Big West, NEC regular-season titles on line, MIVA tourney begins in NCAA men’s volleyball
NCAA Men
VBM Staff
April 15, 2023
Top-ranked Hawai’i and No. 4 Long Beach State won their Big West matches Friday and remain tied for the league lead heading into Saturday’s regular-season finales.
Sixth-ranked BYU got an important MPSF victory over No. 8 Stanford and No. 3 Penn State remained dominant in the EIVA with a sweep of No. 14 Charleston.
Saturday’s schedule is full in NCAA Division I-I men’s volleyball, including the start of the MIVA Tournament.
BIG WEST: Hawai’i (25-2, 8-1) had to battle to a  28-26, 25-17, 19-25, 25-14 home victory over UC San Diego (8-15, 2-7). The same teams play in Honolulu again Saturday.Â
Dimitrios Mouchlias led the Rainbow Warriors with 13 kills, two assists, two blocks and two digs. Chaz Galloway had 11 kills, hit .391, and had three blocks and eight digs. UCSD’s Ryan Ka had 20 kills, three assists, eight digs and three blocks, one solo. The Tritons, who hit .256, had three aces and 19 serving errors …
Shane Holdaway of Long Beach blocks UCI’s Hilir Henno/Long Beach photo
Long Beach State (19-3, 8-1) swept visiting No. 5 UC Irvine (16-9, 6-3), who in turn will play host to the Beach on Saturday night. Sotiris Siapanis led a balanced attack with 12 kills in the 25-18, 25-19, 25-22 victory. He had an assist, two aces and three blocks, one solo. UCI struggled to a .118 hitting percentage and had three aces and 16 errors. Hilir Henno had 11 kills …Â
UC Santa Barbara (6-16, 2-7) swept at No. 15 CSUN (12-14, 1-8) as Ryan Wilcox had 18 kills and hit .556. Those teams play again at UCSB.
MPSF: BYU (17-6, 7-4) beat visiting Stanford (13-11, 6-5) to improve to 13-0 at home this season. The Cougars won 25-20, 19-25, 25-21, 26-24 despite hitting .219. Kupono Browne led with 18 kills against his old team. Kevin Lamp had 13 for Stanford.
Saturday, the regular season concludes with Stanford back at BYU, No. 2 UCLA home for No. 8 Pepperdine, and Concordia Irvine at USC in a battle to escape last place.
EIVA: Penn State (23-3, 9-0) swept visiting Charleston (22-2, 5-4) and they play again Saturday in State College. Cal Fisher and Michal Kowal had 11 kills each in the 25-23, 25-19, 25-13 victory. Kowal had one error in 16 attacks, two aces, a solo block and three digs …Â
George Mason (11-14, 3-6) swept at Harvard (9-14, 2-7) as Liam French had 17 kills and hit .481. Mason is back at Harvard Saturday … Princeton (13-11, 7-3) ended its regular season by beating visiting NJIT (8-17, 2-8) in four.
MIVA:Â Three teams tied for first. Ball State (18-8), which won the top seed, Loyola Chicago (21-6) and Ohio State (19-9) all went 11-3 in conference play, four games ahead of Lewis, Purdue Fort Wayne and Lindenwood.Â
The tournament starts Saturday with Ball State playing Quincy, second-seeded Loyola Chicago playing McKendree, third-seeded Ohio State facing Lindenwood and Lewis taking on Purdue Fort Wayne. The semifinals are at the higher seeds on April 19 with the championship on April 22 at the higher seed.
NEC:Daemen (17-5, 11-2) and Saint Francis (PA) (14-11, 7-2) are tied for first after Fairleigh Dickinson (6-17, 3-10) upset Daemen and the two leaders play each other Saturday. LIU (16-10, 10-3) is a game back.Â
The regular season ends with Daemen at SFU and LIU home for Sacred Heart. Also, D’Youville is at FDU and Merrimack is at St. Francis Brooklyn.
Against Daemen, FDU’s Jamal Ellis Carballo had 19 kills while hitting .607 with two errors in 28 attacks to go with three aces, four digs and three blocks, two solo.
SIAC:Edward Waters swept Morehouse to get to 9-1 and win the conference regular-season title, while Central State did the same to Kentucky State to finish a game back at 8-2. Benedict plays at Fort Valley State on Saturday.Â
INDEPENDENTS: Top-seeded Lincoln Memorial plays No. 2 Queens for the IVA title. Lincoln Memorial (21-1) swept Maryville (MO) (11-17) in one semifinal as Justin Sharfenaker had 12 kills and Cole Campisano had 11. Queens (15-12) pulled a reverse sweep against visiting Limestone (15-12) and came away with a 22-25, 25-27, 25-20, 25-18, 22-20 victory. Matthew Pilcher had 21 kills in the match that took nearly three hours. Jack Brinkman had 11 kills, three aces and 11 digs. Limestone’s Albert Warzocha had 20 kills, Jakub Osiewala 17 and James Chretien 15.
