Texas A&M setter Stephanie Aiple says chronic back pain makes it impossible to continue playingTexas A&M photo
Ohio State just keeps on rolling.
The top-ranked Buckeyes steamrolled visiting Penn State on Tuesday night 25-16, 25-22, 25-16 to win their 30th match in a row, which includes the 2016 NCAA championship.
There was one other match on Tuesday as Mount Olive beat Belmont Abbey in the Conference Carolinas.
On the women’s side, Texas A&M setter Stephanie Aiple, a three-time AVCA honorable-mention All-American, has decided that her chronic back pain is too much and she’s going to retire before her senior year. And there are still a handful of schools that have not filled head-coaching openings.
First Wednesday’s men’s schedule.
There are two matches in the MPSF, where Cal Baptist (2-5, 1-3 MPSF) goes to No. 9 Pepperdine (2-2, 0-1) and No. 11 UC Santa Barbara (6-1, 3-1) plays at No. 2 UCLA (6-1, 4-0).
The MIVA has two matches as Lindenwood (0-5, 0-2 MIVA) goes to McKendree (2-6, 0-0) and Quincy (1-4) has an out-of-conference match against visiting Loras. Loras, called the Duhawks, is a liberal Catholic school located in Dubuque, Iowa, and is 2-0 after sweeping Mount Mercy and Illinois Tech on January 15.
Conference Carolinas has two league matches — with CC openers for three of the four teams — when Emmanuel (1-3) goes to Limestone (1-1, 1-0) and King (4-1, 0-0) plays at Lees-McRae (2-2, 0-0).
There are no matches Wednesday in the EIVA .
Ohio State sweeps Penn State: Not only are the MIVA’s Buckeyes riding that 30-match win streak, they’ve won 17 sets in a row.
Nicolas Szerszen had 17 kills and hit. 630, while Miles Johnson added 13 kills and five service aces. Gabriel Domecus had 11 digs and Blake Leeson added five blocks as their team improved to 7-0.
Ohio State is home for two non-conference matches later in the week when Barton of ConfCarolinas comes to town on Friday and Long Beach State of the MPSF visits on Saturday,
No. 14 Penn State of the EIVA dropped to 3-4. Lee Smith led with eight kills and Chris Nugent had six.
The Nittany Lions home Friday for Conference Carolinas’ Mount Olive and Saturday for independent Coker.
A&M’s Aiple retires: The 2015 SEC player of the year has had chronic back pain since she was in high school.
“Ever since I started having pain, doctors told me my back pain will always be with me,” Aiple said in a Texas A&M news release. “They said, ‘We’ll do whatever we can, but basically you are going to have to deal with this for the rest of your life,’ so that’s scary. I even debated with my parents on whether or not to __play in college.
“I love playing volleyball, and I am so glad I decided to __play for Texas A&M,” added Aiple, who is currently recovering from a recent surgery for a non-volleyball related hip injury suffered last summer that intensified throughout the past season.
“It was all worth it for me because I was so happy and loved what I was doing, but I was in so much pain and I just can’t put myself through another year of hurting so much. It was a really tough decision because volleyball has been a part of my family for so many years, but after long conversations we decided as a family that it was best for me and my body to not play anymore.”
Coaching carousel: A handful of schools have yet to name replacements for their respective women’s programs.
Stetson split the indoor and beach programs. Coach Kristina Hernandez went to the beach and has yet to be replaced indoors, although we’ve heard someone has been offered … We also hear that Texas-Arlington, from which Diane Seymour retired after 30 years, has someone in the fold …
Indiana State hasn’t hired anyone since it let Traci Dahl-Skinnergo after 12 seasons… No word out of Virginia, which has an opening after Dennis Hohenshelt resigned after five seasons … Penn’s Kerry Major Carr resigned after 19 seasons and that opening remains … One that we missed was Tennessee State of the Ohio Valley hiring Donkia Sutton. She was a TSU assistant the past three years and is a former head coach at South Carolina State and played at Alcorn State … Manhattan’s job is still open …
And, of course, everyone is waiting to see who emerges as the next coach at Stanford, where John Dunning retired not only after 16 seasons but after winning the NCAA title.
