There were five NCAA Division I-II men‘s volleyball matches Thursday, two in the MPSF and three in the Big West, and none more surprising than No. 10 CSUN’s sweep of No. 3 Hawai’i.
The other winners were top-ranked Long Beach State, No. 2 BYU, No. 5 UC Irvine and No. 7 Pepperdine.
There are seven matches on the NCAA slate Friday, including Hawai’i getting another crack at CSUN and UC Santa Barbara playing Long Beach for the second straight night, only this time at home. No. 4 UCLA plays host to Grand Canyon in the MPSF, UCI is home for UC San Diego in the Big West, and No. 9 Ohio State of the MIVA entertains the EIVA’s Penn State, unranked for the first time in three years.
Eighth-ranked Long Beach also won in beach, knocking off No. 4 Florida State and TCU.
Big win for CSUN, Campbell: Jeff Campbell not only got his 300th victory as a head coach, but his Matadors beat visiting Hawai’i 25-18, 26-24, 25-23.
CSUN (11-7 overall, 1-2 Big West) as Arvis Greene had 18 kills and hit .432.
“I owe a lot to the players that have been here and everyone associated with CSUN men’s volleyball,” Campbell said. “I’m really proud to be here and I love what this team and this University stand for. To have 300 wins at this University, where I graduated from and that I played for, it’s just a real honor and is very sentimental to me.”
Dimitar Kalchev had nine kills for CSUN, an ace, a block and nine digs. Eric Chance added eight kills and hit .700.
Stijn van Tilburg had 18 kills and hit .333 for Hawai’i (13-4, 1-2), which hit .193. van Tilburg added an ace, a block and seven digs.
Long Beach stays unbeaten: No. 1 rolled 25-17, 25-19, 25-19 past UC Santa Barbara to improve to 18-0 overall, 3-0 in the Big West.
Long Beach hit .390 as Kyle Ensing led with 11 kills. He hit .391 and had five blocks and two digs. Simon Anderson and Nick Amado had eight kills each. Anderson had two digs and four blocks, while Amado had an ace and two blocks. TJ DeFalco had seven kills, five of Long Beach’s six aces and eight digs.
The Gauchos dropped to 9-6, 2-1 as Keenan Sanders had 11 kills and Roy McFarland had 10 to go with six digs and a block.
BYU downs USC: The Cougars (18-4, 8-0) won 23-25, 25-16, 25-23, 25-21 to stay atop the MPSF.
Gabi Garcia Fernandez led BYU with 14 kills and five of his team’s six aces. He also had seven digs and two blocks. Storm Fa’agata-Tufuga had 13 kills, two digs and two blocks.
USC (5-15, 1-6) got 11 kills from Jack Wyett, who had six digs. Gianluca Grasso had nine kills and Jon Rivera had eight in his first start of the season.
UCI, Pepperdine win: The Anteaters are 15-5, 2-1 Big West after their 25-21, 31-29, 25-18 victory over visiting UC San Diego. UCI’s balanced attack saw Aaron Koubi get 12 kills and Joel Schneidmiller and Karl Apfelbach 11 each. UCSD’s Xander Jimenez had 10 kills as hit team dropped to 9-1, 0-3.
Pepperdine swept No. 14 Concordia 25-15, 25-16, 25-23 to improve to 11-6, 5-3 in the MPSF, while the Eagles dropped to 10-12, 3-5.
David Wieczorek led Pepperdine with 12 kills. He hit .320, had a whopping six of his team’s nine aces, two digs and four blocks. Alex Harthaller added 12 kills, an ace, four digs and five blocks.
Concordia’s Raymond Barsemian led his team with 11 kills. He hit .417, had three of its six aces, two digs and three blocks. Overall, however, Concordia hit .127.
Beach wins in beach: Long Beach’s 4-1 wins against Florida State and TCU, included sweeps by Long Beach’s Anete Brinke and Sasha Karelov. A big victory against FSU came at No. 3, when Kristyna Adamcikova and Hailey Harward beat Katie Horton and Hailey Luke 26-24, 25-23.
Click here for the Long Beach recaps and summaries. Click here for Florida State’s results.
