The surprises just keep on coming in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball.
Long Beach State is undefeated no more, as the top-ranked team not only got beaten Saturday at No. 11 USC, it got swept.
No. 7 Lewis, which had won 11 matches in a row, lost at No. 15 Ball State.
Hawai’i is now the only unbeaten left after the No. 2 Rainbow Warriors swept No. 8 BYU.
And No. 4 Pepperdine swept visiting No. 6 UC Irvine.
No upsets are forthcoming Sunday: The men have the day off.
On the beach, the top-ranked teams won, as No. 2 USC beat sixth-ranked Hawai’i, No. 3 Florida State did the same to No. 10 Stetson, and No. 4 LSU scored 4-1 victories over both No. 19 Georgia State and Southern Miss.
USC shocks Long Beach: Long Beach State of the Big West is not only the defending NCAA champion, it was 19-0. But the Beach hadn’t played in eight days after getting past UC Santa Barbara on back to back-to-back nights, 3-1 and 3-2.
Saturday, USC of the MPSF made full use of being at home and playing in North Gym — not the Galen Center — and walked away with a 25-21, 25-21, 25-17 victory.
As USC reported, USC improved to 13-8 overall and posted its first win over a top-ranked team since defeating defending NCAA-champion UC Irvine on the road early in the 2013 season. It ended USC’s four-match losing streak to the 49ers, dating to 2017, and was the Trojans’ first sweep over LBSU since 2015.
Ryan Moss led with 14 kills and hit .565 after having just one error in 23 swings. Jack Wyett had 13 kills and hit .579, and Gianluca Grasso had 10 kills and hit .500. USC hit .493.
Long Beach had won 23 in a row and had lost four sets all season, three in its last two matches.
Long Beach, which hit a season-low .215, got nine kills from Kyle Ensing, who hit .154, and eight from TJ DeFalco, who hit .100. The 49ers had just two blocks, solos by Nick Amado and Simon Anderson.
Hawai’i thumps BYU: In another Big West-MPSF match, Hawai’i won 25-20, 25-17, 25-14 before a season-high 4,572 fans at BYU.
Hawai’i is 20-0 and hasn’t lost a set all season. BYU dropped to 12-8.
Hawai’i hit .420, led by Stijn van Tilburg, who had 13 kills with one error in 24 attacks to hit .500. He added two assists, three of his team’s 10 aces, a dig and two blocks. Patrick Gasman, who had no errors in 11 swings to hit .909, and Rado Parapunov had 10 kills each. Gasman had five blocks and Parapunov had an assist, three aces, five digs and four blocks.
BYU’s Gabi Garcia Fernandez had 12 kills but hit .167 as the Cougars hit .138. His teammates combined for just nine kills.
Also at BYU, McKendree of the MIVA (11-9) swept the EIVA’s Princeton (10-12) 25-20, 25-18, 25-17. Brandon Dunn led McKendree with nine kills and hit .333, but his team hit .241. Princeton hit .043.
Waves sweep UCI: Pepperdine of the MPSF (16-6) made short work of the Anteaters of the Big West (14-7) 25-17, 25-20 and 26-24 on a day when the Waves had a reunion that included 42 Pepperdine men’s volleyball alumni, including multiple NCAA champions and Olympians.
Michael Wexter and David Wieczorek had 14 kills each for Pepperdine and Kaleb Denmark had 11. Wexter hit .417 and had eight digs, Wieczorek hit .500 and had an assist, four of his team’s five aces, five digs and a block, and Denmark hit .450 as the Waves hit .443.
UCI hit .307 and got seven kills each from Scott Stadick and Austin Wilmot. Stadick hit .417 and had four blocks, while Wilmot hit .636 after having no errors in 11 swings.
Ball State upsets Lewis: Lewis still holds a one-game lead over Loyola in the MIVA standings, but the Flyers dropped to 18-5, 9-1 as Ball State (13-11, 4-5) came away with a 25-21, 27-29, 16-25, 25-12, 15-10 up-and-down home victory.
