Two MPSF teams won non-conference matches Sunday as No. 2 UCLA beat visiting Princeton and No. 5 Hawai’i beat visiting Grand View.
There was a big upset in the MIVA, as Grand Canyon knocked off visiting No. 6 Lewis in five.
First a look at upcoming matches in the four NCAA men’s volleyball conferences.
The next MPSF matches are Wednesday when UC San Diego plays host to Princeton and No. 7 UC Irvine (7-3, 4-2) goes to Cal Baptist (2-7, 1-5).
The next EIVA match is Tuesday when Charleston (3-3) plays host to Bluefield College, another team from West Virginia. The Rams are 0-3.
The next MIVA match is Thursday and it’s a big one, when No. 1 Ohio State (9-0) opens league __play at No. 13 Ball State (8-1).
And in Conference Carolinas, there are two matches Tuesday when Pfeiffer (0-1, 0-1) goes to King (5-1, 1-0) and Limestone (3-1, 3-0) is at North Greenville (2-6, 2-1).
MPSF: UCLA, Hawai’i win
The Bruins improved to 9-1 by sweeping Princeton 25-15, 25-23, 27-25. Junior JT Hatch led with 14 kills, hit .345, and added a block. Michael Fisher and Hagen Smith had five kills each. Fisher had eight blocks and six digs, while Oliver Martin had seven blocks.
Princeton, which dropped to 2-3, got 14 kills from Kendall Ratter, who hit .360. Greg Luck and Junior Oboh had six kills each. The Tigers had one ace and 15 service errors. They stay in California to __play at UC San Diego (2-5) on Wednesday.
Hawai’i had to go four to beat Grand View 25-16, 25-13, 19-25, 25-23.
Hawai’i improved to 8-2 as Rado Parapunov led with 11 kills and Larry Tuileta and Stijn van Tilburg had 10 each. Hendrick Mol led the Warriors with four of his team’s eight aces. Joe Worsley had 10 digs.
Grand View, top-ranked in the NAIA, fell to 3-2 after losing to the Warriors for the second time in three days. John Chamone and Pedro Cardoso led with 12 kills apiece, while Tim Johnson had 11.
MIVA: Grand Canyon upsets Lewis
Grand Canyon came from down 2-1 to stun visiting Lewis 25-23, 21-25, 21-25, 25-21, 15-13 after losing to the Flyers two days earlier. Grand Canyon improved to 4-4, 3-1.
“I could not be more proud of this team to compete and be resilient for the entire weekend,” Grand Canyon coach Matt Werle said. “The box score for both teams is almost identical, but we preached that if we out-defended them, then we would win. We had eight more digs than Lewis. All that I can say is that this was a team effort for the weekend.”
The fifth set was tied at every point through 10. GCU took the lead but it was tied again at 13 before Matthew Kinnebrew’s kill and a Lewis attack error ended it.
The Lopes set a season-high by hitting .366. Lewis, who was hitting .500 through three sets, faltered down the stretch, hitting just .114 in the final two sets.
Kinnebrew led with 17 kills, hit .452, and had six blocks. Shalev Saada had 14 kills and Ashton King 12.
Lewis dropped to 6-2, 1-1. Kyle Bugee led with 17 kills and hit .419. John Hodul had eight kills, hit .583 and had five blocks. Mitch Perinar had 16 kills and Ryan Coenen had 11.
