- News by: John Lance

This week, undefeated UCSD and UCI (last season's finalists) met in a battle to decide which team would emerge from the regular season 8-0, and which would be forced to play Texas A&M in the first round of the playoffs instead of enjoying a bye. UCSD reiterated their desire for a second Western Conference championship, as they destroyed UCI 3:0. Texas A&M, who took their only regular-season loss to Rice University, will have to battle through UCI to get another shot at Rice. Meanwhile, UCSD awaits the winner of Tennessee and Berkeley, two teams whose only losses during the regular season were heartbreaking 2:3 affairs. (Berkeley lost to UCSD and UCI, while U of T fell to Texas A&M)

5-3 Ohio State and 5-2 USC will play to determine who faces 6-1 Washington in the second round of playoffs. The final match of the week will be 5-3 Purdue against 5-2 University of Victoria. UVic has taken a slightly more muted approach to this season than previous ones, although it appears to be serving them well, as they may be devoting more time to practice than diss raps. However, most fans of UVic are no doubt hoping for both. The maps for this week's clashes will be Destination, Moon Glaive, Outsider, Match Point, with the ace on Heartbreak Ridge.

Before closing this week's coverage, a couple things from West Division 1 should be mentioned. First, congratulations to undefeated 8-0 University of Michigan, who managed a +20 game differential (over only 8 matches) while managing to win every match 3:1 or 3:0. University of Chicago finished the regular season with a tied-for-second record, but due to tiebreakers they missed out on the playoffs. The only other place tiebreakers were relevant this season was in Division 2, where 6-1 Rice advanced over 6-1 University of Tennessee and 6-1 Texas A&M with the #1 seed. This week should provide four interesting matches, and it will only heat up next week when the undefeated teams get into the mix. Stay tuned, good luck, and have fun!