SPOKANE, Wash. -- Whitworth College will be hosting seven other schools in the West Regional of the 2005 NCAA Division III Volleyball Tournament on November 10-12, and six of those teams will look very familiar to Pirate volleyball fans.

Two other Northwest Conference members will join Whitworth in the regional. Whitworth (20-3) is seeded second, the University of Puget Sound (15-5) is seeded fourth and Linfield College (20-4) is seeded sixth. Whitworth, ranked 17th in the latest CSTV/AVCA Division III poll, won the 2005 Northwest Conference title with a 15-1 record. UPS and Linfield (ranked 11th) tied for second with records of 12-4.

The top seed in the regional is the University of La Verne (20-8). La Verne is ranked 7th and is co-champion of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (SCIAC). La Verne last visited Spokane for the 2002 NCAA West Regional, also hosted by Whitworth.

Cal State East Bay (26-10), the fifth seed, and Colorado College (21-8), the seventh seed, were also participants in the 2002 regional. Both have advanced to the NCAA tournament as independents.

The only unfamiliar teams visiting Spokane this are California Lutheran University and Chapman University. CLU (18-2 and ranked 14th) is the #3 seed and was the other co-champion of the SCIAC. La Verne defeated the Regals yesterday afternoon in a playoff to determine the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Chapman (16-9) is the eighth seed in the tournament as is an independent from Orange, California.

Matches begin on Thursday afternoon at 1:00 pm. Puget Sound will meet Cal State East Bay in the regional opener. Cal Lutheran and Linfield will meet at 3:30 pm, followed by La Verne and Chapman at 6:00 pm. Whitworth and Colorado College will meet in the nightcap at 8:30 pm.

The winner of the match between UPS and CSU-EB will meet the winner of the ULV-Chapman match in Friday's first semi-final. The winners of the other two matches will play at 7:00 pm. The regional championship will be played on Saturday at 7:00 pm.

The winners of each of the eight regionals will advance to the NCAA Finals on November 17-19. The finals will take place in Salem, Virginia and are hosted by the Old Dominion Athletics Conference.

Ticket for the NCAA West Regional are $5 per session for adults and $3 per session for students/children. All seating is general admission.