AVP

For the second time in two years, Kerri Walsh will begin the AVP season on the sideline after announcing new plans for her family.

“I’m pregnant again, so I’m taking the year off and Misty is going to be playing with a different partner,” the 31-year-old two-time Olympic gold medalist said. "My due date is May 30, so end of May I'll be taking care of my family and starting to creep back into shape and I'll be ready for the 2011 season. My hope and my plan is for Misty and I to get back together and be better than ever.”

Walsh, who is married to AVP star Casey Jennings, performed the unthinkable this past August when she returned to the AVP Tour and competed just more than two months after giving birth to her first child, Joseph Michael Jennings. Her name could rise to a level of prominence never-before-seen in women's professional athletics if she’s able to do it again.

Walsh’s partner, Misty May-Treanor, was recently nominated by the Orange County Register for Sportswoman of the Decade (click here to vote). May-Treanor has fully recovered from an Achilles tendon injury that stole her 2009 regular season and will play in 2010 with someone other than Walsh for the first time since 2001. May-Treanor has not yet announced her partner for next season.

FIVB

The FIVB announced over the weekend that it will progressively award additional “bonus pool” prize money based on tournament participation in 2010, and retroactively for 2009.

An athlete who misses three or four tournaments during a season will receive a bonus pool payment of 110 percent; an athlete who misses one or two tournaments will receive 120 percent; and an athlete who participates in all tournaments will receive 130 percent.

Prize money totals listed on the FIVB’s website include bonus pool money. If a team isn’t able to enter the required number of events to earn its bonus pool allotment, its FIVB prize money would be considerably less.

NCAA Final Four

#1 Penn State (36-0)

Penn State won its 100th consecutive match Saturday over Cal to advance to the Final Four in Tampa, Fla. Next stop for the two-time defending NCAA champions: the University of Hawaii in a national semifinal.

Penn State’s last loss came to Stanford on Sept. 15, 2007, at the Yale Classic in New Haven, Conn. Only Miami men’s tennis’s 137 straight wins from 1957-64 tops the Nittany Lions’ streak in Division I team sports history.

Penn State takes on the 12th-seeded Rainbow Wahine Thursday on ESPN2.

#2 Texas (28-1)

Second-seeded Texas became the only school in NCAA history to beat Nebraska three times in one season Saturday night to secure its second straight trip to the Final Four. UT will face Minnesota, who upset No. 3 seed Florida State in four sets, Thursday on ESPN2 for a spot in Saturday’s national championship.

For a full-sized bracket, click here.

#11 Minnesota (28-8)

Third-seeded Florida State met its match Saturday, as Minnesota ended the Seminoles’ season with a four-set win. Eleventh-seeded Minnesota capitalized on the weakest bracket in the tournament, which included an upset of sixth-seeded Washington in the first round, to reach its third Final Four in school history. The Golden Gophers will face No. 2 Texas in the national semifinals Thursday.

#12 Hawaii (31-2)

With the bracket’s top seed and last standing Pac-10 representative, Stanford, losing in the regional semifinals to 13th-seeded Michigan, Hawaii’s path to the Final Four opened up brilliantly. The Rainbow Wahine capitalized with a straight-set victory over Michigan Saturday after upsetting fifth-seeded Illinois Friday. Hawaii will battle two-time defending national champion Penn State Thursday night with the difficult task of upending the Nittany Lions’ 100-match win streak.