaii defeated the New Zealand  team in an exhibition match earlier this month. The Rainbow Wahine beat New Zealand, 15-7, in a modified match that included five periods instead of four quarters ... Loyola Marymount tallied a 13-game winning streak for the second year in a row and the third time in program history.