NCAA men’s volleyball: UCLA tops USC again; LBSU beats UH again; Penn St. clinches EIVA

Rest assured that the top three teams in this week’s AVCA poll will stay the same after a weekend in which top-ranked UCLA beat No. 5 USC twice in the MPSF, No. 2 Long Beach State beat No. 4 Hawai’i twice in the Big West, and No. 3 Penn State clinched the EIVA regular-season title. […]

The post NCAA men’s volleyball: UCLA tops USC again; LBSU beats UH again; Penn St. clinches EIVA appeared first on Volleyballmag.com.

Rest assured that the top three teams in this week’s AVCA poll will stay the same after a weekend in which top-ranked UCLA beat No. 5 USC twice in the MPSF, No. 2 Long Beach State beat No. 4 Hawai’i twice in the Big West, and No. 3 Penn State clinched the EIVA regular-season title.

Seventh-ranked Ball State, a game up, and No. 11 Loyola both won in the MIVA, putting the regular-season title on the line when they play Thursday in Chicago.

And in Conference Carolinas, the other league that gets an automatic NCAA bid, Mount Olive and North Greenville are tied for first heading into the final week of the regular season.

The line of the night went to Stanford’s Will Rottman, who had 34 kills.

The only NCAA Division I-II match on tap Sunday has LIU playing American International in a battle of independents.

MPSF — UCLA (17-3, 7-1) went to USC (17-6, 4-4) on Thursday and swept. On Saturday, the Bruins battled to a 23-25, 25-19, 17-25, 25-12, 15-12 victory in a match that included a combined 55 service errors in UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. UCLA hit .384 and had two aces and 34 serving errors; USC hit .150 and had four aces and 21 errors.

Ethan Champlin led UCLA with 16 kills, hit .414, and had two assists, an ace with five errors, three blocks and six digs. Kevin Kobrine had 12 kills with one error in 25 attacks to hit .440 and had an assist, no aces and six errors, two solo blocks and nine digs. Miles Partain had five kills with one error in nine tries, 46 assists, no aces and five errors, two blocks and nine digs. Sam Kobrine and Simon Gallas had 10 kills each for USC …

Will Rottman had 34 kills for Stanford (10-11, 2-6), but No. 10 Grand Canyon (16-9, 6-4) won 25-20, 21-25, 25-20, 27-25. Five Lopes had eight or more kills, and Hugo Fischer, Camden Gianni and Christian Janke had 10 each. GCU hit .325 and had four aces and 14 errors. Cole Udall had 14 digs and five assists. Stanford hit .230 and had six aces and 18 errors. Stanford reported that Rottman, who hit .297, had the most kills in program history for a four-set match in the rally-scoring era and tied for the second-most in a match in the rally-scoring era. He had 12 errors in 74 attacks to go with an assist, a block and four digs. Kevin Lamp had 14 kills, two aces, a block and 12 digs. Justin Liu had 13 digs and eight assists … 

No. 8 Pepperdine (14-7, 5-3) swept visiting Concordia (10-12, 3-7) as the Waves hit .528 with 47 kills and nine errors in 72 swings, two fewer than Rottman took. Jaylen Jasper led the way with 14 kills, hit .550 and had an ace, two blocks and four digs. CUI hit .264 and had an ace and six errors.

BIG WEST — A day after beating visiting Hawai’i 22-25, 25-23, 26-24, 27-25, Long Beach State (16-3, 5-1) came away with a 25-23, 25-20, 21-25, 25-19 win over the Rainbow Warriors (18-5, 3-3) in the Pyramid. 

Alex Nikolov led LBSU with 18 kills as he hit .484 and had an assist, two aces, 12 digs and five blocks, one solo. Spencer Olivier, who had three blocks and seven digs, and Clarke Godbold, who had an ace, five blocks and four digs, had 12 kills each. The Beach hit .350 and had five aces and 17 errors.

Hawai’i hit .174 and had seven aces and 13 errors. Guillerme Voss had 11 kills with one error in 17 attacks and three blocks and four digs, and Spyros Chakas had 11 kills, four assists, two aces, three blocks and eight digs. Jakob Thelle had four kills, 43 assists, four aces, two blocks and four digs, and Brett Sheward had 16 digs and two assists … 

The only other match had No. 9 UC San Diego (12-8, 4-3) sweeping at CSUN (6-11, 1-5) as the Tritons hit .356 in the 25-19, 32-30, 25-22 victory. UCSD, which had six aces and 15 errors, got 14 kills from Kyle McCauley and 13 each from Wyatt Harrison and Ryan Ka, who had three aces. CSUN hit .244 and had six aces and 13 errors.

EIVA — Penn State (20-3, 13-0) won 28-26, 25-21, 25-18 at Saint Francis (PA) (13-11, 6-7) and clinched the EIVA title and will be the host for the league tournament. Penn State, which won its 16th match in a row, got a career-high seven aces from Brett Wildman, who had 12 kills with one error in 20 attacks to hit .550. He also had a solo block and a dig. Toby Ezeonu had nine kills with one error in 13 attacks. Penn State hit .275 and had nine aces and 18 errors. SFU hit .273 and had no aces and 19 errors ….

Also in the EIVA, NJIT (13-8, 8-4) swept Harvard (10-10-8-4), St. Francis Brooklyn (10-10, 4-8) beat Sacred Heart (8-14, 2-12) in five, and Princeton (9-12) beat independent Fairleigh Dickinson (6-12) in four.

MIVA — Ball State (19-2, 11-1) won its 10th match in a row, a 25-19, 26-24, 25-20 sweep of visiting No. 13 Lewis (13-11, 5-7). Angelos Mandilaris led with 19 kills as he hit .378 and had an ace, two blocks and seven digs. Ball State hit .284 and had five aces and 13 errors. 

Max Roquet had 13 kills and hit .321 with eight digs for Lewis, which hit .143 and had two aces and 11 errors …

Loyola (16-7, 10-2) swept at Quincy (4-16, 0-12) 25-19, 25-23, 25-14. Cole Schlothauer led with 14 kills and hit .440 to go with two assists, five digs and three blocks, one solo. Henry Payne had 12 kills, hit .476 and had seven digs. Their team hit .398 with three aces and 16 errors. Quincy hit .108 and had two aces and 10 errors … Ohio State (11-13, 5-7) beat McKendree (12-10, 7-5) in five as Jacob Pasteur had 21 kills and hit .441 and Martin Lallemand had 20 kills with one error in 38 attacks … Jon Diedrich had 24 kills and hit .475 and added two aces and eight digs as Purdue Fort Wayne (15-10, 6-6) beat Lindenwood (11, 4-8) in four.

CONFERENCE CAROLINAS — The league leaders both won as North Greenville (16-5, 10-2)  swept Belmont Abbey (13-13, 5-7), and Mount Olive (13-4, 10-2) held off Erskine (11-16, 5-7) in five. Also, King swept Lees–McRae and Emmanuel beat Barton in four.

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The post NCAA men’s volleyball: UCLA tops USC again; LBSU beats UH again; Penn St. clinches EIVA appeared first on Volleyballmag.com.