There will be a new No. 1 team in menâs volleyball this coming week. Thatâs because BYU went to Columbus, Ohio and downed two-time defending national champion Ohio State in a rematch of last yearâs NCAA title match.
Also, Long Beach State continued its hot start, Stanford went to Indiana and picked up its first win and Lewis University quickly got itself back in the win column.
A much lighter schedule is on tap for Sunday with UC Irvine visiting Pepperdine and Hawaii playing twice in the Grow the Game Challenge in Nashville against Grand Canyon and Lincoln Memorial. Lindenwood and Barton also square off in Nashville at Grow the Game.
Saturdayâs big news centers on No. 6 BYU upending defending NCAA champion Ohio State 21-25, 25-21, 25-20, 21-25, 15-8.
âThis was a fun match to be a prat of from start to finish,â said BYU coach Sean Olmstead. âIâm proud of how the team responded after the first set to come back and get the win.â
Gabi Garcia Fernandez led the Cougars with 19 kills and six blocks. Leo Durkin had 42 assists and Erik Sikes contributed eight digs. Brenden Sander collected 12 kills. Price Jarman had nine kills and Miki Jauhiainen had six blocks to help BYU move to 3-1.
Maxime Hervoir led Ohio State with 20 kills. Nicolas Szerszen added 19 kills, while Jake Hanes had 10 kills. Ohio State hit .333 as a team, while BYU hit .371. Sanil Thomas had 55 assists. Aaron Samarin had nine digs, while Hervoir had seven digs.
At Muncie, Indiana, Stanford recorded its first win of the season, a 25-23, 25-13, 25-20 triumph over Ball State. Freshman Jaylen Jasper led Stanford with 17 kills and hit .382. He also had six digs and three aces. Setter Paul Bischoff had 30 assists and 10 digs and hit .444. Stanford moved to 1-4.
Blake Reardon had seven kills for Ball State (2-2). Mitch Weiler and Matt Szews each added five kills.
In other MPSF-related action, Grand Canyon improved to 5-0 with a sweep of Limestone at the Grow the Game Challenge in Nashville. The 5-0 beginning is the best start in GCU program history. Limestone is 0-4.
Cullen Mosher led Grand Canyon, which moved to 2-0 in the tournament, with six kills and hit .400. Will Schwob, Shalev Saada and Ashton King each had at least three kills while hitting .500 or better. Zachary Melcher had a perfect hitting percentage and added four kills.
Concordia Irvine downed 2017 Division III national champion Springfield 3-1. Jonathan Predney led Concordia with 18 kills and hit .500. Raymond Barsemian had 14 kills and 11 digs. Chandler Gibb had 50 assists to go with 10 digs. The win was Concordiaâs first in the programâs NCAA era.
In Big West-related play, No. 2 Long Beach State, which likely will ascend to the weekly AVCA coachesâ throne this week, concluded its run through the Chicago area with a 3-0 win against No. 7 Loyola Chicago.
Kyle Ensing again led the way for the 49ers with 12 kills and hit .632 (12 kills, no errors, 19 swings). Nick Amado added nine kills and hit .667 (1 error), while TJ DeFalco had seven kills. Beach hit .456 in the match. DeFalco also had four of the teamâs eight aces. Josh Tuaniga had 29 assists and chipped in eight digs.
Collin Mahan led Loyola with 13 kills and hit .545 (13-1-22). Ryan Jamison had eight kills, while Jeff Jendryk had seven kills and hit .600. Paul Narup had six kills.
Hawai’i hit Nashville at the Grow the Game Challenge and downed Barton 3-1. Austin Matautia had 13 kills for Hawai’i, while Brett Rosenmeier had 12 kills and Stijn van Tilburg added eight kills. Rosenmeier had four aces, while Patrick Gasman had six blocks. Joe Worsley had 53 assists and Larry Tuileta had 12 digs. Hawaii moved to 4-0 on the season. Angelos Mandilaris had 15 kills and Aleksa Brkovic had 12 kills.
