MALIBU, Calif. -- The Pepperdine women's volleyball team is ranked #16 in the preseason Molten/Volleyball Magazine Top 20, according to the September 2008 issue that is now available.

The Waves are the only West Coast Conference school to crack the top 20. San Diego was in the "others receiving votes" category.

The top 20 is as follows: 1. Penn State  2. Stanford, T3. USC, T3. Texas, 5. Nebraska, 6. UCLA, 7. Washington. 8. Florida, 9. California, 10. Oregon, 11. Hawaii, 12. Wisconsin, 13. Cal Poly, 14. Kansas State, 15. St. John's, 16. Pepperdine, 17. Michigan, 18. BYU, 19. Clemson, 20. Long Beach State.

The Waves are looking to improve upon a 2007 season that saw them go 18-11 overall and third place in the WCC. Writes Volleyball Magazine: "The Waves have five starters back from a year ago. (Julie) Rubenstein, (Kiah) Fiers and (Cassi) Chamberlain were all-conference picks. Rubenstein ranks fifth all-time in career kills at the school. Friedman started at libero at the end of the year. Pepperdine's recruiting class was ranked #8 this year by Volleyball."

Pepperdine opens the regular season on Aug. 29-30 at Cal State Fullerton's tournament and has its own home opener on Sept, 19-20 with the annual Asics Classic.