The regular season lasted one match too long for top-ranked Long Beach State.
Hawai’i put an end to Long Beach’s undefeated season Saturday. A night after almost doing so in five, the Rainbow Warriors took the visitors to the limit and knocked off the Big West leader 25-21, 22-25, 23-25, 25-20, 15-11.
Things held form in the MIVA quarterfinals Saturday, but not in the MPSF as NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball entered the postseason.
While UCLA swept Stanford, USC knocked off Pepperdine and Concordia surprised Grand Canyon. In the MIVA, Ohio State, Loyola, Lewis and Ball State all advanced.
In NCAA beach volleyball, retiring legendary Pepperdine coach Nina Matthies led the Waves to wins on Zuma Beach for the last time as the No. 2 team beat No. 12 Arizona and No. 5 Cal Poly.
Third-ranked Hawai’i won twice and is 30-3, the most wins ever by the SandBows.
It took all day and into the night, but they finally played in rain-soaked Baton Rouge where the No. 8 Tigers beat No. 11 Georgia State and TCU and No. 7 Florida State swept Georgia State, Houston Baptist and New Orleans. LSU and FSU play Sunday.
At No. 9 South Carolina, the Gamecocks won twice and so did No. 16 Tulane.
NCAA men
Big West: Long Beach finished the regular season 24-1, 9-1 in the conference, a full three games ahead of Hawai’i (18-7, 6-4), which tied UC Irvine (20-8, 6-4). for second. But in the inaugural league tournament that starts Thursday, Hawai’i won the tiebreaker, so:
UCI plays San Diego (9-18, 0-10) in one quarterfinal and CSUN (15-10, 5-5) faces UC Santa Barbara (11-12, 4-6) in the other. Hawai’i awaits the UCI-UCSD winner, while the other winner gets Long Beach.
In Hawai’i’s win — which came a night after losing to Long Beach in five, 22-20 in the fifth after more than three hours — Rado Parapunov led again, this time with 19 kills, seven digs and a block. Stijn van Tilburg added 17 kills, three of his team’s six aces, seven digs and two blocks. Dalton Solbrig and Patrick Gasman had nine kills each with Gasman getting seven blocks, one solo.
Saturday’s match took 2 hours, 59 minutes. TJ DeFalco had 25 kills and hit .396 for Long Beach and had 10 digs and five blocks, two solo. Kyle Ensing had 14 kills, two aces, four digs and three blocks. Nick Amado had nine kills, an ace and six blocks.
Third-ranked UCI, which lost to the No. 12 Gauchos in five the night before, beat UC Santa Barbara 25-18, 30-28, 25-21 as Scott Stadick led with 12 kills while hitting .625. He had seven blocks, two solo. Aaron Koubi had 11 kills and hit .529, while Karl Apfelbach had 10 kills and three blocks. UCSB’s Roy McFarland had 13 kills.
And No. 9 CSUN swept UC San Diego 25-21, 25-18, 25-21 as Dimitar Kalchev had 15 kills and Arvis Greene 11.
MPSF: Second-seeded UCLA made short work of Stanford 25-19, 25-15, 25-18 to improve to 23-6. The Bruins will play Concordia in Thursday’s semifinals at BYU after Concordia (16-14) swept Grand Canyon 25-20, 25-21, 25-23.
BYU, which got a bye into the semis, will play sixth-seeded USC after the visiting Trojans (8-19) went to Malibu and upset Pepperdine 25-22, 19-25, 26-24, 25-18.
UCLA hit .389 but had just 29 kills as it won in 1 hour, 16 minutes. Christian Hessenauer led with eight kills and four blocks, one solo. Dylan Missry had seven kills, an ace, three digs and two blocks and Daenan Gyimah had six kills in 12 errorless swings, an ace and six blocks, one solo.
Stanford ended its season 6-20. Jordan Ewert led with nine kills but hit minus .043 and his team hit .057.
Concordia got 10 kills from Jonathan Predney, who had an ace and three blocks. Hunter Howell had eight kills and seven blocks. GCU’s season ended 18-11 as Luke Turner had 13 kills.
And USC got 20 kills from Jack Wyett, who hit .459, and 19 kills from Gianluca Grasso, who hit .607. The Trojans had lost four of five, including getting swept at home by Pepperdine on March 23. Pepperdine’s season ended 15-8 as MPSF player of the year David Wieczorek led with 20 kills.