Stanford beat USC and Ball State defeated George Mason on a relatively quiet Thursday in NCAA men’s volleyball.
Friday’s schedule is way busier.
There are six matches involving MPSF teams, starting with No. 7 UC Irvine (6-2 overall, 3-2 MPSF) at No. 3 BYU (6-1, 2-0). The same teams __play again Saturday in two matches that could go a long way in determining how things go in the league this season.
No. 2 UCLA(7-1, 5-0) returns the match from Wednesday, when it beat No. 11 UCSB (6-2, 3-2). This time they __play at Santa Barbara and it’s early, but a loss would put the Gauchos in a tough spot.
There is one other MPSF match, with Cal Baptist (2-6, 1-4) trying to stay out of the cellar when it goes to No. 8 Stanford (5-2, 2-0).
No. 4 Long Beach State (6-1) is at Ohio State where it plays the EIVA’s Saint Francis on Friday and then top-ranked Ohio State on Saturday. No. 15 CSUN (7-3) plays host to Hope International (the Royals of the NAIA are 4-2) and No. 5 Hawai’i (6-2) entertains Grand View (3-0), which is located in Des Moines, Iowa and competes in the Heart of America Athletic Conference.
There are more MIVA vs. EIVA matches. No. 13 Ball State (7-1), coming off a nice win Thursday over No. 12 George Mason, plays host to NJIT (3-2). Mason (4-3) goes to Fort Wayne (1-8) and Charleston (3-2) is home to McKendree (3-6). No. 14 Penn State (3-4) plays host to Mount Olive of Conference Carolinas (3-3).
Also in the MIVA, No. 1 Ohio State (7-0) plays host to Barton of the ConfCarolinas (3-1) and in a league opener for the Flyers, No. 6 Lewis (5-1, 0-0) goes to Grand Canyon (3-3, 2-0).
Also in ConfCarolinas, Lees-McRae (2-3) goes to independent Lincoln Memorial (2-5).
Stanford, CSUN get victories: The Cardinal overpowered visiting USC 25-19, 25-17, 25-20 in a match that left the Trojans 2-6 overall, 1-4 in the MPSF, which puts them four games back of UCLA in the loss column.
Stanford hit .304 as Kevin Rakestraw led with nine kills and six blocks as he hit .615. Gabriel Vega added six kills and two blocks to go with two aces and Matt Klassen had five kills, four blocks and an ace.
Woody Cook, Andy Benesh and Jon Rivera had eight kills apiece. But Cook hit .000, Benesh .615 and Rivera .385 as USC hit .070 as a team.
The Trojans were without their top player, Lucas Yoder, who sprained his ankle in practice this week.Their newest player, junior college transfer Gianluca Grasso of Brazil, who joined the team earlier this week, had six digs, two aces and two kills after coming in off the bench.
CSUN swept visiting Cal Lutheran 25-22, 25-17, 25-19 as Dimitar Kalchev had 21 kills with just two errors to hit .670. He also had six digs and three aces. CSUN, 7-3, got 11 kills from Schylar Lillethorup and 10 from Parker Maki. Lillethorup, who also had eight digs, hit .348 and Maki .353.
“Dimitar, Schylar and Parker all hit well tonight; it was good to get those guys some playing time,” CSUN coach Jeff Campbell said. “Our passing was a little shaky at times but we steadied out as the match went on. The one area I’d like to see some improvement is our serving, we missed way too many serves.”
Cal Lutheran is 0-4. The Kingsmen got six kills from Patrick Rowe, but he hit .000.
Ball State beats George Mason: The Cardinals lost a tough first set but then cruised to a 30-32, 25-15, 25-16, 25-19 victory. Ball State improved to 7-1, while Mason dropped to 4-3.
Senior Brendan Surane led the Cardinals with 21 kills — seven in the first set — and hit .342. He also had 10 digs and five blocks.
Junior Mitch Weiler added 14 kills and hit .433, while freshman Matt Szews added nine kills and junior Matt Walsh eight while hitting .545. Sophomore Adam Wessell had 12 digs.
“That’s the player we want Surane to be,” Ball State coach Joel Walton said. “We have three guys that are really demanding respect right now – Surane, Szews and Walsh. Those three are also creating some opportunities for Weiler. We couldn’t get as many balls to Walsh, but we used him as a decoy, which opened things for other people.”
