There’s a new AVCA men’s poll with few changes, the first AVCA beach poll is out — albeit preseason — NC State hired a women’s coach, and there are a few men’s matches on which to report. And we have the players of the week in the five men’s conferences.
AVCA men: As they have all season, the top three teams — Hawai’i (11 first-place votes), BYU (five) and UC Santa Barbara — stayed 1-2-3 in the AVCA Division I-II Men’s Poll.Â
Fourth-ranked Long Beach State traded places with No. 5 UC Irvine. UC San Diego moved back in at a tie for No. 14, while Concordia dropped out. Click here for the complete AVCA top-15 men’s poll.Â
AVCA beach: The AVCA Collegiate Beach Volleyball Poll looks a lot like the way things ended up in 2019. UCLA, the two-time defending champion, is No. 1. Florida State, which ended fourth last year, is No. 2, and LSU is No. 3. The Tigers were No. 3 at the end of last season. USC is No. 4, followed by Hawai’i. Click here for the complete AVCA top-20 beach poll.Â
Coaching carousel: NC State of the ACC hired USA women’s national-team assistant Luka Slabe, who played and coached at BYU. He has never been a women’s head coach. Slabe plans on double-duty through the Olympics.
That leaves USC of the Pac-12 as the only Power Five program without a head coach. That opening was created when Brent Crouch left for Auburn, which has named his former USC assistant Alex Dunphy associate head coach.
Division I openings remain at Canisius, Merrimack, Penn, Radford, and UNCW. This weekend marks the first time coaches can go on the road and recruit in 2020.
Men’s schedule, recaps: There are three matches Wednesday, including one in the MPSF when Concordia goes to No. 7 Pepperdine. In Conference Carolinas Belmont Abbey plays at Limestone. And St. Francis Brooklyn plays at St. Joseph’s College.
There were three matches Sunnday at Urbana in Ohio as Daemen beat the home team in four, and then improved to 5-5 as it came back from 0-2 to beat Lincoln Memorial in five. Lincoln Memorial (6-4) then swept Urbana, which is now 0-14 in its first year. In Daemen’s 15-25, 19-25, 25-23, 25-23, 18-16 win over LM, Zach Yerington had 36 kills, hit .466, and had four aces and six digs. LM’s Evan Cory had 12 kills …
In Conference Carolinas on Tuesday, King (7-5, 5-0) remained atop the league as it swept North Greenville (4-5, 2-2). Sean Kohlhase led with 11 kills, six digs and three blocks. Joshua Kim had nine kills, an ace, five digs and seven blocks. King hit .229 and had two aces and six serving errors. North Greenville hit .088 and had three aces and 10 errors …
Also Tuesday, Quincy of the MIVA (3-8) beat Culver-Stockton (0-10) in four. Omari Wheeler had 26 kills and hit .345 for Quincy.
POWs: The MIVA offensive player of the week, McKendree setter Ryan Serrano, is also the AVCA national POW. The MIVA defensive honoree is McKendree’s Zach Schnittker …
The MPSF offensive player of the week is Hugo Fischer of Grand Canyon, while the defensive player is Felipe de Brito Ferreira of BYU …Â
In the EIVA, Harvard’s Matthew Ctvrtlik is the offensive winner, while the defensive nod went to Calin Butler of Sacred Heart …Â
Rado Parapunov of Hawai’i is the Big West player of the week for the second time this season and ninth time overall. UC Irvine’s Scott Stadick is the defensive winner, and Hawai’i’s Guilherme Voss is the top freshman …Â
And in Conference Carolinas, King’s Sean Kohlhase and Emmanuel’s Aleksa Lakic shared the POW honor.