MIVA: Top-seeded Ohio State, which has won the last two NCAA titles, routed visiting Quincy 25-22, 25-18, 25-12 to improve to 21-5.
In Wednesday’s semifinals, the Buckeyes will play fourth-seeded Lewis, while second-seeded Loyola will play fourth-seeded Ball State.
Ohio State got 14 kills from MIVA POW Nic Szerszen, who hit .462, had five of his team’s eight aces, nine digs and two blocks. Quincy finished its season 12-19 and winless in MIVA play.
Loyola (22-6) beat Lindenwood (9-16) 25-19, 25-21, 25-22 as Ricky Gevis had 13 kills, five digs and three blocks.
Lewis (19-10) swept Fort Wayne (18-11) as Ryan Coenen had 17 kills and hit .452 and Mitch Perinar had 15 kills and hit .480.
And Ball State (18-11) eliminated McKendree (11-15) 26-24, 25-20, 25-23 as Mitch Weiler, Matt Szews and Matt Walsh had 10 kills apiece. Walsh had five blocks, one solo, and Szews had four aces. Nolan Rueter had 13 kills for McKendree.
EIVA: George Mason (17-11, 13-1 EIVA), which had beaten Harvard (11-13, 10-4) the night before and clinched the regular-season title, won again, this time 18-25, 25-17, 25-20, 25-19.
Accordingly, in Thursday’s semifinals, Harvard goes to Penn State and Mason is home for Princeton.
Sam Greenslade led Mason with 21 kills as he hit .475, had four of his team’s nine aces, and six digs. Travis O’Gorman added 15 kills, three aces and seven digs. Marko Kostich had 13 kills for Harvard.
Penn State (15-10, 10-4) beat visiting NJIT (9-17, 5-9) 21-25, 25-21, 25-17, 25-19 as Aidan Albrecht had 14 kills and hit .400. Calvin Mende added 11 kills.
Saint Francis (9-20, 4-10) sent Princeton (11-15, 7-7) into the postseason on a down note, winning 19-25, 25-20, 17-25, 25-23, 15-13. Stephen Braswell had 19 kills for SFU and Brandon Buck 18. George Huhmann led Princeton with 23 kills.
And Charleston (16-10, 5-9) beat Sacred Heart (7-15, 2-12) in five.
NCAA beach
Waves, Matthies win: Her team lost just one set in two sweeps as Pepperdine’s Nina Matthies was honored along with seniors Corinne Quiggle and Maddie Dilfer. Click here for the recap and summaries of the victories over Arizona and Cal Poly. Pepperdine, ranked No. 2 in the AVCA beach poll, left Matthies 42-2 all-time at Zuma Beach.
SandBows cruise: Hawai’i lost just two sets while beat visiting Boise State and Arizona State. The No. 1 pair of Emily Maglio and Ka’iwi Schuct won their 21st match in a row. Also Saturday, Boise beat ASU. All the teams play again Sunday. Click here for the Hawai’i recap and summaries.
USC wins two: The No. 4 Trojans went to Seattle and scored Pac-12 victories over host Washington — which ended a three-match losing skid — and No. 14 Stanford. Click here for the summary of 4-1 win over Washington and here for the 3-2 win over Stanford.
Also, Washington upset No. 13 Cal, while Stanford and Cal beat Oregon. Click here for the recaps.
LSU, Seminoles prevail: They waited it out and finished under the lights as LSU beat TCU 4-1 and Georgia State 4-1, while Florida State swept Georgia State, Houston Baptist and New Orleans. The Seminoles lost just three sets all day. Click here for LSU’s recap and summaries, and click here for the FSU wrap-up.
Gamecocks win two, Stetson rolls: At South Carolina, the Gamecocks beat Missouri State and No. 20 College of Charleston, while No. 19 Tulane beat Missouri State and Coastal Carolina …
In the ASUN, No. 17 Stetson took the regular-season title for the fourth time with wins over North Florida and Jacksonville …
And in Miami, host No. 10 FIU beat UAB 4-1.
For a complete list of all of Saturday’s NCAA beach volleyball, go to collegebeachvb.com.