MIVA-related matches saw Lindenwood down North Greenville 3-0 at the Grow the Game Challenge. Lindenwood also won the inaugural Battle for the MAFIAoZAâs Brass Knuckles Pizza. Nathan Van Dellen led Lindenwood with 11 kills and nine digs, while Johnny Winkler had eight kills and three blocks. Lindenwood did not record a ball-handling error or a reception error in the contest.
In additional action in Nashville, McKendree played twice in the Grow the Game Challenge and downed Lincoln Memorial 3-0 and Limestone 3-1. McKendree was scheduled to play on Friday in Nashville but bad weather caused a postponement and reschedule.
Against Limestone, McKendree hit .466 with 60 total kills. Freshman outside Patrick Ross had 15 kills and five digs. Senior Nolan Rueter added seven digs. In the win against Memorial, McKendree once again hit more than .400 and held a 42-23 edge in kills. Ross and Jared Wilcox each had 10 kills and they combined for 11 total digs.
At Newark, New Jersey, Fort Wayne moved to 4-0 after a sweep of New Jersey Institute of Technology. Colton Stone led Fort Wayne with 12 kills. Pelegrin Vargas added 11 kills, while Richie Diedrich had five kills and hit .571.
Fort Wayne is 4-0 for the first time since 2007. NJIT dropped to 0-5.
In Romeoville, Illinois, Lewis was a 3-0 winner against George Mason. Julian Moses had 10 kills to help the Flyers notch their first win of the season. Ryan Coenen added nine kills. Lewis hit .469 and had 9.5 total blocks. Christian Maliasâ match-high 11 kills paced George Mason, which hit .188.
âMason came out hard that first game and we got knocked back a little bit, then our guys settled in,â Lewis coach Dan Friend said. âWe got some catalyst plays from Julian and Danny Maurer and TJ Murray, which put us in a position to take the lead and eventually win 28-26, which was awesome. We went into games two and three and made a few small adjustments and I thought we served the ball better in those two games which really opened up those two games for us.â
At Quincy, Illinois, host Quincy was a 3-1 winner over Culver-Stockton. Anthony Winter led the Hawks with 16 kills, while Adam Rogan and Thane Fanfulik combined for 35 assists in the win. Gavin Mueller picked up his first win as Hawks head coach.
Over in the EIVA, Charleston was a 3-0 winner over Erskine at the Grow the Game Challenge. Brandon Greenwayâs 13 kills led Charleston, while Ryan Santos had nine. Daniel Hermida had 11 kills and Kevin Braceros had 10 kills for Erskine.
Saint Francis moved to 4-2 with a 3-0 win over Mount Olive in Lorreto, Pennsylvania. Brandon Buckâs 11 kills and .333 hitting led Francis, while Stephen Braswell had 10 kills. Robert Poole had 13 kills for Mount Olive, which fell to 0-2.
Penn State moved to 2-0 on the young season with a sweep of Alderson Broaddus. Aidan Albrecht and Calvin Mende each had eight kills and combined for 16 kills and two errors on 27 swings. Kevin Gear had six kills on eight swings with no errors. Luke Braswell had 30 assists. Royce Clemens had six digs.
Francisco Cabrera had eight kills for Broaddus.
Conference of Carolinas-related action saw Emmanuel (Georgia) with a 3-0 win over Brewton-Parker, while Lees-McRae won 3-1 against Coker.
Grow the Game Challenge
Through two days of play in Nashville, Grand Canyon, Lindenwood, McKendree and Charleston each were 2-0 at the Grow the Game Challenge at Lipscomb University. Hawai’i was 1-0, while Barton was 0-1, Limestone was 0-3, Erskine was 0-2, Lincoln Memorial was 0-1 and North Greenville was 0-2.
Sundayâs action features Barton against Lindenwood and Hawai’i taking on both Grand Canyon in a battle of nationally ranked teams and Lincoln Memorial.
