Almost every match played in NCAA men’s volleyball on Saturday was a sweep.
For that matter, among the matches played in and among the four leagues — MPSF, MIVA, EIVA and Conference Carolinas — just three went more than three sets.
Starting with a bit of a surprise, as No. 13 Cal State Northridge went to USC and blasted the Trojans after they were coming off a big victory over third-ranked Long Beach. Top-ranked Ohio State made the most of its trip to Palo Alto, sweeping No. 10 Stanford for the second straight night but with scores that were as close as it can get.
MPSF: Big victory for CSUN
The Matadors beat USC 25-20, 25-21, 25-18 as senior Jakub Ciesla has a team-high 15 kills on .625 hitting and CSUN hit .557 as a team. Ciesla, who also had four blocks, had no errors in 24 swings.
CSUN, 6-1 overalll and 1-1 in the MPSF, got 12 kills from Arvis Greene, who hit .450, while Dimitar Klachev had 10 kills and hit .692 and had four aces. Josh Byers had six kills, hit .714, and had three blocks.
“We played at a really high level tonight; I was really proud of the offense,” CSUN coach Jeff Campbell said. “I can’t remember the last time we hit this well in a conference match. We didn’t __play that well on Wednesday but tonight we really bounced back.”
CSUN had 45 kills while committing just six hitting errors as a team. CJ Suarez had a match-high seven digs.
Lucas Yoder led USC with a match-high 19 kills while hitting .552 and Matt Douglas had six digs. The Trojans had one ace and 12 service errors.
There was one other league match as No. 2 UCLA made short work of UC San Diego 25-15, 25-13, 25-17. It left the Bruins 4-1 and alone atop the league standings at 2-0. Hawai’i, BYU, Pepperdine and Stanford have yet to __play an MPSF match.
UCLA got nine kills apiece from JT Hatch, who no errors in 13 swings, hit .692, and Jake Arnitz, who hit .571. Mitch Stahl had six kills and hit .800 as he had no errors.
UCSD, which dropped to 0-4, 0-3, got six kills apiece from Ian Colbert and Devin Pontigon. Their team hit .031.
MPSF vs. MIVA: Ohio State, Lewis, BYU win
The scores were close in both matches, but on Friday Ohio State went into Stanford and came away with a 25-23, 25-21, 25-19 victory and then Saturday won 25-23, 29-27, 26-24.
It was the 28th victory in a row for the defending NCAA champions, who improved to 5-0 as the Buckeyes hit .379 and had 12 aces.
Miles Johnson’s 15th and final kill was the 1,000th of his career. He hit .407 and had two aces.
Nicolas Szerszen, who had 12 kills and hit .435, had six aces. Ohio State also had 24 service errors.
Driss Guessous added six kills in 10 swings without an error to hit .600 and he had three of the aces. Blake Leeson had six blocks, one solo.
Stanford, which dropped to 3-2, got 11 kills from Jordan Ewert, who also had a match-high eight digs. Kevin Rakestraw had seven kills on eight swings and hit .750.
On Friday night, No. 5 Pepperdine went five to win at Loyola, but Saturday it lost in four at No. 9 Lewis 25-23, 25-22, 24-26, 25-21.
It left Lewis 3-1 and the Waves 2-1.
Jacob Schmiegelt led Lewis with 15 kills. He had just one error in 19 swings and hit .737. The senior middle also had five blocks, one solo. Middle John Hodul had nine kills with no errors in 12 attacks and hit . 750 and had five blocks. And Ryan Coenan had 15 kills, four blocks and two aces. Michael Simmons had 17 digs.
Chicagoan David Wieczorek made the most of his trip home as he led Pepperdine with a career-high 26 kills. He had five errors in 46 swings and hit .457. He and Max States had two aces each.
Another Wave from Illinois, Michael Wexter, had 11 kills and nine digs. The night before, at Loyola, he had 22 kills.
Also, No. 4 BYU beat visiting McKendree 25-23, 25-22, 25-17.
Tim Dobbert led with 14 of his team’s 38 kills kills as BYU improved to 4-1 and dropped McKendree to 1-6.
Price Jarman had seven kills for the Cougars and Storm Fa’agata and Kiril Meretev had six each.
“I was excited to get lots of guys opportunities to play,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “I like how the guys responded and played. We need to shore things up a little bit, improve in our passing and the typical little things. Overall though, I was pleased with our effort tonight.”
Nolan Rueter and Maalik Walker had 11 kills each for McKendree.
EIVA vs. MIVA: Loyola, Penn State get sweeps
No. 8 Loyola hit .407 and four players had seven or more kills as the Ramblers improved to 30-2 and dropped Harvard to 0-2 with a 26-24, 25-17, 25-14 victory.
Paul Narup led with 10 kills. He had one error in 14 swings and hit .643. Ben Plaisted, who led with eight digs, had nine kills and Jeff Jendryk and Collin Mahan seven each.
Casey White led Harvard with seven kills, while Bred Gretsch and Erik Johnsson had six each.
No. 14 Penn State went to Fort Wayne and beat the Mastodons 25-16, 25-23, 27-25.
The Nittany Lions improved to 2-2 as they hit .376. Chris Nugent led with 13 kills and hit .391. Kevin Gear had eight kills in 10 swings to hit .800 and Calvin Mende had nine kills, hit .375 and had nine digs.
Fort Wayne, 0-6, got 10 kills from Pelegrin Vargas, nine from Alex Dickmann and seven from Colton Stone.
First victory for Charleston
The EIVA’s Golden Eagles went down 2-0 and rallied for their first win 26-28, 17-25, 25-13, 25-22, 15-11 against Lees-McRae of Conference Carolinas.
The West Virginia school is 1-2, while Lees-McRae is 1-1.
Ryan Santos led Charleston with 18 kills. Eugene Stuart and Rajahl Moxey added eight each.
“The team did a great job of battling back from being down 0-2 this afternoon,” coach Ken Murczek said. “Some guys came off the bench and gave us a spark. We look forward to practicing this week.”
Wes Rogman led Lees-McRae with 11 kills and Mark Shayka and Hector Serviat had 10 each.
Also, Sacred Heart of the EIVA improved to 2-0 as it swept North Greenville of the ConfCarolinas and Emmanuel of the CC did the same to East Mennonite.