Matt Szews led Ball State with 21 kills and hit .327 to go with an assist, three of the Cardinal’s eight aces, and eight digs. Ben Chinnici had 11 kills, and Parker Swartz and David Siebum had 10 each. Swartz had no errors in 15 swings and hit .667 and had two digs, an assist, an ace and six blocks.
Ryan Coenen had 23 kills and hit .333 for Lewis to go with two assists, 10 digs and two blocks. Julian Moses had 11 kills and Tyler Mitchem 10. Mitchem hit .500 and had four digs, an ace and seven blocks.
Also in the MIVA, No. 10 Loyola (15-7, 8-2) won at No. 13 Purdue Fort Wayne (13-9, 5-4) 25-21, 24-26, 25-22, 25-22, and Ohio State (8-16, 3-7) beat visiting Quincy (5-18, 0-10) 25-12, 25-17, 25-20.
Collin Mahan and Will Tischler led Loyola with 16 kills apiece and Dane Leclair added 14. Mahan hit .316 and had six digs and four blocks, Tischler had 12 digs, two assists, two aces and two blocks, and Leclair hit .500 and had an assist, two aces, nine digs and a solo block. Paul Narup had nine kills, hit .444, and had two assists, a dig and four blocks.
Pelegrin Vargas had another big match for PFW, this time with 21 kills as he hit .378 and added an assist, an ace, seven digs and two blocks. Tony Price had 10 kills.
Also: Concordia of the MPSF won two non-conference matches in Arizona, sweeping Ottawa University and beating Benedictine in five. Raymond Barsemian had 23 kills against Benedictine.
And in Conference Carolinas, the league leaders won as Barton (17-3, 11-1) swept Limestone (10-9, 6-6) and King (14-9, 10-2) did the same to Emmanuel (9-17, 4-10).
Also, Mount Olive (9-12, 8-4) had to go five to beat North Greenville (15-9, 8-5) and Erskine (6-17, 4-10) swept Lees-McRae (2-17, 0-13). Belmont lost a five-set non-league match to Lincoln Memorial.
Mount Olive’s Tobi Azeez had 26 kills, three aces, nine digs and two blocks, one solo.
USC, FSU, LSU win in beach: USC is 1-6 after a 4-1 win over Hawai’i (13-6) at Arizona State. USC clinched at No. 1 when Abril Bustamante and Tina Graudina beat Emily Maglio and Amy Ozee 21-16, 21-12. Hawai’i bounced back with a 4-1 win over ASU.
Florida State beat visiting Stetson 4-1. The Seminoles won 2-0 in all four victories, and lost 2-1 at No. 2, where Stetson’s Sammee Thomas and Darby Dunn beat Brooke Kuhlman and Morgan Chacon. FSU is 14-4, while Stetson is 11-4.
LSU won 2-1 at Nos. 1 and 2 in its win over Georgia State, which included another victory for the top pair of Claire Coppola and Kristen Nuss. They won again against USM, giving them 73 together, second on the all-time LSU list.
In LSU’s 4-1 win over USM, at No. 3 Olivia Beyer and Kelli Agnew beat Southern Miss’s Breleigh Favre and Kellie Garraway 21-15, 21-14. Breleigh Favre is the daughter of former USM and NFL quarterback Brett Favre.
More beach: No. 9 Long Beach State (10-4) beat No. 14 Stanford 4-1 and then swept Colorado Mesa. That included two 2-0 wins for the No. 1 pair of Nicci Reinking and Zoi Konstantopoulou. Earlier Stanford swept Nebraska. The Huskers then lost to Washington 4-1 …
No. 12 Cal (11-3) swept No. 18 Saint Mary’s 5-0, at FSU, No. 14 Arizona swept Austin Peay, and TCU won 5-0 twice at home, beating Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Houston Baptist.
