This week’s AVCA polls — the men’s top 15 and beach top 20 — have all the same teams, but in the men’s there was some major movement.
We have not only the men’s POWs in the five NCAA Division I-II conferences, but a beach honor, too.
And there were two matches Tuesday as Concordia upset No. 7 UC Irvine and No. 10 Penn State swept Saint Francis.
AVCA men: The top five stayed the same — Hawai’i (12 first-place votes), BYU (4), UC Santa Barbara, Long Beach State and Lewis — but UC San Diego made a four-spot jump to No. 6 and Grand Canyon leaped five notches to No. 8. Those are the highest rankings ever for those two schools. No one dropped out, but UCLA fell four spots to No. 12.
Click here for the complete AVCA Division I-II Men’s Poll.
AVCA beach: There were some mixed results during the first weekend, but not enough to shake things up in the poll, the first of the regular season.
UCLA stayed No. 1, LSU moved up a spot to No. 2 after beating the Bruins for the tournament title in Hawai’i, and Florida State went 7-0 but fell a spot to No. 3. USC, idle, stayed No. 5 and Hawai’i is still fifth.
Click here for the complete AVCA Collegiate Beach Volleyball Coaches Poll.
Men’s schedule, recaps: There are five matches on Wednesday’s slate, including UCSB of the Big West at No. 9 Pepperdine of the MPSF. There are four Conference Carolinas matches as North Greenville goes to Emmanuel, Limestone is at Erskine, Mount Olive goes to Belmont Abbey and King plays at Lees-McRae.
To watch any match that is being streamed or broadcast, go to the VolleyballMag.com TV listings.
Concordia of the MPSF (7-10) and UC Irvine of the Big West (7-7) are located less than three miles apart. UCI won the first two times they played this season, at UCI and at Hawai’i. Tuesday, however, the Eagles came away with the 25-19, 22-25, 25-22, 25-19 victory.
Jordan Hoppe led with 19 kills and hit .310 to go with an assist, an ace, two blocks and eight digs. Raymond Barsemian had 15 kills, an assist, five of his team’s seven aces, six blocks and 12 digs. Noah Lassandro had 10 kills and hit .400 to go with seven blocks and two digs. Jonathan Carlson had seven kills with no errors in 16 attacks to hit .438 and had four digs and two blocks, one solo. McLain Mott had three kills in five errorless attempts, 46 assists, three blocks and seven digs. CUI hit .308, had 11 serving errors and 12 blocks.
UC Irvine hit .248, had two aces and 11 errors, and also 12 blocks. Joel Schneidmiller and Alexandre Nsakanda had 16 kills each. Schneidmiller had an assist, an ace, five blocks and 11 digs. Nsakanda had an ace, five digs and four blocks, one solo. Sean Dennis had six kills and hit .624 and Scott Stadick had five kills, five digs and 10 blocks. Patrick Vorenkamp had two kills in three errorless tries and 36 assists, three blocks and three digs …
Penn State improved to 9-6 and stayed atop the EIVA at 5-0 with a 25-17, 25-13, 25-16 victory at Saint Francis (4-10, 1-4). Penn State hit .357 and had seven aces and 12 errors. Henrick Falck Lauten led the Nittany Lions with 11 kills and hit .529. He had two aces, two blocks and two digs. Cal Fisher had nine kills, an ace, a block and six digs. Brett Wildman had six kills, two blocks and two digs. Jason Donorovich had five kills and no errors in 11 attacks, two assists, three aces, a dig and three blocks, two solo …
SFU, which hit .029, had one ace and 13 errors. Michael Fisher led with eight kills …
On Monday, Limestone (8-4, 4-4 Conference Carolinas) swept King (7-7, 5-1) 25-18, 25-22, 25-18 to knock the Tornado out of a first-place tie with Barton. Francisco Salinger Cenzual led Limestone with 14 kills as he hit .480 and had five of his team’s nine aces. He also had two blocks and eight digs. Joshua Kim led King with 12 kills.
Men’s POWs: The MIVA tabbed Tyler Mitchem of Lewis as the offensive POW and McKendree’s Francisco Comas for the defensive honor. Mitchem was also honored as the AVCA national player of the week …
In the EIVA, the honorees are Penn State’s Calvin Fisher as the offensive player of the week, while NJIT’s Alvaro Gimeno is the defensive POW …
The Conference Carolinas honor went to Angelos Mandilaris of Barton for the second time this season …
Camden Gianni of Grand Canyon is the MPSF offensive honoree, while the top defensive player is Miki Jauhiainen of BYU …
In the Big West, the POW is UC Santa Barbara’s Randy DeWeese. The defensive player is Connor Walbrecht of UC San Diego, while the top freshman is Griffin Walters of CSUN.
Beach POWs: The AVCA national beach pair of the week is LSU’s Kelli Agnew and Taryn Kloth, who did not drop a set in five matches in Hawaii …
The Big West honored Hawai’i’s Julia Scoles and Maia Hannemann as its pair of the week …
In the Pac-12, the top pair is UCLA’s Savvy Simo and Abby Van Winkle.
