Top-ranked Long Beach State rebounded back in a big way.
A day after losing at No. 3 BYU in five, the Beach responded with a sweep on the same floor and now moves into the MPSF driver’s seat.
No. 2 Ohio State, which not left the MIVA driver’s seat in a long time, routed No. 11 Ball State, and No. 4 Hawai’i went four to beat visiting No. 14 CSUN.
There no NCAA Division I-II men’s matches until Tuesday, a schedule highlighted by a non-conference matchup with Ohio State and Penn State.
In NCAA beach, No. 8 LSU beat both ranked Arizona teams and USC continues to roll.
Beach bounces back: Long Beach hit .477 in its 25-21, 25-22, 25-21 victory in Provo.
It not only snapped BYU’s 15-match winning streak, but now Long Beach needs just one more conference win or a BYU league loss to clinch the No. 1 seed and home court advantage in the MPSF Tournament.
Long Beach is 22-3, 15-2 in the MPSF, while BYU is 21-3, 14-2.
TJ DeFalco led with 13 kills, hitting .333, and he had four digs and two blocks. He also had one of his team’s three aces and three of its 21 service errors. Kyle Ensing added 10 kills and hit. 500 and had an ace, six errors, seven digs and a block. Bryce Yould added nine kills and three blocks.
BYU, which hit .303, got 10 kills from Jake Langlois, who hit .360 and had six digs and a block. Brenden Sander added eight kills and five digs but had four of his team’s 12 errors against just one ace by Price Jarman. Jarman had five kills.
“I felt like anytime we had a little lead, Long Beach State responded really well and stayed in it,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “Hats off to them for doing that. We had chances to get going and make a run but didn’t take advantage of it.”
Hawai’i, UC Irvine win MPSF matches: Hawai’i finished its home schedule unbeaten with its second victory in as many nights over CSUN 25-19, 25-17, 19-25, 25-17. The Rainbow Warriors (22-4, 12-4 MPSF) finished their home slate with a 17-0 mark to extend their home win streak to 21 matches. Afterwards, Kupono Fey, Jennings Franciskovic, Hendrik Mol, and Iain McKellar were honored during the traditional Senior Night ceremony that featured a special haka.
Brett Rosenmeier, who hit .560, and Fey led with Hawai’i with 16 kills each. Rosenmeier had two blocks and three digs, while Fey added two blocks and six digs. Franciskovic had four kills and no errors to hit .1000, had two aces and five blocks to go with 43 assists.
CSUN (12-14, 5-12) got 12 kills and five digs from Dimitar Kalchev, who had both his team’s aces and five of its 14 errors. Arvis Greene had 15 kills, two solo blocks and three digs.
No. 5 UC Irvine went to Malibu and had a season-high 78 kills in a 25-18, 25-22, 28-30, 28-26 win at No. 8 Pepperdine. It left the Anteaters 16-6, 10-5, while Pepperdine dropped to 8-10, 6-9, just a half game ahead of UCSB and USC for seventh place in the MPSF standings. Only the top eight teams make the tournament.
UCI, which won its fifth in a row, were led by senior Tamir Hershko, who had a match-high 22 kills and season-high 11 digs. He hit .474 had no aces but seven of his team’s 29 errors. Aaron Koubi added 16 kills, hit .400, and five errors. UCI, which .407 as a team, also got 15 kills from Scott Stadick, who had four blocks, one solo. Michael Saeta had all three of his team’s aces, five kills, four digs and 65 assists.
Pepperdine’s David Wieczorek led the Waves with 14 kills and hit .345. He also had six digs. Noah Dyer added 10 kills, three digs and two blocks. Mitchell Penning had five kills and six blocks.
Ohio State, Loyola top MIVA results: The Buckeyes improved to 23-1 overall, 12-0 in the MIVA with their 25-16, 25-15, 25-19 blasting of visiting Ball State (15-8, 6-6) that took just an hour, 12 minutes.
Ohio State hit .461 while holding Ball State to a .159 percentage. Ohio State nearly doubled up BSU in kills (42-23) and digs (31-16), and posted a 6-0 edge in blocks. Ball State entered the week ranked fourth nationally with 2.55 blocks per set.
Miles Johnson and Nicolas Szerszen led Ohio State with 12 blocks each and both hit .500. Maxime Hervoir added nine kills and 10 digs.
Anthony Lebryk led Ball State with six kills and hit .559. Usual Ball State leaders Matt Walsh and Matt Szews had four kills each.
No. 10 Loyola beat visiting Penn State of the EIVA 25-17, 25-18, 22-25, 25-14. The Ramblers improved to 14-8, while Penn State is 13-9.
Ben Plaisted led Loyola with 16 kills and hit .400. He had four of his team’s 21 errors and none of its three aces. He had five blocks, two solo. Collin Mahan added 12 kills, hit .391, had an ace and two errors, and four blocks, one solo.
Penn State, which played just seven players, got 11 kills from Jalen Penrose, but he hit .036 and his team .075. Loyola hit .376.
No. 7 Lewis also beat an EIVA visitor, sweeping Saint Francis 25-19, 25-14, 25-18. Lewis is 19-6, while SFU is 9-14. Ryan Coenen led Lewis with 12 kills. He also had three blocks and an ace. John Hodul added seven kills and seven blocks and Mitch Perinar had six kills and four blocks.
Stephen Braswell and Jeff Hogan had eight kills each for Saint Francis.
Also in the MIVA, Lindenwood (4-15, 3-9) swept visiting Quincy (5-18, 1-11) and McKendree (9-16, 4-8) did the same to Fort Wayne (5-19, 2-10).
Mason sweeps Charleston: In the only EIVA league match on Saturday, George Mason won 25-21, 25-13, 25-19. Mason is 10-11, 3-35 in the EIVA, while Charleston is 11-13, 0-10. Jack Wilson led with 17 kills and hit .560.
Conference Carolinas: It’s still a three-team race, but King (24-2, 13-1) moved into sole possession of first place with a sweep of visiting Erskine (3-17, 3-12), because Mount Olive (15-7, 13-2) was swept at Limestone (9-8, 9-4).
Barton (15-5, 13-2) kept pace by winning in four at Pfeiffer (0-14, 0-13). Lees-McRae (9-13, 7-7) beat Emmanuel (5-17, 3-12) in five.
Beach: No. 1 USC beat No. 4 Florida State 4-1 and then swept No. 9 South Carolina in a battle of the USCs. The USC from Los Angeles is 14-0 and has won 44 in a row. Sara Hughes and Kelly Claes won both times to extend their winning streak to 89. Also at South Carolina, it was a tough day for the home team as the Gamecocks also lost to No. 13 Stetson. Stetson also beat No. 9 Georgia State.
At TCU, No. 8 LSU beat No. 7 Arizona 3-2 and No. 11 Arizona State 4-1 to improve to 10-5, LSU has losses to USC, Florida State, No. 3 UCLA and No. 6 Long Beach.
Arizona beat TCU 4-1. Arizona State also lost 3-2 to Nebraska.
No. 2 Pepperdine swept visiting CSU Bakersfield and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
And previously unbeaten No. 14 Cal was knocked off by St. Mary’s 3-2, which also beat San Jose State 3-2. St. Mary’s is 10-3, while Cal fell to 8-1.
