Tenth-ranked CSUN did it again, sweeping No. 3 Hawai’i for the second straight night in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball. There was some normalcy in the rest of the Big West, as top-ranked Long Beach State and No. 5 UC Irvine both won.
In the MPSF, No. 4 UCLA won, and the MIVA’s Ohio State won at the EIVA’s Penn State.
Saturday’s men’s schedule includes a big battle of Chicago teams when No. 6 Loyola goes to Romeoville, Ill., to play No. 8 Lewis is a key MIVA match. Two other ranked MIVA teams play each other when No. 15 Fort Wayne goes to No. 11 Ball State. There are two MPSF matches when No. 13 Grand Canyon goes to No. 7 Pepperdine and USC plays at Stanford. Both teams are 1-6 in league play and the loser will have solo possession of the cellar.
It’s a busy NCAA beach Saturday, too, and the beach roundup follows.
NCAA men
Big West: CSUN thumped the visiting Rainbow Warriors again, this time 25-17, 25-22, 25-17. It left the Matadors 12-7 overall and 2-2 in the league, while Hawai’i dropped to 13-5, 1-3.
“Hawai’i is a really good team and for us to beat them the way we did, it shows that we’ve turned the corner,” CSUN coach Jeff Campbell said.
Arvis Greene led with 14 kills, three digs and five blocks, one solo. Dimitar Kalchev had eight kills and six of his team’s eight aces. He also had two two digs and two blocks.
Hawai’i’s Stijn van Tilburg led with 12 kills. Austin Matautia added seven.
Long Beach won its 19th in a row, 24-26, 25-15, 25-14, 25-20 at UCSB. The Beach is 19-0, 4-0 in the Big West, while the Gauchos are 9-7, 2-2.
TJ DeFalco and Kyle Ensing had 15 kills each for Long Beach. DeFalco hit .364, had an ace, five digs and three blocks, one solo. Ensing hit .394, had an ace, eight digs and five blocks.
Keenan Sanders and Jack Truman had 11 kills each for UCSB.
UCI (16-5, 3-1) beat UC San Diego 24-26, 25-23, 25-22, 22-25, 17-15. Joel Schneidmiller led with 18 kills. He added an ace, four digs and five blocks. Scott Stadick had 14 kills, hit .545, and five blocks, two solo. Karl Apfelbach had 13 kills, an ace and nine blocks, two solo.
UCSD (9-12, 0-4) got 19 kills and nine digs from Wyatt Harrison. Xander Jimenez had 14 kills, an ace, nine digs and three blocks, one solo.
UCLA wins: The Bruins (19-5, 7-2 MPSF) beat visiting No. 13 Grand Canyon 25-15, 25-20, 22-25, 25-21.
Christian Hessenauer led UCLA with 16 kills. He hit .343, had an ace, eight digs and six blocks. Jake Arnitz had 12 kills, six digs and three blocks. Dylan Missry had 10 kills, an ace, six digs and four blocks, one solo and Daenan Gyimah had 10 kills, hit .588, had three aces and eight blocks, two solo. Setter Micah Ma’a had four aces, four digs and three blocks.
Grand Canyon 15-7, 2-5) got 14 kills from Will Schwob, who hit .367 and added 10 digs and two blocks. Cullen Mosher added 13 kills and seven digs.
Buckeyes win: Ohio State had all it could handle in the 25-18, 21-25, 23-25, 28-26, 15-12 victory that left the Buckeyes 14-4 and the Nittany Lions 10-8.
Nic Szerszen had a big night for Ohio State, not only leading with 22 kills but hitting .600. He had three of his team’s 10 aces, five digs and a block. Maxime Hervoir had 21 kills, two aces, three digs and four blocks. Nick Laffin had eight kills in 10 errorless swings, two aces and four blocks.
Penn State’s Calvin Mende had 15 kills, hit .424, three digs and a solo block. Matthew McLaren added 14 kills, hit .357, and had eight digs and two blocks. But he also had eight service errors and no aces. Teammate Aidan Albrecht, however, had five of Penn State’s seven aces. He also had five kills, three digs and two blocks.
“What you saw tonight was the way we’ve been playing the last four matches, we played well enough and just competed our butts off,” Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said. “The five-game losses that we’ve had, we’ve had swings to win in less than five.
“I guess the age old question that every coach wonders is, ‘How do you take that next step, how do you embrace the opportunity to win and not worry about what happens if we don’t?’ I think that’s the next step for this team.”
There was one other match involving a MIVA team as Quincy (11-12) swept St. Xavier.
Conference Carolinas: Barton is the only team unbeaten in league play. The Bulldogs (13-6, 10-0) swept Erskine 25-20, 25-19, 31-29. And in that third set, Erskine was down 23-19. Angelos Mandilaris led with 13 kills, an ace and nine digs. Erskine (4-12, 1-8) hit .055 before a crowd listed in the boxscore at 25.
Also in the ConfCarolinas, Mount Olive (12-9, 8-2) stayed two games back with a four-set win over Emmanuel (8-11, 4-6), Belmont Abbey (7-12, 5-6) swept Limestone (6-14, 3-7) and Lees-McRae (2-14) lost to Lincoln Memorial and North Greenville (10-11) lost to Queens in non-conference matches.
NCAA Beach
The big NCAA beach gathering Saturday is at the University of South Carolina where the No. 9 Gamecocks play host to top-ranked Pepperdine, No. 7 LSU, No. 11 Georgia State and Jacksonville State. Read the preview here.
Fifth-ranked Hawai’i has No. 3 USC, No. 12 Grand Canyon and Nebraska at home. Read the preview here.
A tournament in Santa Monica includes No. 2 UCLA, No. 16 Loyola Marymount, Missouri State and Colorado Mesa. Seventh-ranked Cal Poly is at home for No. 10 Arizona, TCU and CSU Bakersfield. Also Saturday, No. 15 Stetson continues its home tournament with UNCW and New Mexico when it plays No. 20 Florida Atlantic and Houston Baptist.
Among the teams in action Friday was No. 17 Tulane, which won twice at UAB. The Green Wave swept Mercer and Austin Peay without dropping a set. Tulane is 7-3. Click here for the recaps and summaries.
