A volleyball tournament that essentially began through conversations about ways to reduce travel costs for teams has grown beyond the wildest dreams of its founders.

"Basically, in 1997, the region had teams that were starting to become pretty good," said Evergreen Region Volleyball office manager and tournament coordinator April Stark. "Splash (club teams) and others talked about how expensive it was to get to national qualifiers. What could we do?"

For the last four days of practice coach Joel Walton's biggest concern was preparing his team to stop IPFW outside attacker C.J. Macias.

Two weeks after the No. 7 Ball State University men's volleyball team defeated IPFW with Macias having a match-high 20 kills, the Cardinals will play the Mastodons at 7:30 p.m. in Worthen Arena.

Last year’s volleyball season at IPFW was amazing, closing with a win over Pepperdine in the NCAA tournament semifinals. The Mastodons lost to UC-Irvine in the championship match.

This season has been more of a maze.

First place in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation is the sole possession of Long Beach State's men's volleyball team. Whether the 49ers hang onto first place by themselves will be determined tonight.

Led by 18 kills from Paul Lotman and Dean Bittner, Long Beach State swept BYU 30-23, 30-28, 30-27 Thursday night at the Walter Pyramid to improve to 13-2 in the MPSF, one game ahead of the third-ranked Cougars (17-3, 12-3). The same teams meet again tonight at 7 o'clock.