Long Beach State thumped UC Irvine and now stands alone atop the MPSF standings after a Friday night in which BYU won again and Hawai’i brought UC San Diego back to Earth.
It took five sets for two other ranked teams, Ball State and Penn State, to win on the road. All that and more but first a look at Saturday’s NCAA men’s schedule.
There are five matches in the MPSF and all involve at least one ranked team. Second-ranked Long Beach State (10-2 overall, 6-1 MPSF) goes for its fourth win in a row when it goes to UC San Diego (5-6, 2-5). No. 5 Hawai’i (11-2, 4-2) plays at Cal Baptist (3-8, 1-6), No. 4 UCLA (9-4, 6-3) tries to break its three-match skid when it goes to No. 9 Pepperdine (5-3, 3-2), No. 13 CSUN (9-4, 2-4) plays at No. 7 UC Irvine (8-5, 5-4), and No. 12 UCSB (6-6, 3-8) goes to No. 8 Stanford (7-4, 4-2).
There’s another big one in the MIVA and a match that will put one them alone atop the standings when top-ranked Ohio State (12-0, 3-0), riding its 35-match winning streak, plays host to No. 10 Loyola (7-3, 3-0). No. 6 Lewis (8-3, 3-2) goes to McKendree (5-9, 1-3) and Grand Canyon (6-5, 4-1) tries to keep pace when it plays at Quincy (3-7, 1-3).
The EIVA’s two-ranked teams are in action. No. 14 Penn State (7-4, 2-0) goes to Princeton (3-5, 1-0), while No 15 George Mason (4-4, 1-0) goes to Harvard (2-3, 0-0), which plays its league opener. Saint Francis (4-7, 0-2) goes to NJIT (4-5, 0-1) and Charleston ((7-4, 0-2) is at Sacred Heart (8-1, 1-0).
Conference Carolinas has four matches as King (8-1, 4-0) goes to Erskine (1-8, 1-4), Limestone (3-3, 3-2) plays at Mount Olive (6-4, 5-0), North Greenville (3-8, 3-2) goes to Barton (6-3, 5-1) and Lees-McRae (3-6, 1-3) is at Emmanuel (1-8, 0-5).
MPSF: Long Beach, Hawai’i, BYU all win
Three of the top four ranked teams in the league played Friday and got victories. The Beach went to Irvine and came away with a 25-19, 25-22, 25-16 sweep behind sophomore outside TJ DeFalco, who had 16 kills, hit .560 and had eight digs. His team hit .469.
Senior middle Bryce Yould had eight kills in nine errorless swings and hit .889. He also had four blocks. Amir Lugo-Rodriguez added five blocks, adding six kills and a .667 hitting percentage and had three of his team’s four aces. Andrew Whitt had eight kills and Kyle Ensing seven.
Long Beach had 16 service errors, but UCI had zero aces and 10 errors. Thomas Hodges led the Anteaters with 10 kills and Tamir Hershko had nine.
UC San Diego was on a five-match winning streak, its best run in a long time, but Hawai’i — also having won five in a row — came to town and put an end to that 25-16, 25-15, 25-23.
Outside hitter Brett Rosenmeier had a career-high nine kills along with two service aces and three digs. Middle blocker Patrick Gasman had eight kills in 10 swings and middle Hendrik Mol had four blocks and two aces.
Hawai’i had no aces and eight errors, while UCSD not only hit .097, it had two aces and 10 errors.
Tanner Syftestad led with seven kills but hit .037.
BYU improved to 10-2, 5-1 MPSF with its 27-25, 25-17, 25-16 victory at USC (3-9, 2-7). Jake Langlois led the Cougars with 12 kills, hitting .333, and had four digs. He also had two of his team’s four aces against eight service errors. Tim Dobbert had 11 kills and hit .500.
USC got 15 kills from Lucas Yoder, who hit .294. Ryan Moss had seven kills and hit .417.
USC had one ace and seven errors, which meant for Friday night in three matches in the MPSF the six teams combined for 11 aces and 59 errors.
