The final day of regular-season play will decide the MPSF Tournament seeding as No. 2 BYU, which has already clinched the top seed and will be the host for the semifinals and final, plays at No. 5 UCLA on Saturday night, Stanford goes to No. 4 Pepperdine and No. 13 Concordia plays host to USC.
Seventh-ranked Ohio State, the two-time defending NCAA champion, beat No. 15 Fort Wayne on Friday to clinch its third MIVA regular-season crown in a row.
Top-ranked and unbeaten Long Beach State kept rolling and built its league lead to three games over No. 3 UC Irvine and No. 6 Hawai’i, which both won Friday.
Worth noting: In a loss to UCI, CSUN’s Arvis Greene had 40 kills.
And Barton, previously unbeaten in Conference Carolinas play, lost to King and now they’re tied atop the league.
In NCAA beach, the biggest tournaments this weekend are at Florida State and Arizona. A roundup follows.
MPSF: There were two matches Friday, as Grand Canyon beat visiting USC in four and Concordia went out of conference to sweep UC Santa Cruz.
With seven teams, BYU is out of the equation until the semifinals as the others play the quarterfinals next Saturday. All six spots are on the line Friday:
UCLA (21-6, 8-3) and Pepperdine (14-7, 7-4) will finish second or third.
Places 4 through 7 are up for grabs. Concordia is 14-14, 4-7, idle Grand Canyon is 18-10, 4-8, USC is 7-18, 3-8, and Stanford is 6-18, 3-8.
Friday, Grand Canyon’s 19-25, 25-22, 29-27, 25-23 win over visiting USC saw Shalev Saada get 20 kills while hitting .424.
MIVA: Things are up for grabs in this league, too.
While Ohio State (20-4, 11-2) clinched with its 25-18, 25-23, 25-16 win at Fort Wayne (17-10, 5-8), eighth-ranked Loyola (20-6, 10-3) gets the No. 2 seed for the league tournament. Third place will go to either No. 12 Ball State (16-11, 9-4) or No. 10 Lewis (17-10, 8-5) with the other getting fourth, while McKendree (11-13, 6-7) and Fort Wayne (17-10, 5-8) will finish either fifth or sixth. Lindenwood (9-14, 3-10) gets seventh and winless Quincy (12-17, 0-13) eighth.
The regular season ends Saturday with Lewis at Lindenwood, Loyola at Quincy, McKendree at Fort Wayne and Ohio State at Ball State.
Friday, Maxime Hervoir had 16 kills and hit .480 for Ohio State, which hit .455 as a team in its 25-18, 25-23, 25-16 victory. Jake Hanes had 13 kills and hit .375 and Nic Szerszen added 11 kills and hit .550. Tony Price, Richie Diedrich and Pelegrin Vargas, who hit .462, had eight kills each for the Mastodons.
Also, Ball State beat McKendree 19-25, 25-22, 29-27, 25-23. Matt Szews had 14 kills and hit .357 to go with 10 digs and three blocks for the Cardinals. McKendree hit .012.
Big West: Long Beach is 22-0, 7-0 in the league after winning at UC San Diego 25-22, 25-19, 25-17, tying the school record — set over the 1991 and ’92 seasons — for consecutive victories.
Long Beach hit .304 and only needed 30 kills to win. Kyle Ensing led with eight, Simon Anderson had seven and Nick Amado six. TJ DeFalco had just four kills but four of his team’s six aces. Luke McDonald had 10 kills for UCSD (9-15, 0-7). The same teams play at Long Beach on Saturday.
UC irvine had all it could handle against visiting No. 9 CSUN 25-17, 25-23, 22-25, 22-25, 22-20 to improve to 18-7, 4-3. CSUN is 13-9, 3-4. The same teams play at CSUN on Saturday.
UCI, which hit .329, had 69 kills as Aaron Koubi and Karl Apfelbach had 17 each and Joel Schneidmiller and Scott Stadick 14 apiece. Koubi had two aces, nine digs and two blocks, Apfelbach 10 digs and three blocks, Schneidmiller an ace, seven digs and two blocks, and Stadick, who hit .722, three blocks.