Jack Wilson led Mason with 10 kills but hit .133 and had two of his team’s 14 service errors. Mason only had two aces, while Ball State had five to go with 18 errors.
Sam Greenslade had eight kills and Langston Payne seven. Their team hit .128.
“I thought we showed some grit to hang on, but that is all we did – hung on.” – Mason coach Jay Hosack said.
“We haven’t learned how to get dirty in a fight, so I thought we would give some young guys a chance to see where they fit amongst it all. Bottom line is, we are not at a championship level.
“Hopefully we learn along the way the ability to get dirty, to get in a fist fight, and at the end learn that it’s OK to get bloody. That’s what sport is all about.”
Pepperdine celebrates a point against Cal Baptist/Jean Runglerdkriangkrai photo
Texas-Arlington continued the overall trend of elevating assistants with no head-coaching experience as it hired popular J.T. Wenger as its new coach.
In the MPSF, second-ranked UCLA men swept No. 11 UC Santa Barbara and No. 9 Pepperdine took four to beat Cal Baptist, and the Conference Carolinas had three matches to report.
But first a look at Thursday’s NCAA men’s schedule.
There are two more MPSF matches when No. 8 Stanford (4-2, 1-0 MPSF) plays host to USC (2-5, 1-3) and No. 15 Cal State Northridge (6-3) entertains Division III Cal Lutheran (0-3). Cal Lutheran has losses to Mount Olive, Vassar and SUNY New Paltz.
There is another MIVA vs. EIVA match when No. 12 George Mason (4-2) goes to No. 14 Ball State (6-1).
ConfCarolinas is idle.
UCLA, Pepperdine win MPSF matches:The Bruins improved to 7-1 overall and remain atop the league at 5-0 after beating UCSB 25-17, 25-20, 25-20, with head coach John Speraw at the hospital for the birth of his second daughter.
He posted this on Facebook: “Hailey Paige Speraw was born last night at 10 pm. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 10 oz. Standing reach 20 inches. Vertical jump, zero. Beautiful Mom and beautiful Hailey are doing great. We are now a family of four!”
Fifth-year assistant Brad Keller took over in his place and the Bruins never missed a beat.
Junior Jake Arnitz led a balanced UCLA attack with 10 kills and hit .368. Senior Mitch Stahl added six kills, hit .600 and had three aces and three blocks. JT Hatch had six kills and a match-high eight digs. The Bruins outhit the Gauchos .344 to .195.
They __play again Friday night in Santa Barbara at the Thunderdome. UCLA returns home to __play Princeton on Sunday night.
UCSB, playing on the road for the first time, dropped to 6-2, 3-2. Jacob Delson had 13 kills, but hit .172 and had four of his team’s 13 service errors. Corey Chavers had six kills and Hayden Boehle five.
Pepperdine improved to 3-2, 1-1 with its 25-20, 23-25, 25-16, 25-14 win over visiting Cal Baptist (2-6, 1-4).
Pepperdine’s Michael Wexter had five of his team’s 10 aces, seven kills, a team-high eight digs and three blocks. David Wieczorek led with 15 kills and six digs. Alex Harthaller had 11 kills, two aces and seven digs.
CBU got 11 kills from Luis Palo, but he hit .000 and had three of his team’s 14 service errors. Rohit Paul had 10 kills, but also hit zero as his team was out-hit .276 to .078.
ConfCarolinas: King won its CC opener, winning at Lees-McRae 25-21, 22-25, 25-17, 25-19. It left King 5-1, 1-0, and Lees-McRae 2-3, 0-1.
Sean Luhmann led King with 12 kills and hit .579 as he had only one error in 19 swings. He also had two blocks, seven digs and an ace. Jeff Sprayberry added nine kills, two blocks and two aces. Lees-McRae got 17 kills from John Sobel, who had four of his team’s 21 service errors. Wes Rogman had 11 kills and four of those errors. And Hector Serviat had 10 kills, hit .471, and also four service errors.
Limestone beat visiting Emmanuel 21-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-22 to improve to 2-1, 2-0. Emmanuel is 1-4 as it lost its league opener.
