No. 8 Lewis beat visiting No. 13 USC on Friday night in NCAA men’s Division I-II volleyball. But while the No. 8 Flyers swept, they won the first set 42-40!
There was an upset as No. 14 UC Santa Barbara swept No. 6 BYU, becoming just the fourth team in the past 10 years to pull off a sweep of the Cougars at the Smith Fieldhouse.
Other matches Friday saw No. 1 Long Beach State sweep Concordia Irvine and No. 5 Ohio State do the same to Charleston.
Saturday’s schedule includes a UCSB-rematch, No. 2 UCLA plays at No. 4 UC Irvine and No. 13 USC continues its Chicago trip as it goes to No. 7 Loyola.
Lewis cruises after first set: The Flyers of the MIVA ultimately beat the MPSF’s USC 42-40, 25-17, 25-16. In the first set, both teams had plenty of chances to close out: Lewis had 10 set points, while USC had nine.
Lewis (6-3) hit .474. Ryan Coenen led with 20 kills and hit .629. He added three of his team’s seven aces and had three blocks, one solo. Mitch Perinar had 10 kills in 18 errorless swings and hit .556. He had three blocks. And Tyler Mitchem had nine kills, hit .727, and had three blocks.
USC (3-6) got 14 kills from Gianluca Grasso.
UCSB upsets BYU: The 25-23, 25-20, 27-25 win was big for the Gauchos of the Big West, who were coming off back-to-back losses and improved to 4-3. It was their first sweep of BYU in the rally-scoring era and first since 1996.
UCSB, which hit .312 and used just seven players, got 11 kills from Keenan Sanders, who hit .391. Roy McFarland had nine kills and hit .429 and had two of his team’s four aces.
BYU of the MPSF (5-4) got 12 kills from Gabi Garcia Fernandez, who had two aces and two blocks.
“I’m disappointed and so are the players,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “We had dug ourselves into some holes. We were able to score at the end, but we just didn’t come out like that in the beginning. Major hats off to UC Santa Barbara. They came out swinging and they were prepared. Tonight, they were the better team, hands down.”Â
Top-ranked Beach rolls on: Long Beach is 10-0 after sweeping visiting Concordia 25-20, 25-14, 25-13. TJ DeFalco, featured by VBM earlier this week, had 12 kills, hit .500 and had four aces. Concordia is 3-3.
Around the nation: UCI of the Big West swept struggling Stanford, beating the visitors from the MPSF 25-12, 26-24, 25-19. Karl Apfelbach had 12 kills and hit .421 to go with two aces for the 10-1 Anteaters. Stanford dropped to 1-8 after hitting .084 …
Also in the MPSF, Grand Canyon rallied to win at Lindenwood of the MIVA 25-19, 16-25, 19-25, 25-22, 16-14. Shalev Saada and Cullen Mosher had 12 kills each for GCU, which improved to 9-2. Mosher had 12 digs and four blocks. Lindenwood (5-3) got 20 kills from Michael Jennings, who added six digs and six blocks …
Also in the MIVA, No. 5 Ohio State won at Charleston of the EIVA 25-17, 25-9, 25-23. Jake Hanes led the Buckeyes (6-2) with 12 kills, two aces, four digs and three blocks. Maxime Hervoir had 11 kills, four digs and four blocks. Nic Szerszen had five kills, hit .500, and added eight digs and three blocks — two solo — despite sitting out the third set …
No. 9 Penn State of the EIVA got past Ball State in five. The 25-21, 21-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-10 win left the Nittany Lions 4-2, while Ball State dropped to 4-5. Jalen Penrose had 16 kills and six of Penn State’s 10 aces. Matthew McLaren and Aidan Albrecht had 12 kills each. Ball State’s Matt Szews had 11 kills and three aces, while Blake Reardon and Mitch Weiler had 10 kills each …
Visiting No. 15 Fort Wayne beat Saint Francis of the EIVA in four. Tony Price had 14 kills, hit .444 and had an ace, nine digs and three blocks. Colton Stone and Pelegrin Vargas had 15 kills each as the Mastodons improved to 8-0 to tie the best start in program history. Saint Francis is 5-6 … Quincy beat Lincoln Memorial in five …
There was one other EIVA match, as Sacred Heart beat Belmont Abbey of Conference Carolinas in four …
And also in ConfCarolinas, there were three league matches as Mount Olive swept Limestone, King did the same to Erskine and Barton swept North Greenville. Each of the winners are 3-0 in the league, a game up on North Greenville. And Lees-McRae beat a Canadian team, Thompson Rivers, in four at Hawai’i.