CSUN hit .301 as Greene went off. His 40 kills came in 73 swings with 12 errors as he hit .384. He also had two aces, seen digs and four blocks. Greene’s total was the most by a hitter in a five-set match in the NCAA this season. The CSUN rally scoring era record is 41 kills by Dan Rhodes in 2006.
And Hawai’i, which goes back to No. 11 UC Santa Barbara on Saturday, won 25-16, 25-15, 26-24. The Rainbow Warriors (16-6, 4-3) hit .458. Rado Parapunov led with 11 kills while hitting .474 and Dalton Solbrig had 10 kills and hit .750. Brett Rosenmeier had eight kills, hit .571, had had two aces, five blocks and three digs.
UCSB (10-10, 3-4) got 13 kills from Corey Chavers.
EIVA: George Mason swept Saint Francis 25-12, 25-21, 25-19 to improve to 15-10 overall and 11-0 on the league. The Patriots play host to Penn State on Saturday.
Harvard is second at 10-13, 10-2, while Penn State is 13-9, 8-3 with two conference matches left. Mason finishes its regular-season next Friday and Saturday with back-to-back home matches against Harvard.
Mason hit .380 against SFU (8-18, 3-8) as Christian Malias and Hayden Wagner led a balanced attack with nine kills each. Malias hit .438, had two of his team’s five aces, six digs and two blocks. Wagner had an ace and five blocks and Kyle Barnes had eight kills, an ace, a dig and block.
“I thought our boys played with poise tonight and kept their foot on the gas entire match. Saint Francis did a very good job serving tonight and our passers did a real nice job of containing their aggressive serves,” Mason coach Jay Hosack said.
“We dug in and kept playing one point at a time and sure enough we came out on top. It was a nice victory, but now we have a big match tomorrow.”
SFU’s Cole Thompson led his team with seven kills.
Harvard had to go five against Princeton (9-12, 8-3), winning 25-15, 25-21, 18-25, 19-25, 15-13. Brad Gretsch led with 17 kills, an ace, three digs and two blocks. Greg Luck had 15 kills, an ace, 16 digs and three blocks for Princeton.
Penn State won at Charleston (12-9, 3-8) 25-22, 25-23, 25-21. Jalen Penrose led with 12 kills, seven digs and three blocks.
And NJIT (7-15, 4-7) won at Sacred Heart (5-13, 1-10) the hard way 25-23, 21-25, 27-29, 25-18, 18-16. Piotr Namiotko led with 21 kills, five digs and five blocks.
Conference Carolinas: Both teams are now 14-1 in league play after King (18-5) beat visiting Barton (18-7). They hold a three-game lead over Mount Olive (15-11, 11-4).
King, which is in Bristol, Tenn., won 25-17, 25-20, 21-25, 25-15 as it hit .347. Kiel Bell led with 17 kills while hitting .483. He had an ace, eight digs and two blocks, one solo. Jeff Sprayberry had 15 kills, six digs and two blocks. Aleksa Brkovic and Angelos Mandilaris had 14 kills each for Barton.
Mount Olive won in five at Lees-McRae (3-20, 1-13) as Brad Monaghan had 18 kills. Also in ConfCarolinas, Belmont Abbey (11-14, 7-7) beat visiting Emmanuel (9-16, 5-11) in four.
King plays host to Mount Olive on Saturday, while Barton goes to Lees-McRae.
NCAA beach: No. 7 Florida State opened its tournament Friday with sweeps of No. 18 Florida Atlantic, UNC Wilmington and TCU. Also in Tallahassee is No. 11 Georgia State, which was upset by TCU and bounced back against UAB. Click here for the FSU recaps and summaries.
At Arizona, the Wildcats beat No. 17 Stetson 3-2 and Arizona State 4-1. Click here for the Arizona recaps and summaries.
Cal also beat Stetson 4-1 and swept Arizona State. Click here for Cal’s results.
Those tournaments continue Saturday when No. 19 Tulane’s gets started. The Green Wave is host to No. 8 LSU, No. 12 Grand Canyon, Houston Baptist, Central Arkansas and New Orleans.
For results around the nation, go to collegebeachvb.com.
