Top-ranked Long Beach State, unbeaten No. 2 Grand Canyon, No. 4 UCLA and No. 7 UC Irvine — behind 28 kills from Hilir Henno — all won Saturday in NCAA men’s Division I-II men’s volleyball.
Eight-ranked Ohio State and No. 14 Ball State won and pulled into a three-way tie atop the MIVA with idle McKendree.
Ninth-ranked Penn State and Harvard kept pace atop the EIVA and North Greenville won again to maintain its Conference Carolinas lead.
The recaps and top performances follow as we take a two-day break from the men’s game.
The only volleyball Sunday is in the Pro Volleyball Federation when the first-place Atlanta Vibe (4-1) play at the Grand Rapids Rise (2-1) at 4 p.m. Eastern and then the Orlando Valkyries (2-2) play at the Omaha Supernovas (3-2) at 6. Both matches can be seen on the PVF’s YouTube channel.
The next NCAA men’s matches are Tuesday, including three in Conference Carolinas. There are two MIVA matches with No. 8 Ohio State home for Purdue Fort Wayne and No. 13 Lewis at Quincy. The other Tuesday match shows independent No. 19 Lincoln Memorial at Tusculum.
MPSF
Grand Canyon (11-0, 2-0) remained the nation’s lone unbeaten team with a sweep at No. 6 BYU (9-5, 0-2), UCLA (11-3, 2-0) kept pace as the Bruins swept at No. 11 Pepperdine (9-4, 0-2), but No. 5 Stanford (7-5) got knocked off by again by the Big West’s No. 7 UC Irvine (8-4).
GCU hit .427 and kept rolling. A day after sweeping at BYU, the Lopes did it again, this time 25-21, 25-20, 25-23 as Camden Gianni had 15 kills, hit .333, and added an ace, four blocks and six digs. Karter Rogers had a career match with 10 kills, tying his best, with two errors in 15 swings to hit .533 and had a career-high four aces, a career-high six blocks and six digs. Rogers had a total of 57 kills and 25 blocks in his first two seasons
Jackson Hickman had eight kills, hit .353 and added an assist, a block and two digs. Rico Wardlow had four kills in six errorless attacks, an assist three blocks and a dig. Nicholas Slight had a kill in two errorless attempts, 38 assists, a block and two digs. BYU’s Kupono Browne had 11 kills, an ace, two blocks and two digs. Miks Ramanis had eight kills, an assist, an ace, two blocks and five digs. Teon Taylor had five kills with no errors in six attacks, a dig and four blocks …
UCLA hit .463 and came away with a 30-28, 2511, 25-19 sweep at Pepperdine. Zach Rama led the Bruins with 12 kills, hitting .381, and added an assist, two aces, two blocks and two digs. Sean McQuiggan had nine kills with no errors in 11 attacks, three digs and five blocks, one solo. Andrew Rowan had a kill in his only try, 35 assists, two aces, a block and four digs. Pepperdine, which hit .138, got 16 kills from Akin Akinwumi, who hit .345 and had a block and a dig …
UC Irvine, which also won in four at Stanford on Friday, beat the Cardinal 25-22, 25-22, 20-25, 25-21 as Hilir Henno had 28 kills. He hit .345 and had an assist, no aces but five errors, six digs and five blocks, one solo. Connor Campbell had 10 kills with one error in 19 attacks, two blocks and four digs. Brett Sheward had two kills in two attempts, 51 assists, five digs and three blocks, one solo. His team his .343. Cole Power had 13 digs ad three assists. Stanford had four players with 11 or more kills, 15 by Alex Rottman, who added two assists, an ace, five blocks and five digs. Nathan Lietzke had three kills, 46 assists, six digs and three blocks, one solo.
Conference Carolinas
North Greenville (5-3) maintained its one-game lead on Belmont Abbey (7-2, 3-1) and Erskine (7-4, 3-1) after North Greenville beat visiting Barton (5-4, 1-3) in four.
Michael de la Cruz led North Greenville with 13 kills, hit .429, and had two aces, four blocks and four digs. Emanuel Adames had 12 kills, hit .474, and added an assist, an ace, two blocks and four digs. Logan Keothavy had 11 kills, hit .409, and had an block and seven digs. Jackson Chadwell had 13 digs, a kill, three assists and a block and Logan Taylor had 46 assits, three of his team’s nine aces, two blocks and four digs. Barton hit .088 …
Matthew Staskunas had 18 kills with no errors in 31 attacks as Belmont Abbey hit .427 and swept visiting Mount Olive (8-3, 2-2). Staskunas hit .581 in the 25-20, 25-19, 27-25 outcome and had three blocks and eight digs. Zach Puentes dded 13 kills, an assist, two aces, two solo blocks and six digs. Alejandro Leon had nine digs and five assists …
Erskine swept visiting King (1-11, 1-3) as Edgerrin Austin had 13 kills, hit .360, and added an assist, an ace, two blocks and a dig. Kacper Rybarzyk had nine kills and hit .500 and fellow Pole Wiktor Ankurowski had nine kills in as many swings, two aces, two blocks and three digs. King hit .074 …
Eli Zdonek had 20 kills and hit .469 as Emmanuel (4-7, 2-2) beat visiting Lees-McRae (1-10, 0-4) in four. Zdonek also had four aces, eight digs and three blocks, one solo. Aiden Feeney had 12 kills with one error in 24 attacks, five digs and three blocks.