Bruno Kretzschmar had 12 kills, seven digs and two service aces for Limestone. Kevin Rocklein added 12 kills and Nick Wildes had 10 digs.
Ackeem West had 15 kills for Emmanuel and hit .440. Don Thompson had 12 kills and hit .550 and Gilberto Cervantes had 10 kills but five of his team’s 21 service errors. Emmanuel had four aces and 21 errors, while Limestone had zero aces and six errors.
And North Greenville finally got a victory, improving to 1-6, 1-1 with a 26-24, 25-22, 26-24 victory over visiting Erskine (0-4, 0-1).
Grayson Lawrence, Aaron Campbell and Matthew McManaway had 10 kills apiece for the winners. Isaac Lanier had 14 kills for Erskine.
JT Wenger while coaching at Michigan State
UTA tabs Wenger: The former assistant at UCLA, Colorado and for the past season Michigan State played for a national-championship team at UCLA.
Wenger, who is from Illinois, played pro in Puerto Rico. He was an assistant to Al Scates at his alma mater from 2006-11, was associate head coach at Colorado from 2012-15 and then an assistant to Cathy George at Michigan State this past season when the Spartans went 25-9, losing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Arizona.
Said UTA athletic director Jim Baker about Wenger, “ … has the vision to take the program to unprecedented heights. We conducted an exhaustive national search and, during the process, received a tremendous amount interest in our program. The UTA athletics program has great ambition and potential while the volleyball program has a history of national success. Our search was conducted with the intent to secure the right person to lead our program.”
There are still plenty of Division I openings, including Stanford, Indiana State, Stetson, Virginia, Penn and Manhattan. Cincinnati head coach Molly Alvey promoted assistant Phillip White to associate head coach and hired Kevin Carroll, a former UC Irvine player and coach.
Phil Dalhausser passes at AVP Chicago 2016/Robert Beck, AVP
Phil Dalhausser and partner Nick Lucena were one of the hottest teams on the FIVB tour in 2016, with four gold, three silver, and one bronze medal in 2016. Their Olympic run ended in fifth place after Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt were upset in pool play, setting up a quarterfinal showdown rather than a medal-round match. Both Alison/Bruno and the strong winds in Rio got the best of the Americans that day last August.
The 6-foot-9 Dalhausser is one of the pre-eminent big men on tour, earning individual accolades for Best Blocker (2006-08, 2010, 2012, 2014, Best Hitter 2007-10, Best Offensive Player 2008-2010, 2012, Best Server 2014, Best Setter 2009-12, 2014-16, and Most Outstanding 2010, 2013, 2014.
We got a chance to chat with him as he and Lucena prepared for the FIVB season opener in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., February 7-12.
VBM: How was your off-season?
Dalhausser: “The off season was really long but it didn’t seem too long.”
VBM: Do you feel like the season is too long?
Dalhausser: “When we start in February, yes. Last year we started in February as well, but this year is a little different because after February, we have three months until our next tournament, so it puts a wrench into the training season. Usually we’re trying to build up.”
VBM: How did you spend your time off?
Dalhausser: “Just hung out with the kids, they’re 3 (Sebastian) and 2 (Sofia), so it’s a lot of fun these days. (Pauses) And then sometimes not so fun (chuckles). Just caught up and made up for some lost time.”
VBM: Did you get a chance to take the kids on any trips?
Dalhausser: “We went to my parents’ house in Florida for a couple of weeks, but in general, I’m on the road so much that (traveling) is the last thing I want to do.”
VBM: What is your schedule like for this year?
Dalhausser: “We’ll __play all of the five-star FIVB events this year, including the world championships. We’re waiting on the AVP player contracts, I’ve heard that they’re in the works and we should have them shortly.”
Phil Dalhausser serves in FIVB competition/Red Bull photo
VBM: What kinds of things does coach Paul Baxter have you and Nick working on?
Dalhausser: “Personally, I’m working on my passing. I feel it’s the weakest part of my game.”
VBM: Last time the FIVB tour was in Fort Lauderdale, it was the World Tour Finals in 2015. You had a spectacular win against Brouwer/Meeuwsen in the semifinals, but came up flat against Alison/Bruno in the finals.
