No. 2 Long Beach sweeps No. 1 UH; UCI, UCSD, GCU win in NCAA men’s volleyball

Hawai’i, which moved up to No. 1 this week but also lost its leading attacker, got swept at No. 2 Long Beach State.

It was one of three Big West matches in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball as No. 5 UC Irvine and No. 18 UC San Diego — which pulled off a reverse sweep — also beat ranked teams.

Saturday has another full NCAA Division I-II men’s slate, not the least of which includes Hawai’i back at Long Beach State.

There’s an MPSF match when Pepperdine plays host to Concordia Irvine, while Grand Canyon is again home for the EIVA’s NJIT after beating the Highlanders in four Friday.

The entire MIVA is in action, including first-place Ball State home for Lindenwood. Ohio State plays at Purdue Fort Wayne, Loyola Chicago is home for McKendree, and Quincy is at Lewis. Queens entertains the SIAC’s Fort Valley State and independent Tusculum.

Three other EIVA teams play when Penn State goes to the NEC’s Saint Francis, George Mason entertains Mount Olive again and Charleston is at Belmont Abbey of Conference Carolinas.

There are two NEC matches when Sacred Heart goes to Merrimack and Fairleigh Dickinson goes to LIU. The NEC’s D’Youville plays independent Lincoln Memorial and the SIAC’s Central State. LM and Central State also play each other.

King of Conference Carolinas plays host to Talladega. Edward Waters of the SIAC plays Life and St. Andrews, the SIAC’s Kentucky State plays the ECC’s St. Thomas Aquinas, and there’s an ECC match with Roberts Wesleyan at American International.

There is one Pro Volleyball Federation match when the Orlando Valkyries go to the Omaha Supernovas.

Want to watch a match? If it’s being shown, we have the viewing link in our VolleyballMag TV & Streaming Listings.

Long Beach State (17-1, 3-0 Big West) won  25-22, 25-20, 30-28 as 4,000-plus looked on in the Pyramid. Hawai’i (17-2, 0-1) had won 16 in a row.

Skyler Varga led LBSU with 12 kills, an ace, a block and five digs. Sotiris Siapanis had 10 kills, an assist, two aces, three blocks and seven digs. Nathan Harlan added nine kills and had one error in 16 attacks to hit .500 and had an assist, an ace, three blocks and a dig. Long Beach hit .337 and had five aces and 16 serving errors. 

Hawai’i, without Spyros Chakas for the first time since losing him for the rest of the season, hit .236 and had one ace and 12 errors. Alaka’ Todd had 10 kills, Keoni Thiim nine and Guilherme Voss eight with two errors in 13 attacks … 

UC Irvine swept at No. 19 UC Santa Barbara to improve to 15-6, 4-0 in the Big West, and is now off until March 29. Hilir Henno led with 21 kills as he hit .474 and had three aces, a solo block and three digs. UCI hit .359 and had five aces and nine errors. UCSB (7-14, 0-5) got 15 kills from Geste Bianchi. The Gauchos hit .184 and had one ace and eight errors … No. 18 UCSD (11-10, 3-2) won 22-25, 18-25, 25-18, 25-23, 15-12 at CSUN (9-10, 0-2) as the reverse sweep gave the Tritons their fourth victory in a row. Sebastian Lara had 17 kills, hit .387, and had two assists, a solo block and seven digs. Anthony Cherfan had 16 kills, hit .324, and had two assists, two aces, five blocks and four digs. Gabriel Dyer had a kill, 46 assists, a block and a career-high 13 digs. His team his .316 and had four aces and 18 errors. CSUN hit .299 and had five aces — four by Donovan Constable — and 22 errors. Kyle Hobus had 19 kills and Jalen Phillips 15 … 

Fourth-ranked Grand Canyon (17-2) beat visiting NJIT (8-10) as Jackson Hickman had 13 kills and hit .458 in the 17-25, 25-17, 25-18, 25-16 victory. Camden Gianni and Cameron Thorne had eight kills each. GCU hit .306 and had more aces (10) than errors (8). NJIT’s Alessandro Negri had 13 kills, hit .344 and had two assists, three digs and two blocks, one solo. The Highlanders hit .305 and had four aces and 26 errors … 

The lone MIVA match saw Purdue Fort Wayne (10-9, 4-6) sweep visiting Lindenwood (8-10, 3-6) behind 18 kills from Jon Diedrich in the 25-23, 25-23, 29-27 victory. Diedrich hit .324 and had an assist, two aces, two blocks and six digs. The Mastodons hi .389 and had six aces and 20 errors. Lindenwood hit .264 and had four aces and 12 errors. AJ Lews led with 14 kills and hit .444 to go with an assist, an ace, two blocks and four digs … 

The EIVA went 2-1 in its other three matches. Princeton’s Ben Harrington had 25 kills, hit .409, and had seven digs and three blocks in a five-set win over Fairleigh Dickinson (6-10) of the NEC. No. 15 Princeton (9-9) also got 16 kills from Nyherowo Omene … No. 17 George Mason (10-7) swept visiting Mount Olive (13-5) of Conference Carolinas as Omar Hoyos had 15kills and Jackson Herbert 14 in the 30-28, 25-21, 25-22 victory … Charleston (8-11) lost in four to visiting North Greenville (8-7) of Conference Carolinas as NG’s Logan Keothavy had 15 kills, hit .429, and had  six digs and seven blocks, two solo. Charleston’s Garret Schnitker had 18 kills … 

Two other Conference Carolinas teams won as Belmont Abbey (12-3) beat visiting independent Tusculum (4-15) in four behind 18 kills from Matthew Staskunas, and King (3-14) swept Warner … 

Sacred Heart (7-11, 2-3) hit .535 and swept its NEC match with visiting Merrimack (6-9, 2-1) as Patrick Mucherino had 18 kills with no errors in 22 attacks, an ace and nine digs … The Twelve Sharks had kills as NEC’s LIU (8-11) hit .500 and swept visiting St. Thomas Aquinas (4-12) of the ECC … the ECC’s Dominican (10-8) swept Kentucky State (5-10) of the SIAC … Lincoln Memorial (13-5) won in four at Thomas More (11-10).

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Thanks to photographers Andy J. Gordon and Jim Wolf for their shots from Long Beach State.