The MPSF went on a wild ride Friday night.
No. 4 BYU beat No. 2 UCLA in five, 18-16 in the fifth.
N0. 14 CSUN not only upset No. 7 Stanford, it swept the Cardinal.
And unranked USC knocked off No. 6 UC Irvine in four after losing the second set 42-40.
The ranked teams in the MIVA and EIVA all won and Conference Carolinas has a two five-setters.
All that ahead, but first Saturday’s NCAA men’s schedule.
In the MPSF, UCLA plays at BYU again, No. 5 Hawai’i tries to make it two in a row over visiting UCSB, Stanford tries to regroup at No. 3 Long Beach State and UC San Diego goes for its first league win when it plays at USC.
In the MIVA, top-ranked and unbeaten Ohio State goes to Fort Wayne, McKendree goes to No. 12 Ball State, Lindenwood is at No. 8 Lewis, Quincy plays at No. 10 Loyola, and Grand Canyon continues its California trip at Concordia.
The Conference Carolinas slate shows four league matches with King at Belmont Abbey, Emmanuel at Barton, Erskine at Mount Olive and Pfeiffer at Lees-McRae. North Greenville is out of conference at Coker.
The EIVA has four non-league matches with Charleston playing both Cincinnati Christian and St. Andrews, Harvard is home for Alderson Broaddus and Sacred Heart plays host to Lincoln Memorial.
BYU deals UCLA first MPSF setback: BYU’s 28-26, 25-23, 13-25, 22-25, 18-16 victory, behind 28 kills by Ben Patch, left four teams with one loss each in the standings.
BYU improved to 8-2, 3-1 while beating the Bruins in Provo for the 11th consecutive time. UCLA dropped to 9-2, 6-1. Long Beach State is second in the standings at 8-2, 4-1, just ahead of Stanford, 6-3, 3-1.
Patch hit .422 and tied his career high with 11 digs. Jake Langlois had 13 kills and Brenden Sander added 12. Libero Erik Sikes also had 11 digs.
“It is exciting. I’m happy for our guys,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “They served well and they served aggressively. Today we were confident at the service line. It’s hard to see some of the tough moments the guys went though. I have to figure out why we go through those moments.”
There were plenty of moments, especially in the fifth, when Patch scored six of eight points in one stretch. Price Jarman ended it with a solo block, his fourth block of the match.
Dylan Missry led a balanced UCLA attack with a career-high 13 kills. He hit .480 and had a career-best 10 digs. Four others had 12 kills apiece, Oliver Martin, JT Hatch, Daenan Gyimah and Hagen Smith. Hatch, who hit .400, had 10 digs and two blocks. Smith, who hit .348, had nine digs and three blocks. Micah Ma’a had six aces, most by any player in the MPSF this season. UCLA was without two key players as Mitch Stahl and Jake Arnitz sat out with injuries.
The same teams __play Saturday night.
More MPSF as CSUN, USC score upsets: Arvis Greene was huge for the Northridge team as the junior had a career-high 26 kills and hit .615 as the Matadors beat visiting Stanford 31-29, 25-16, 25-18.
It left CSUN 9-3, 2-3, while Stanford dropped to 6-3, 3-1.
Greene had just two errors in 39 swings and also had four digs and three blocks, one solo.
“Arvis had one of the best nights I’ve ever seen an opposite have,” CSUN coach Jeff Campbell. “It felt like we were setting him every other ball and it was just kill after kill after kill. They were keying on him but there wasn’t much they could do, he was just in a zone.”
CSUN’s Josiah Byers had eight kills and hit .727 and also had five blocks. Dimitar Kalchev had eight kills but was held to an .077 hitting percentage.
Stanford was led by Jordan Ewert’s 10 kills and six digs. Senior Gabriel Vega added eight kills, while sophomore Matt Klassen had seven, but junior Kevin Rakestraw was limited to five kills on a .111 attack percentage.
USC broke a five-match losing streak in a big way, upsetting UCI 25-23, 40-42, 25-23, 25-23.
The points in the second set were both the most ever scored by USC and surrendered by the Trojans in a set in program history dating to 1970. It also was the most total points in any MPSF set since 2008, when Pepperdine beat Long Beach State, 43-41, in the third set of a conference tournament semifinal match.
It left the Trojans, who also broke a four-match losing streak against UCI 3-7, 2-5, while the Anteaters dropped to 8-4, 5-3.
Lucas Yoder, who missed the past two matches with an ankle sprain, had a match-high 29 kills while hitting .360 and added 8 digs. Gianluca Grasso, in just his third match after transferring mid-season to USC from a junior college, had 24 kills, hit .354), and added six digs and three blocks. Andy Benesh had a match-best six blocks, Matt Douglas had 10 digs and Gert Lisha nine.
UC Irvine was led by Michael Saeta, who moved from setter to outside hitter in the second set and ended up with 21 kills. He hit .444) and had four aces and five digs. Scott Stadick added 12 kills while hitting .450, David Parker and Reid Dominguez had eight kills apiece, while Matthew Younggren had five blocks and Dillon Hoffman had a match-leading 11 digs.