Dalhausser: “We lost some steam coming in. The week before, we were in China, I got back to L.A. on Sunday, flew to Fort Lauderdale on Monday, and started playing on Tuesday. By the finals on Sunday, we were just mentally and physically spent.”
“With that said, those guys played really high-level volleyball, I’m not trying to take anything away from them.”
VBM: Does that give you extra motivation for this year?
Dalhausser: “I don’t need any extra motivation. Anytime we __play a FIVB on home soil, we have home court advantage, so I like to protect that.”
VBM: What did you and Nick take away from Rio? Was it just a tough draw that you had to play Alison/Bruno in the quarterfinals in tough windy conditions?
Dalhausser: “Obviously, Rio was a bummer. It wasn’t ideal to play Alison and Bruno in the quarters. But that’s one of the negatives when it comes to pool play. The Olympics is the biggest tournament we’ll ever play in, but it’s just a long, drawn-out tournament.
“The only difference is that you play one match every two days, and honestly, it’s kind of long and boring. On your days off you don’t want to do too much and wear yourself out, and really, it’s mentally draining. You play a match, and then have two days to think about your next match.
“I wish I could have played a little better in that quarterfinal. It would have been a higher level of volleyball if there hadn’t been 35 mile-an-hour winds. That’s too bad, because I think it would have been a really good tight match. I don’t think it was an interesting match to watch. Wind just lowers the level, for sure.”
VBM: At age 36, what have you learned about yourself that you didn’t know at 26?
Dalhausser: “A lot. One, getting old sucks. There are a lot more aches and pains involved, and more stretching, and rolling out, and taking care of your body, and more warming up. At 26, I could have peppered a little bit, and been ready to go. I wish that were the case these days, but unfortunately, it’s not.”
“I don’t know that there’s one thing that I could say that I’ve learned over the years, but the biggest thing is that I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes.”
VBM: Where do you store your gold medal from Beijing?
Dalhausser: “At home, I store it in a case. For the longest time I just had it in my nightstand.”
VBM: Do you think the Olympic qualification process is too long?
Dalhausser: “I do think it’s too long. A team can have a good 2015 season that will set them up for the Olympics. I think that 2016 points should be worth more than 2015 points. You shouldn’t get the same amount of points for winning an event in 2015 than you do in 2016. To me it just doesn’t make any sense.
“I think the country-quota rule is stupid. It’s a dated rule that was made for back when there would have been 20 different Brazilian teams on tour. Now the world has caught up. There are so many good teams out of Europe, I’m not so sure we need a country quota system any more, and it makes it a closed system.
“There’s no other sport that limits the amount of countries participating. Can you imagine if tennis only allowed four players from one country? Or surfing, or golf? It should be the best of the best. If Brazil has the 10 best teams, then so be it. I don’t think that would be the case. They should just get rid of it.”
Kyle Ensing of Long Beach is the MPSF Player of the Week, shown here hustling in hitter coverage in a match against Hawai'i/Ed Chan, VBshots.com
By Dennis Michael Stuart for VolleyballMag.com
A busy week in NCAA men’s volleyball starts Tuesday when top-ranked Ohio State plays host to No. 14 Penn State in another MIVA-EIVA battle in which the Midwesterners have held the upper hand. Also Tuesday, there’s a Conference Carolinas match with Mount Olive going to Belmont Abbey.
The MIVA is off until Wednesday when Cal Baptist goes to No. 9 Pepperdine and No. 11 UC Santa Barbara plays at No. 2 UCLA.
The four leagues — MPSF, ConfCarolinas, MIVA and EIVA — announced their respective players of the week and the AVCA poll came out with no one leaving and very few significant changes.
And there are also a few women’s coaching transactions of note, not the least of which is Loyola Marymount hiring Aaron Mansfield to replace Tom Black.
MIVA: The league honored Gabriel Domecus of Ohio State as its defensive POW and Mitch Perinar of Lewis as the offensive POW.
Domecus had 12 digs and was errorless in 16 serve receptions in a sweep of Saint Francis.
Perinar hit .449 with 4.20 kills per set in the Flyers’ 3-2 wins at Penn State and Saint Francis and his 27 kills against SFU are a league high for this season.
