Hawai’i finally lost a set but both the top-ranked Rainbow Warriors and No. 2 Long Beach State won, setting up their two-match regular-season-ending finish next Friday and Saturday.
Ohio State said goodbye to its home for the past 52 years.
And the MPSF and MIVA figured out their respective tournament seedings.
It was a busy Saturday in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball that included USC upsetting UCLA and McKendree doing the same to Purdue Fort Wayne.
Big West: Hawai’i had won all 72 sets it played this season entering its match with No. 3 UC Santa Barbara. This time, the Rainbow Warriors (23-0, 8-0) won 25-16, 25-21, 23-25, 25-19, but the set streak ended at 74. It left UCSB 17-5, 4-4.
With the Stan Sheriff Center sold out for the first time since 1997 with a crowd of 10,300, Hawai’i hit .351 as Stijn van Tilburg had 22 kills and hit .576 and Rado Parapunov had 20 kills and hit .350. Dalton Solbrig had three kills in six errorless swings and five blocks.
UCSB’s Ryan Wilcox led the Gauchos with 13 kills and hit .321 …
Long Beach State (23-1, 6-0) won at UC San Diego (7-17, 0-8) 25-18, 25-15, 27-25 as TJ DeFalco had 16 kills and hit .538 and Kyle Ensing had 15 kills and hit .520. Wyatt Harrison had 11 kills for UCSD …
Eighth-ranked UC Irvine (15-10, 3-5) beat No. 12 CSUN (11-13, 1-7) 17-25, 23-25, 25-15, 25-22, 15-8 as Aaron Koubi had 21 kills and hit .400 to go with five digs and five blocks, one solo. Karl Apfelbach had 12 kills and hit .409.
Ksawery Tomsia led CSUN with 19 kills, Dimitar Kalchev had 14 and Maciej Ptaszynski had 12.
MPSF: No. 4 Pepperdine won the league’s regular-season title when it swept No. 14 Concordia, No. 6 USC knocked off No. 5 UCLA and No. 9 Stanford won at Grand Canyon.
Pepperdine (20-6, 9-3) also gets the tournament first-round bye. Next Saturday’s quarterfinals show:
Concordia (14-18, 3-9) at UCLA (18-8, 8-4), Grand Canyon (13-15, 3-9) at USC (16-9, 7-5), and BYU (12-11, 6-6) at Stanford (15-10, 6-6).
The semifinals are Thursday and the title match Saturday at Pepperdine.
Pepperdine beat Concordia 25-11, 25-20, 25-17 as David Wieczorek led with 18 kills. He had one error in 23 swings and hit .730 to go with seven digs …
Ryan Moss had 16 kills, Jack Wyett 13 and Gianluca Grasso 12 in USC’s 19-25, 25-15, 14-25, 25-20, 15-11 win over UCLA that denied the Bruins the title.
Daenan Gyimah led UCLA with 21 kills and Micah Ma’a had 18 …
Stanford’s 25-20, 25-14, 25-21 win at GCU saw Jordan Ewert got 11 kills and Jaylen Jasper had 10. Will Schwob had nine kills to lead the Lopes.
MIVA: The league’s quarterfinals start Thursday with Ball State (15-14, 6-8) at McKendree (12-12, 7-7), Lindenwood (9-18, 5-9) at Purdue Fort Wayne (16-11, 8-6), Ohio State (10-18, 5-9) at Loyola (19-7, 12-2) and Quincy (5-22, 0-14) at Lewis (22-5, 13-1).
Lewis clinched the top seed with its 25-17, 25-19, 25-20 sweep of visiting Lindenwood as Mitch Perinar and Ryan Coenen had eight kills each and Tyler Mitchem had seven kills, hit .462, and had six blocks. Lindenwood hit .138.
Loyola took the No. 2 seed with its 25-15, 25-18, 25-20 win over visiting Quincy. Collin Mahan had 10 kills for the Ramblers with no errors in 19 attacks to hit .526 and a whopping eight of his team’s 10 aces …
McKendree beat PFW 25-21, 22-25, 19-25, 26-24, 15-13. Wyatt Dimke led with 13 kills and four blocks, one solo, and Zach Schnittker had 12 kills and four blocks. Pelegrin Vargas had 25 kills and hit .300 for the Mastodons and Alex Dickmann had 21 kills, 11 digs and three blocks, one solo …
Ohio State closed out St. John’s Arena with a 19-25, 25-17, 15-25, 25-23, 15-9 win over visiting Ball State. Jake Hanes led the Buckeyes with 19 kills and had two aces, three digs and three aces. Reese Devilbiss had 14 kills and hit .435. Blake Reardon led Ball State with 14 kills.
EIVA: The league still has two more regular-season playing dates next Saturday, but Princeton (13-12, 11-1) holds a two-game lead in the standings over Saint Francis (15-11, 9-3) and Penn State (13-13, 9-3), followed by Mason (15-8, 4-4), Harvard (6-14, 5-7), NJIT (9-13, 4-8), Charleston (9-18, 1-11) and Sacred Heart (3-15, 1-11).
Saturday, Princeton swept Sacred Heart 25-13, 25-22, 25-21 behind 12 kills by George Huhmann …
Mason swept Penn State 25-16, 25-23, 25-18 as the Patriots hit a season-high .514. Hayden Wagner led Mason with 13 kills and hit .550. Sam Greenslade had 10 kills, while Brett Wildman and Matthew McLaren had 11 each for Penn State …
SFU beat Charleston in four behind 22 kills by Evan Feltz, who hit .526 … And NJIT swept Harvard as Alvaro Gimeno had 14 kills, hit .565, and had four aces.
Conference Carolinas: The league, which gets an NCAA bid for its tournament winner, shows quarterfinal matches Saturday between King (18-9, 14-2) and Emmanuel (10-18, 5-11), Limestone (13-12, 8-8) and Mount Olive (11-15, 9-7) and North Greenville (15-12, 8-8) and Belmont Abbey (15-10, 10-6), while Barton (21-4, 14-2) gets a bye for winning the top seed.
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