Volleyball today: NCAA approves doubles; AVCA poll; men’s recaps; PVF, LOVB updates

If you’re old enough, you remember the jingle for Doublemint gum:

“Double your pleasure, double your fun … ” 

Well, in NCAA women’s volleyball from now on, double on. 

That’s because “The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved allowing women’s volleyball players to contact the ball more than once with any part of the body in a single attempt on a team’s second contact when the ball is played to a teammate.”

The full NCAA news release, with other rules changes, follows.

So does the latest AVCA men’s poll and POW, and our recap of Tuesday’s NCAA men’s volleyball, that included a five-set MIVA win by No. 7 Ohio State and a five-set Conference Carolinas win by Belmont Abbey.

There’s also news on the pro front, including Pro Volleyball Federation, LOVB and Athletes Unlimited.

Doubles, nose rings, two liberos

We interviewed the chair of the NCAA Division I rules committee, Northern Colorado coach Lyndsey Oates, when the committee approved all the changes . You can read that story here.

The rest of the NCAA news release:

Two liberos

The panel approved each team being allowed to designate two liberos for each set of the match. Only one libero would be allowed on the court at a time, and the libero would be allowed to serve in one position.

The rationale for the proposal is to allow more players the opportunity to compete and to increase action and improve play.

Other rules changes

• Allowing the referee to issue an administrative sanction (red card) to the home team in instances where spectators encroach the playing area and the host administration fails to resolve the problem.
• Allowing interference above the net (whether an opponent was touched) to be added to the list of plays that can be challenged in video review.
• Expanding the jewelry rule to allow small, snug-fitting nose rings and ear cuffs.
• Requiring all protests to be resolved during the match.

Experimental rule

The Women’s Volleyball Rules Committee in January approved an experimental rule to allow women’s teams to use the men’s/international volleyball (nonsmooth cover) during the nontraditional season this spring.

AVCA POLL, POW

Daemen, a fifth-year program in the NEC currently 8-2, is in at No. 20, ranked for the first time. The Wildcats are tied for the last spot with UC San Diego. Daemen is a Division II school located in Amherst, New York, near Buffalo. 

The top four teams — Long Beach State (14 first-place votes), unbeaten Grand Canyon (eight first-place votes), Hawai’i (one vote) and UCLA stayed the same.

UC Irvine moved up two spots after winning twice at Stanford, which dropped a notch to No. 6. Ohio State is up a spot to seventh, followed by BYU, Penn State and USC.

No one dropped out.

Click here for the complete AVCA top 20.

The AVCA national player of the week is UC Irvin junior outside Hilir Henno. The Frenchman averaged 6.38 kills in eight sets last week, hitting .379, to with 1.25 blocks/set.

Men’s recaps

Ohio State (11-3, 5-1 MIVA) rallied to take an up-and-down 25-9, 23-25, 29-31, 25-23, 15-9 five-setter from visiting Purdue Fort Wayne (7-6, 1-3). Jacob Pasteur led the Buckeyes with 17 kills, two assists, two aces, four blocks and three digs. Ben Putnam had 11 kills, Cole Young and Daniel Hurley — who had seven aces — 10 kills each, and Justin Howard nine with one error in 17 attacks. Ohio State hit .320 and had 13 aces and 31 serving errors. The Mastodons, who hit .112 and had four aces and 14 errors, got 13 kills each from Jon Diedrich and Mark Frazier, who had an ace, eight digs and five blocks, one solo …

In the other MIVA match, No. 15 Lewis (8-6 ,3-3) swept at Quincy (5-5, 1-5) as Max Roquet had 13 kills and hit .458 in the 29-27, 25-22, 25-21 victory. Roquet had an assist, an ace, two solo blocks and five digs. Quincy’s Alleyne Raje had 19 kills, hit .314 and had two assists, two aces, a solo block and six digs … 

There were two Conference Carolinas matches as first-place North Greenville (6-3, 5-0) swept at last-place Lees-McRae (1-11, 0-5) and Belmont Abbey (8-2, 4-1) kept pace as it won in five at King (1-12, 1-4). Nine players had kills for North Greenville. Belmont Abbey, which won 21-25, 25-15, 20-25, 25-19, 15-10, got 12 kills from Matthew Staskunas, Jibriel Elhaddad and 10 from Zach Puentes. Elhaddad hit .444 and had two aces, six digs and eight blocks. King’s Warren Davis had 19 kills, an assist, two aces, six digs and a block …

Emmanuel (5-8) of Conference Carolinas swept visiting Edward Waters (2-5) of the SIAC. Nine Emmanuel players had kills, eight by Eli Zdonek. Tavion Ford led EWU with 17 kills and Richard Hendricks had 13 …

Lincoln Memorial (9-3), the independent ranked No. 19, swept Tusculum …

There are two matches on Wednesday’s schedule, as Dominican of the ECC is home for Russell Sage and independent Thomas More is at Mount St. Joseph.

Pro Volleyball Federation

There is one match Wednesday has the Omaha Supernovas (4-2) at the Columbus Fury (0-2). The 7 p.m. Eastern first serve can be seen on the Pro Volleyball Federation YouTube channel.

The Grand Rapids Rise lead the league at 3-1, followed by the Atlanta Vibe (4-2) and Omaha. The Vegas Thrill are 2-2, the Orlando Valkyries 2-3, and Columbus is a game ahead of San Diego (0-3) in the loss column.

Orlando plays at Vegas on Thursday and Grand Rapids is at San Diego on Friday.

LOVB to KC

League One Volleyball, another pro league that starts in 2025, announced that it will conduct an in-season tournament next February at the Triple Crown NIT in Kansas City. The Triple Crown tournament (which John Tawa covered this past weekend) is annual gathering on Presidents Day weekend.

Click here for the complete LOVB news release.

More Athletes Unlimited on ESPN

Athletes Unlimited and ESPN announced a multi-year renewal of their rights agreement.

For the first time, the deal will include all four Athletes Unlimited sports — women’s pro volleyball, basketball, softball and lacrosse. AU volleyball was shown on ESPN outlets last season. The addition of AU basketball comes amid ESPN’s incredible success with the WNBA and college basketball.

Volleyball will be shown 30 times next fall on ESPN, including 15 on ESPN linear networks (including ESPNU, ESPN News) and five times on ESPN+.

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