MIVA: Ball State, Grand Canyon both win in five
The No. 11 Cardinals had to rally for a 25-23, 17-25, 20-25, 25-20, 15-10 victory that left Ball State 11-2, 3-1 and dropped the Mastodons to 4-11, 1-3.
Freshman Matt Szews led the Cardinals with 18 kills and a .400 attack percentage. He had his team’s only ace and four of his team’s 21 service errors. Brendan Surane and Matt Walsh had nine kills each. Surane had five service errors.
Fort Wayne got 14 kills from Colton Stone, who had one of his team’s two aces but seven of the Mastodons’ 16 errors. Nick Smalter added 14 kills and Pelegrin Vargas.
The teams combined for three aces and 37 errors.
The Fort Wayne 2007 team was recognized during the match for its induction into the Fort Wayne Hall of Fame and Raul Papaleo was honored at the break with the retirement of his No. 9 jersey.
Visiting Grand Canyon went down 2-0 and battled back at Quincy 17-25, 19-25, 26-24, 25-23, 15-13. GCU got 17 kills from Cullen Mosher, who hit .382, and 12 kills each from Shalev Saada and Drake Silbernagel, who hit .474. Mosher also had four of his team’s eight aces. The Lopes had 16 errors.
Quincy’s David Siebum had a big night with 20 kills as he hit .351. Jarrod Kelso had 16 kills and hit .538 to go with seven blocks, one solo. Their team hit .360, its best since last March.
The same teams __play again Saturday,
EIVA: Tough wins for Penn State, Princeton
The Nittany Lions grinded to a 19-25, 25-21, 25-22, 21-25, 15-8 victory at NJIT as Lee Smith had a career-high 17 kills. He hit .324 and had seven blocks. Chris Nugent and Calvin Mende had 14 kills each. Nugent had two of his team’s seven aces and three of its 19 service errors.
NJIT, which dropped to 4-5 in its EIVA opener, got 17 kills from Jabarry Goodridge, who had three of his team’s six aces and five of its 22 errors.
Raymond Kowalski had 15 kills but six errors and Luke Allmond had 10 kills and hit .667.
Sacred Heart opened league __play with a 25-17, 25-13, 26-24 win over visiting Charleston.
Christopher DeLucie led with 16 kills and hit .414. He had six digs, one of his team’s six aces and three of its 13 errors.
Charleston hit .053.
ConfCarolinas: Barton, Mount Olive, King, Erskine win
Barton came up with a big sweep of Limestone 25-18, 25-12 25-18 as Angelos Mandilaris had 10 kills and Jonathan Novoa-Miralles nine. Mandilaris hit .421 and Novoa-Miralles .615 on a night when their team hit .517. Mandilaris had two of his team’s four aces and two of its 13 errors.
Limestone got 10 kills from Bruno Kretzschmar, who hit .074 and had three of his team’s 14 service errors. Limestone had no aces.
King won at Emmanuel 23-25, 25-18, 19-25, 25-19, 15-8. Jeff Sprayberry led with 18 kills, Kiel Bell had 11 and Eddie Moushikhian 10. Ackeem West led Emmanuel with 14 kills and Gilberto Cervantes had 10.
Mount Olive beat visiting North Greenville 21-25, 25-18, 25-16, 25-19 as Robert Poole had 20 kills, hit .424, had two aces, seven digs and three blocks, one solo. Alex Palmatier had nine kills and three others — Andrew Sydow, Bret Rutledge and Kian Hollevoet — had eight each.
NG had 13 kills from Matthew McManaway, who had three of his team’s 18 service errors against three aces. Aaron Campbell added 12 kills and Ben Hamsho had 10 kills and six errors.
And Erskine finally broke through, beating visiting Lees-McRae 25-18, 23-25, 25-20, 30-38 for its first win of the season.
Issac Lanier led with 18 kills and seven digs. Keegan Sullivan added nine kills and hit .44. He had five blocks, two solo.
Mark Shayka and John Sobel led Lees-McRae with 12 kills each. Shayka had one of his team’s two aces and four of its 20 errors. Sobel had six errors.