EIVA
Penn State (10-3, 2-0) and Harvard (5-4, 2-0) are alone at the top of the early season standings after Penn State swept at No. 15 Princeton (6-7, 0-2) and Harvard held off visiting Charleston (7-5. 0-2) in five.
Penn State beat Princeton 26-24, 25-20, 25-21 for its 30th EIVA win in a row. Seven Nittany Liions had kills, 10 by Michal Kowal. Princeton’s Ben Harrington had 11 kills, hitting .450 …
Harvard had a 20-2 blocks advantage as the Crimson won its fourth in a row and is 2-0 in the EIVA for the first time since 2016 after beating Charleston 25-17, 17-25, 25-23, 23-25, 15-13. Logan Shepherd had a career-high 14 kills, hit .370, and had seven blocks and four digs. Owen Fanning had a career-high 12 kills, an assist, eight digs and five blocks, and Trevor Schultz had nine kills, hit .467, and added an assist, ana ce, a dig and seven blocks, one solo. Ethan Smith not only had six kills with one error in 12 attacks, but nine blocks, one solo. Charleston got 17 kills from Garret Schnitker and 16 from Max Nissen …
George Mason (5-5), a game back at 1-0, swept at the NEC’s Fairleigh Dickinson (6-4) by hitting .476. Colin Heath had 13 kills while hitting .455, Omar Hoyas 12 with two errors in 19 swings to hit .526, and Jack Bolz had 10 kills. FDU’s Jamal Ellis Carballo had 13 kills.
MIVA
Ohio State (10-3, 4-1) swept visting Quincy (5-4, 1-4) and Ball State (11-7, 4-1) won in five at No 10 Loyola Chicago (8-7, 3-2).
Ohio State, which swept Quincy on Friday, won by almost the same score again Saturday, 25-17, 25-14, 25-20. Jacob Pasteur led the Buckeyes with nine kills as he hit .533 after having one error in 15 attacks to go with an assist, three of his team’s four aces, a solo block and two digs. Quincy hit .076 …
Ball State won 25-16, 25-23, 22-25, 18-25, 15-11 at Loyola behind 18 kills from Patrick Rogers and 17 from Tinaishe Ndavazocheva. Rogers hit .302, had three assists, four blocks and seven digs. Ndavazocheva had two assists, a block and eight digs. Braydon Savitski-Lynde had 11 kills, two assists, an ace, five blocks and eight digs, and Rodney Wallace had seven kills with one error in 13 swings and seven blocks. Setter Lucas Machado had three kills in four errorless attempts, 42 assists, eight digs and three blocks, one solo.
NEC
It’s early, but Daemen (7-2) and Saint Francis (PA) (7-5) are 2-0 and atop the standings.
Daemen hit .407 and swept at Merrimack (3-7, 1-1) as Zach Schneider had 16 kills, hit .345 and had six digs. Maverick O’Neil added nine kills in 11 errorless attacks and Ondrej Arabasz had six kills in six swings. Merrimack lost despite hitting .379. Logan Whitaker had 14 kills, two solo blocks, an assist and a dig. Yulius Melvin Brown Rudolf had eight kills in 12 errorless attacks and three aces and Kai Vogel had seven kills with no errors in 14 attacks …
Saint Francis rallied to win 25-20, 22-25, 19-25, 25-16, 15-7 at LIU (3-10, 0-2). Nathan Zini led with 15 kills, Brady Stump had 14 and 11 digs, and Andrew Deardorff had 12 kills, an assist, two aces, two blocks and 12 digs. Sam Lane had five kills in six errorles attempts, an assist, three aces, three digs and seven blocks, one solo. LIU’s Livan Moreno had 12 kills and Gio Collazo had 10 …
Sacred Heart (6-7, 1-1) beat visiting D’Youville (5-3, 0-3) in four as Patrick Mucherino had 17 kills, hit .343, and had two assists, three blocks and five digs, and Carlo Santa Cruz had 15 kills with one error in 28 attacks to hit .500 to go with three assists, three of his team’s four aces and a dig. Teddy Payne had a kill, 38 assists and six digs. His team hit .321. D’Youville’s Jacob Malak had 14 kills, three aces and five digs, and Tymek Bzoza had 12 kills but 10 errors to go with three assists, two solo blocks and seven digs.
Around the nation
Top-ranked Long Beach State (12-1) took batting practice against the SIAC’s Edward Waters (2-4), hitting .500 in the 25-8, 25-17, 25-12 victory. The Beach, with 33 kills and seven errors in 50 attacks, got 10 kills from Sani Sebastian. Edward Waters had 12 kills but 22 errors and had no blocks …
In the ECC, St. Thomas Aquinas (3-9) beat Roberts Wesleyan (4-9) in four in the conference opener for both teams. STA’s Kyran Versteegan had 18 kills and hit .441 and Gabriel Vieira had 17 kills and hit .467… The ECC’s American International (1-8) lost twice, in four to Emerson before getting swept by Eastern Nazerene …
Independents Missouri S&T (8-6) and Maryville (10-3) both won in sweeps. Missouri S&T beat Cumberland and Maryville beat Roosevelt.
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