Men’s volleyball conference action heats up as NCAA beach gets underway
Top-ranked Hawai’i is home again for the NEC’s LIU and another Big West team, No. 6 UC Irvine, is home for No. 2 UCLA of the MPSF
But many of the other NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball teams are playing conference matches Friday.
There are three MPSF matches including a rematch when No. 5 and unbeaten Grand Canyon goes to No. 7 Pepperdine, No. 8 BYU at Concordia Irvine and No. 9 Stanford at No. 13 USC.
Third-ranked Penn State has an EIVA match at NJIT, while also in the conference Harvard goes to Princeton and No. 14 and unbeaten Charleston is at George Mason.
The MIVA slate has No. 12 Ball State at Lindenwood, No. 11 Ohio State at Quincy and Lewis at Purdue Fort Wayne.
There’s a Big West match between No. 14 CSUN and UC San Diego.
The two Conference Carolinas matches have King at Mount Olive and Lees-McRae at Barton.
In the NEC, Sacred Heart is at Saint Francis (PA) and Merrimack is at FDU.
The SIAC has Benedict at Morehouse. Also Kentucky State plays Division III Mount St. Joseph and Fort Valley State is home for independent Tusculum.
Three other independents are in action when Limestone plays Queens and Alderson Broaddus plays Truett-McConnell.
WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY: The big match Wednesday saw Grand Canyon (14-0, 3-0) win 25-18, 25-21, 23-25, 20-25, 16-14 at Pepperdine (9-6, 1-2) despite 30 kills by Jaylen Jasper. The Lopes, who hit .418 and had seven aces with 21 serving errors, got 10 or more kills from four players. Christian Janke led with 13 as he hit .478 and had an ace (but no aces and eight errors), two blocks and nine digs. Gianni Camden added 12 kills, four assists, six aces, a block and six digs, Rico Wardlow had 12 kills in 18 errorless attacks and three blocks, and Jackson Hickman had 10 kills. Nicholas Slight had four kills in as many tries, 46 assists, three blocks and four digs. Pepperdine not only got those 30 kills from Jasper, it hit .398 to go with five aces and 24 errors. Jasper hit .578 after having four errors in 45 attacks and had an assist and six digs. Akin Akinwumi had 13 kills and hit .556, but his hitting error ended the match. Bryce Dvorak had two kills in five errorless tries, 55 assists, two aces, three blocks and three digs …
The two MIVA outcomes saw No. 10 Loyola Chicago (12-2, 5-0) get 24 kills from Parker Van Buren in its four-set win at Lewis (8-8, 2-3), while Purdue Fort Wayne (11-4, 2-3) won in four at McKendree (6-6, 1-4). Loyola’s Van Buren added two assists, three digs and four blocks, three solo. Christian Prayer had 15 kills for Lewis.
The match was the “Playing for Preemies Game” and Lewis raised more than $2,500. For more details and to donate to the Rae Strong Foundation: https://givebutter.com/PlayingForPreemies … Jon Diederich had 15 kills for PFW, Bryce Walker 13 and six blocks, and Mark Frazier had 12 kills, six blocks and eight digs …
Thursday, Hawai’i (12-0) blasted visiting LIU (6-5) as nine players had kills in the 25-13, 25-13, 25-18 victory. Keoni Thiim led with seven kills in 10 errorless attacks. Spryos Chakas had six kills, two digs and five blocks. Cole Hogland had four kills, two aces and eights blocks, one solo. The Rainbow Warriors hit .343 and had six aces and seven errors. LIU hit .000 as Hawai’i won its 21st match in a row …
Edward Waters (3-1, 1-0) got off to a good SIAC start with a four-set win over visiting Central State (7-11, 0-1) as Kaelen Ingram had 17 kills, six aces and five digs and Evens Edouard had 15 kills and six digs … Daemen (9-1, 4-0) won its NEC match in four over D’Youville (3-6, 0-4) as five players had seven or more kills in the 25-13, 25-13, 21-25, 25-19 victory. Kacper Taudul had 19 kills for D’Youville …
Independent Queens (5-8) won in in four at Belmont Abbey (6-9) of Conference Carolinas despite 20 kills by Matteo Miselli and Kentucky State of the SIAC dropped to 1-13 when it was swept by Maryville (5-9).
NCAA BEACH: In case you missed it, we had two posts Thursday coinciding with the start of the season. See our video interviews with a handful of coaches here, and read Travis Mewhirter’s breakdown of the top 20 teams here. He details and predicts the 16-team NCAA field.
Action Thursday included top-ranked UCLA winning twice, sweeping Saint Mary’s and Stephen F. Austin at Hawai’i, losing only one set in the 10 matches.
The home team for the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic split as Hawai’i swept Saint Mary’s before Stanford beat the Sandbows 3-2. It came down to No. 3 as Emma Morris and Taylor Wilson of Stanford beat Kaylee Glagau and Caprice Lorenzo 21-14, 16-21, 15-12. Stanford also beat Stephen F. Austin 4-1.
Things get going in Tucson on Friday when Arizona is the host for Oregon, UTEP, Colorado Mesa and Boise State. At USC, the action includes Grand Canyon playing Long Beach State before the home teams opens its season by playing them both.
The tournament continues Saturday in Hawai’i, where the Sandbows play UCLA. Among the other matches, Grand Canyon faces Long Beach State and USC.
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