There were no upsets Friday, but some NCAA men’s Division I-II results that got your attention.
Top-ranked Ohio State hit .548 in a quick sweep over UC San Diego as the Tritons hit .094.
The top three teams in the MPSF all won in sweeps.
Penn State had the night off but moved back into first place of the EIVA.
And King of Conference Carolinas beat an MIVA team, albeit lowly Lindenwood.
First a look at Saturday’s schedule that has nine matches involving MPSF teams, three in the league.
No. 4 Hawai’i will try to make it back-to-back against visiting No. 8 Stanford, while No. 3 BYU will try to do the same at No. 9 Pepperdine.
At No. 2 Long Beach State, the Beach gets No. 10 Loyola of the MIVA after No. 11 CSUN plays the EIVA’s George Mason.
No. 15 UCSB gets No. 5 Lewis of the MIVA, trying to right the ship after losses at UCLA and USC.
No. 7 UCLA entertains Harvard of the MIVA.
No. 6 UC Irvine plays at Ohio State after UCSD takes a crack at No. 12 Ball State. Last-place Cal Baptist goes out of conference to __play at Concordia.
In the MIVA there is one league match as Grand Canyon tries to beat McKendree in back-to-back nights. Lindenwood stays in the ConfCarolinas as it plays at Lees-McRae.
There are two other non-league EIVA matches as Princeton plays host to Coker and Charleston tries to go back-to-back at Lincoln Memorial.
And in Conference Carolinas, King goes out of the league by entertaining East Mennonite.
Top four teams win: Ohio State improved to 19-0 and extended its winning streak to 42 with its 25-17, 25-19, 23-13 blasting of visiting UCSD.
Nicolas Szerszen led the Buckeyes 15 kills, hit .571, and had three blocks. Blake Leeson added eight kills and hit .700 and Miles Johnson had seven kills and hit .429.
UCSD, 5-14, got 14 kills from Tanner Syftestad, who hit .375. and three of his team’s 12 service errors. The Tritons had no aces. Ohio State had two aces and 18 errors.
Long Beach State pummeled visiting Mason 25-12, 25-15, 25-21. The Beach’s 11th consecutive win left it 18-2 as TJ DeFalco and Kyle Ensing had 10 kills each. Ensing hit .500 and DeFalco .353.
Mason, which dropped to 7-10, hit minus .149. Bradley Creamer led with seven kills and had had two solo blocks.
BYU rolled at Pepperdine 25-23, 25-23, 25-17. It left BYU 16-2 overall, 10-1 in the MPSF, as the Waves dropped to 6-8, 4-7.
Jake Langlois had 15 kills and hit .444, while Brenden Sander and Tim Dobbert had 14 kills each for the Cougars, who are without injured star Ben Patch. Sander had four aces and four digs and Langlois had three blocks.
Noah Dyer led Pepperdine with 11 kills and had seven digs and three blocks.
And Hawai’i made short work of visiting Stanford 25-22, 25-17, 25-22. It left the Rainbow Warriors 19-2 overall and a game back in the loss colum behind Long Beach and BYU at 9-2. Stanford fell to 11-8, 6-6.
Hawai’i, which has won 14 in a row overall and 18 in a row at home, got 21 kills from Stijn van Tilburg, who hit .515 to go with an ace, four digs and three blocks. Bret Rosenmeier added nine kills and five digs and Kupono Fey had seven kills.
Stanford’s Gabriel Vega had 11 kills kills and hit .421.
UCI, Loyola win: The Anteaters of the MPSF routed Ball State of the MIVA 25-14, 25-22, 25-19 as they made just three attack errors. UCI, 14-6, got 10 kills each from Thomas Hodges and Tamir Hershko. Hodges hit .435 to go with two aces and five digs and Hershko .hit 526 as neither made an error. Reid Dominguez had eight kills and hit .677. Scott Stadick had seven kills, hit .467, and had two blocks.
Ball State, also 14-6, got 11 kills from Matt Szews.
Loyola had to work to win against CSUN in Long Beach’s Pyramid 23-25, 25-20, 27-25, 18-25, 15-13. Cole Murray led with 14 kills as the Ramblers improved to 11-6. Collin Mahan and Ben Plaisted added 10 kills each on a night when neither team was very efficient offensively. Loyola hit .187 and CSUN .197.
CSUN dropped to 12-9 despite 26 kills from Dimitar Kalchev, who hit .348. Parker Maki added 12 kills.
EIVA: NJIT swept visiting Princeton, which left Princeton 6-3 in the league and dropped the Tigers a game behind in the loss column to Sacred Heart (5-2) and allowed idle Penn State (6-2) to take sole possession of first place.
NJIT’s 25-15, 29-27, 25-22 victory left the Highlanders 9-7 overall and 4-3 in the EIVA. Jabarry Goodridge had 20 of his team’s 36 kills and hit .533. He also had four of NJIT’s 10 aces and five of its 15 errors.
Princeton, 8-8, got nine kills from George Huhmann, who hit .429.
Also, the EIVA’s Charleston went to Lincoln Memorial and won in four.
Conference Carolinas: King won twice, sweeping Southern Virginia and then Lindenwood 26-24, 11-25, 17-25, 25-21, 16-14 to improve to 17-2, the most wins in school history. King’s previous best was 15 victories in 2015.
Eddie Moushikhian led King with 16 kills. Sean Luhman added 10. Lindenwood’s Blake Koppel had 14 kills and Connor Hipelius 13 while hitting .565. He also had three of Lindenwood’s seven aces and five of its 24 errors.
Also in the CC, Limestone went to Warner of Florida and got swept.
NCAA Beach: It’s a busy weekend as the NCAA beach season continues.
East Meets West Invitational: This one, put on by UCLA, has a loaded field at the Manhattan Beach Pier and includes AVCA No. 1 USC, No. 2 Florida State, No. 3 Pepperdine, No. 4 UCLA, No. 6 Long Beach State, No. 7 Georgia State, No. 10 LSU, No. 12 Florida International and Cal Poly. USC plays FIU and LSU. Click here for the UCLA news release and full schedule of the event.
Gamecock Challenge: South Carolina, ranked 15th, welcomes in No. 11 Grand Canyon, Mercer and Jacksonville. Click here for the USC news release and schedule.
Queen’s Cup at Hawai’i: The Sandbows, ranked No. 5, entertain No. 9 Stetson and Loyola Marymount. Click here for the Hawai’i news release and schedule.
Sun Devil Challenge: Arizona State, ranked No. 12, is the host for No. 6 Arizona, New Mexico and Texas A&M Kingsville. Click here for the ASU news release and schedule.
Badger Beach Bash: It’s in Gulf Shores, Ala., site of the NCAA Championships in May and includes host Springhill (the Sandy Badgers), Tulane, Florida Atlantic, Jacksonville State, Houston Baptist, Eckerd College, University of New Orleans, Louisiana-Monroe and North Florida.
