No. 4 Long Beach sweeps at No. 1 Hawai’i in NCAA men’s volleyball; UCLA, UCI, GCU win

The Big West is a big surprise. 

Consider the standings, where two-time national-champion Hawai’i is 0-1– with obviously a long way to go– and in last place after getting knocked off by Long Beach State on Friday.

UC Irvine is alone in first at 4-0, a game ahead of Long Beach in the win column.

The big Beach win was the only eye-catcher Friday in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball. The recaps, scores and highlights follow, but first a look at Saturday’s schedule, highlighted by, yes, No. 4 Long Beach back at No. 1 Hawai’i. Also in the Big West, CSUN entertains the NEC’s Daemen.

In the MPSF, No. 3 UCLA is back at No. 10 Stanford, where the Bruins swept on Friday.

The MIVA has a full slate, including No. 9 Loyola at Purdue Fort Wayne, No. 12 Ball State at No. 15 Ohio State, Quincy at Lindenwood and McKendree at Lewis.

In Conference Carolinas, the three league matches have Barton at Erskine, Lees-McRae at Belmont Abbey and Mount Olive at Emmanuel.

There are two NEC-at-EIVA matches with Fairleigh Dickinson at George Mason and Saint Francis (PA) at No. 2 Penn State. 

There’s an NEC match when Sacred Heart is at Merrimack. The NEC’s St. Francis Brooklyn plays both Randolph-Macon and Kean. D’Youville plays Elmira and LIU plays American International.

The lone SIAC league match has Morehouse vs. Benedict, but the other SIAC teams in action include Edward Waters playing both Webber International and St. Andrews, Central State playing Thomas More and Fort Valley State playing Lincoln Memorial.

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

LONG BEACH SWEEPS: The last time they played, on May 7, Hawai’i swept to win the national championship. Friday night at the Sheriff Center in Honolulu, Long Beach State (12-2, 3-0 Big West) hit .484 and swept 25-20, 29-27, 25-22. Long Beach had 52 kills in 93 attempts with only seven errors and held a 7-3 blocks advantge. Hawai’i (17-2, 0-1) hit .303.

Sotiris Siapanis led with 19 kills and hit .531 after having two errors in 32 attacks to go with an ace, two blocks and a dig. Spencer Olivier had 13 kills with one error in 24 attacks to hit .500  and added two assists, two aces, two blocks and four digs. Simon Torwie had eight kills in 11 errorless attacks, a dig and four blocks, one solo. Shane Holdaway had seven kills in nine errorless swings, an ace and a block. Setter Aidan Knipe had 43 assists, a block and five digs.

Hawai’i’s Dimitrios Mouchlias had 15 kills with two errors in 32 swings to hit .313 and added an ace, two digs and two blocks, one solo. Chaz Galloway had 10 kills, hit .381 and had an assist, seven digs and two blocks, one solo. Guilherme Voss had seven kills in as many attacks and an ace. Spyros Chakas was held to seven kills and had an uncharacteristic eight errors to hit negative .045 …

Also in the Big West, No. 6 UC Irvine (14-6, 4-0) rolled on with a 25-23, 25-22, 25-20 victory over visiting UC Santa Barbara (5-13, 1-4). Hilir Henno not only led with 13 kills, hitting .346, but he had three digs, an assist, two blocks and his three aces made him the all-time single-season program leader with 62. Francesco Sani added 10 kills, two assists, two blocks and seen digs. UCI hit .337 and had five aces and 10 errors. UCSB, which hit .239 and had six aces and 15 errors, got 14 kills from Nick Amoruso. Ryan Wilcox had 10 kills.

AROUND THE NATION: Third-ranked UCLA (20-2, 5-0 MPSF) hit .537 and won 25-12, 25-12, 25-12 at Stanford (9-9, 2-3). The Bruins had 33 kills and only four errors in 54 swings, led by Ido David. He had 12 kills with two errors to hit .556 and added three aces, five blocks and six digs. Ethan Champlin had six kills and Guy Genis and Alex Knight five each. Genis had eight blocks, two solo. Merrick McHenry had four kills in six errorless attacks, five of UCLA’s eight aces, two digs and six blocks, two solo. Stanford hit minus .076, with more errors (21) than kills (16) … 

Fifth-ranked Grand Canyon (20-1) of the MPSF swept visiting Princeton (8-10) of the EIVA 27-25, 25-22, 25-21. It’s the first time the GCU program has recorded 20 victories. Camden Gianni led with 13 kills as he hit .458 and had three of his team’s four aces, a solo block and five digs. The Lopes hit 269 and had 14 serving errors. Princeton, which hit .269, had two aces and 23 errors. James Hartley led with 10 kills as he hit .500 and had four digs but no aces and six of those errors … 

No. 9 Pepperdine (14-8) of the MPSF played host to Daemen (11-3) and routed the NEC visitors 25-13, 25-18, 25-17. Pepperdine hit .391 and had as many aces (8) as errors. Jaylen Jasper had 11 kills, a dig and three blocks, one solo. Anderson Fuller had seven kills in 10 errorless swings and three blocks, and Akin Akinwumi had seven kills, hit .455, and had two blocks and a dig. Daemen hit .162 and had two aces and 12 errors. Zach Schneider had 12 kills, two blocks and four digs … 

Three other EIVA teams were in action. George Mason (8-9) beat visiting FDU (4-11) of the NEC in four as Omar Hoyos had 20 kills and hit .472 to go with an assist, two aces, eight digs and three blocks, two solo … Charleston (18-2) swept at the MIVA’s Purdue Fort Wayne (12-9) as Garret Schnitker had 14 kills with one error in 24 attacks to go with an ace, six digs and four blocks … NJIT (7-12) got swept by independent Queens (8-11) …

There were two Conference Carolinas matches. Last-place Mount Olive (6-12, 2-6) knocked Erskine (11-9, 6-3) out of the lead. Mount Olive hit .385 and got eight or more kills from four players, including 14 by Tate Sandvig and 13 by Hayden Frear … Jayden Young had 23 kills and Nicklas Eichenberger 20 as Emmanuel (7-13, 2-6) held off visiting Barton (3-12, 3-5) in a tough five. Daniel Beacham added nine kills and hit .429 to go with an ace, thre digs and three blocks in the 25-27, 25-16, 21-25, 25-17, 15-9 victory. Henrik Westhoff had 13 digs, Carlos Ferreiro had 13 and two assists, and Noah Langelier had 12 digs, an assist and two aces … 

In the SIAC Edward Waters (7-3, 4-0) hit .404 and swept Benedict (5-5, 3-3) and Fort Valley State (5-13) lost to independent (7-12) in four.