When USC plays host to UCSD on Saturday, it will celebrate the 40th anniversary of its first NCAA title in men’s volleyball, with 1977 squad members honored on the court before the first serve.
No. 5 Hawai’i had to work hard for its sweep against visiting No. 11 UCSB 25-22, 30-28, 25-23. It left the Rainbow Warriors 9-2, 2-2, as they won for the 12th consecutive time at home. The Gauchos dropped to 6-4, 3-4.
UH opposite Stijn van Tilburg had a match-high 15 kills, hitting .300. Middle blocker Hendrik Mol had six of the team’s 12 blocks. Senior outside hitter Kupono Fey added six kills while sophomore Brett Rosenmeier came off the bench for with three kills, four digs, and three blocks.
UCSB’s Jacob Delson had 14 kills while Corey Chavers added 10 kills and five digs.
The same teams __play again Saturday.
And also in the MPSF, Cal Baptist went out of conference to score a 25-20, 25-18, 25-19 win over visiting Grand Canyon of the MIVA. Cal Baptist is 3-8, while Grand Canyon dropped to 4-5.
Enrique de Diego Garcia had 10 kills with one error in 12 swings for the Lancers, including 9-for-9 in the third set. Kevin Vaz added nine kills.
MIVA: Lewis, Loyola, Fort Wayne notch victories
Lewis crushed Quincy 25-11, 25-11, 25-18 to improve to 7-2, 2-1, while Quincy dropped to 3-5, 1-1.
Mitch Perinar led Lewis with a match-high 11 kills, four block assists and hit .588. Trevor Weiskircher and Ryan Coenen added six kills apiece. Quincy had 19 kills and hit minus .066.
Lindenwood gave Loyola all it could handle (25-17, 25-15, 22-25, 25-23).
Will Tischler had 14 kills and Collin Mahan added 13 as the Ramblers improved to 5-3 in their MIVA opener. Lindenwood dropped to 0-8, 0-5 and to 0-17 all-time against Loyola.
Tischler added six digs, Mahan had seven digs and five blocks, and Jeff Jendryk had eight kills and five blocks.
Nathan Van Dellen led Lindenwood with 12 kills.
Fort Wayne won for the fourth time in a row and improved to 4-8 as it beat visiting McKendree 25-17, 23-25, 25-23, 21-25, 19-17 in its MIVA opener.
Graydon Schroeder had 17 kills in 21 swings without an error and set the school mark for hitting percentage at .810. The previous record was held by Jason Yhost, which was set in 2008 against Mercyhurst.
Pelegrin Vargas had 14 kills, five aces and four blocks and Colton Stone added 10 kills, two blocks and three aces. Alex Dickmann had 10 kills, two blocks and two aces.
McKendree, 5-7, 1-1, got 16 kills from Maalik Walker, who also had five digs and four blocks. Wyatt Patterson and Jared Wilcox added 13 kills each. Patterson hit .722 and had three blocks, while Wilcox had two digs and three blocks.
EIVA: Penn State shuts down SFU, 3 others win
The No, 13 Nittany Lions were not about to have a repeat of last year, when Saint Francis beat them in regular-season play and then knocked them out of the league tournament. The scores in State College were 25-21, 25-20, 25-18 as Penn State improved to 6-4 and SFU dropped to 4-6 in the EIVA opener for both teams.
“I think this year’s EIVA race is going to be one that’s about protecting your home court,“Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said.
Chris Nugent led Penn State with 16 kills and hit .600. He also had a team-high eight digs. Calvin Mende had 11 kills and hit .474, while Lee Smith added seven kills. The Nittany Lions hit .423.
Michael Fisher led SFA with 18 kills and hit .387 and Jeff Hogan added 11 kills. Stephen Braswell added seven kills and seven digs.
In non-conference matches, Charleston won in four over St. Andrews, Sacred Heart swept Alderson Broaddus and Princeton finished its California trip by getting swept at Concordia.
Princeton lost 25-20, 25-22, 26-24 and fell to 2-4. George Huhmann led the Tigers 13 kills and three blocks. Concordia, 8-6, got 11 kills from Jonathon Predney.
Conference Carolinas: Mount Olive, Barton get league wins
Mount Olive beat visiting Emmanuel 27-25, 22-25, 23-25, 25-20, 15-12 to stay atop the standings at 3-0. Mount Olive, 4-4 overall, got 16 kills from Robert Poole and 12 from Bret Rutledge. Rutledge had three of his team’s seven aces, seven digs and four blocks, one solo. Andrew Sydow had five kills and eight blocks, three solo.
Emmanuel, which dropped to 1-6, 0-3, got 17 kills from Ackeem West, who had four of his team’s 23 service errors.
Barton improved to 4-3, 3-1 and kept Erskine (0-6, 0-3) winless with its 25-19, 25-20, 25-10 victory. Vasilis Mandilaris led Barton with 12 kills.
Visiting Belmont Abbey got a non-league win over Coker 19-25, 25-19, 28-26, 20-25, 15-8 and improved to 2-4. Coker is 3-2. Gabriel Castro had a big night for Belmont Abbey with 19 kills, hitting .356, and he had 12 digs. Jackson Gilbert added 11 kills and had four of his team’s 13 aces.
