BYU beat USC in the MPSFÂ and Ball State, Ohio State and Purdue Fort Wayne won MIVA matches Thursday in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball.
Two NCAA women’s programs, LiU and Lafayette, hired head coaches.
All that follows, but first a look at Friday’s NCAA men’s schedule.
Seventh-ranked BYU is home again for No. 11 USC, while also in the MPSF No. 2 UCLA is at No. 5 Grand Canyon and No. 9 Stanford is home for Concordia Irvine.
In the Big West, No. 1 Hawai’i goes to UC Santa Barbara, No. 4 Long Beach State is at UC San Diego and No. 5 UC Irvine (tied with GCU in the AVCA Poll) is home for No. 15 CSUN.
Third-ranked Penn State has an EIVA match at Harvard, while also in the EIVA NJIT is at No. 14 Charleston.
The lone MIVA match has No. 10 Loyola Chicago home for Lindenwood.
In Conference Carolinas, Barton is at King and Mount Oive is at Lees-McRae. Belmont Abbey plays independent Queens.
The NEC has a full slate with D’Youville at St. Francis Brookly, Daemen at LIU, Saint Francis (PA) at Sacred Heart and FDU at Merrimack.
Edward Waters plays Central State in the SIAC, while Kentucky State plays independent Limestone.
Alderson Broaddus plays Lincoln Memorial in a match between independents.
If a match is being shown we have the viewing link in our VolleyballMag.com TV & Listings.
LIU TABS MARTINEZ: His school is dropping athletics, so St. Francis Brooklyn coach Amable Martinez is headed less than a half mile across the borough to LIU. Martinez was at St. Francis for four seasons, including a 14-17 finish in 2022, 7-7 in the NEC. He replaces Ken Ko, gone after seven seasons. LIU finished 14-13 in 2022, 9-5 in the NEC.
LAFAYETTE HIRES KISELICA: Christian Kiselica, who coached last year at Division III Cedar Crest College in nearby Allentown, Pennsylvania. Kiselica previously was an assistant coach at George Washington, UMBC, Penn and Temple, his alma mater, where he played club volleyball. He replaces Ryan Adams, who was there for four seasons.Â
Cedar Crest finished 13-9 last season, 8-1 in the CSAC. The Falcons won the conference tournament and lost in the first round of the NCAA Division III Tournament. Lafayette went 8-15 in 2022, 5-11 in the Patriot League.Â
THURSDAY MEN: BYU (15-6, 5-4 MPSF) beat visiting USC (8-12, 1-6) behind 22 kills from Kupono Browne, who hit .395 in the 25-21, 22-25, 25-17, 25-20 victory. Browne had an ace — and eight serving errors — a block and three digs. Miks Ramanis had 13 kills, hit .440, and added an assist, an ace, two blocks and six digs. Gavin Julien had 10 kills with one error in 16 attacks, two aces, two block and three digs. Heath Hughes had two kills in four errorless tries, 47 assists, two blocks and six digs. His team hit .372 and had six aces and 18 errors.
USC, which lost its fifth in a row, hit .245 and had two aces and 13 errors. Dillon Klein led with 17 kills while hitting .429 and had an ace and five digs. Kevin Kobrine had 14 kills, hit .440, and had three blocks and two digs. Simon Gallas had 10 kills, an ace, three blocks and two digs …Â
No, 12 Ball State (15-8, 8-3 MIVA) hit .444 and rolled to a 25-18, 25-21, 25-20 win at McKendree (6-12, 1-10). Tinaishe Ndavazocheva had 12 kills, Kaleb Jenness 11 while hitting .563, and Vanis Buckholz seven with no errors in 10 swings. Tyler Tripp had 10 kills for McKendree and Jacob Gall and Bryce Wetjen had nine each …Â
No. 13 Ohio State (16-9, 8-3) battled to a 25-23, 28-26, 25-19 victory at Lewis (14-11, 5-6) as three players had 38 of the Buckeyes’ 45 kills. Jacob Pasteur and Shance Wetzel had 13 kills each and Jack Stevens 12. Stevens had one error in 19 attcks, an assist, two blocks and two digs. Ohio State hit .349 and had three aces and 16 errors. Lewis, which hit .200, had two aces and 10 errors. Michael Wright had two kills in as many attempts, 39 assists, three blocks and six digs. Christian Prayer had 15 kills, hit .417 and had an ace, a block and three digs. Max Roquet had 10 kills, an assist, two blocks and four digs …
Purdue Fort Wayne (15-10, 6-5) beat visiting Quincy (7-16, 0-11) 17-25, 25-17, 25-17, 25-21 as Jon Diedrich had 16 kills, two assists, two aces, two blocks and 10 digs. Carlos Mercado and Mark Frazier had nine kills each. Frazier had an assist, two aces, five blocks and five digs. Quincy’s Raje Alleyne had 20 kills and hit .500 after having four errors in 32 attacks. He added three blocks and seven digs …Â
In an SIAC match, Fort Valley State (6-16, 3-3) swept visiting Morehouse (0-14, 0-7) as Jaxon Hicks had 10 kills and Taviian Martin had nine. Both hit .571 in the 25-12, 25-21, 25-13 victory … And in a match between independents, Queens (11-12) swept visiting Alderson Broaddus (9-14) behind 12 kills from Sev Allton, who had six aces, four digs and two blocks.