Four MIVA teams remain inAVCA poll, including No. 1 Ohio State (6-0), No. 6 Lewis (5-1), No. 10 Loyola (4-3) and No. 13 Ball State (6-1).
Interestingly, Grand Canyon, at 3-3, went 2-0 in conference __play and sits alone atop the MIVA standings after defeating winless Lindenwood in consecutive nights. Things get tougher when Lewis comes to town for back-to-back matches.
After playing Penn State, Ohio State gets Conference Carolinas preseason favorite Barton and No. 4 Long Beach State in St. John Arena, the site of next May’s NCAA Championship.
Also this week, Ball State takes on two EIVA teams, No. 12 George Mason (4-2,) and NJIT (3-2).
Lost in the shuffle on Sunday was Fort Wayne getting off the schnide after starting 0-8. The Mastodons swept Alderson Broaddus in a non-league match.
You can see the current MIVA standings here.
Johnny Gomez of George Mason is the EIVA defensive POW/George Mason Athletics
EIVA: Jack Wilson of No. 12 George Mason is the league’s offensive POW, while teammate Johnny Gomez is the defensive POW.
Wilson had 14 kills in a 3-0 sweep of King and hit .385 and in a five-set loss to No. 10 Loyola, he had a season-high 18 kills and added two service aces.
Gomez averaged 2.6 digs per set. He played in just one set against King and finished with four digs and an assist. In a five-set loss to Loyola, he had a season-high 11 digs and another assist.
Mason (4-2) and Penn State (3-3) are the league’s only ranked teams.
Mason has two matches against MIVA teams in Indiana this week, heading to Ball State on Thursday and Fort Wayne on Friday.
After playing Ohio State, Penn State is home for the CC’s Mount Olive and independent Coker.
NJIT (3-2) follows Mason as it plays at Ball State on Friday and Fort Wayne on Saturday.Last season’s EIVA Co-Player of the Year, Jabarry Goodridge, leads the league at 4.05 kills per set.
Princeton (3-3) travels west to UCLA on Sunday and stays in SoCal for a February 1 match at UC San Diego and a February 3 match at Concordia.
Doug Dzema of Sacred Heart (3-1) boasts an NCAA-best .571 hitting percentage, which won’t change, since his team is off until the Pioneers __play Alderson Broaddus on February 2.
The current EIVA standings are here.
MPSF: Nine of the 12 member institutions are in this week’s AVCA poll and USC got votes.
Speaking of USC, junior-college transfer Gianluca Grasso has joined the Trojans.
Grasso was the 2016 All-Pacific Coast Conference co-MVP as he had 241 kills, 145 digs, 40 aces and 34 blocks as a freshman outside hitter at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.
His father, Mauro, and mother, Rejane, both played volleyball on Brazil’s national teams and his brother, Marco, was a setter at Pacific (2013-14) and the last two years at Ohio State, including last year’s title team. His sister, Carol, played indoors and beach at Cal State Bakersfield.
USC (2-5) plays Stanford and Pepperdine this week.
USC currently is 2-5 overall in 2017, with matches this week against No. 8 Stanford on Thursday and No. 9 Pepperdine on Saturday.
The MPSF POW is Kyle Ensing of Long Beach State. The sophomore opposite had 24 kills against Hawai’i and followed it up with 11 more two days later against the Warriors. He hit .455 in the two matches and and had 12 digs and five blocks.
League-leading UCLA (6-1, 4-0) plays three times this week, Wednesday against UCSB (6-1, 3-1), two days later at USCB, and then Sunday when Princeton visits.
BYU is ranked No. 3 and Ben Patch leads the nation with 5.35 kills per set. His team leads the country with 13.58 kills per set. The Cougars (6-2, 2-0) play host to No. 7 UC Irvine (6-2, 3-2) on Friday and Saturday.
No. 8 Stanford (4-2, 1-0) sits in third place in the conference standings and will play three matches in three days.Stanford’s Kevin Rakestraw will look to improve on the nation’s second best hitting percentage of .569 as the Cardinal plays host to USC (2-5, 1-3) on Thursday, Cal Baptist (2-5, 1-3) on Friday and cap the week off with a Saturday trip down the road to No. 9 Pepperdine (2-2, 0-1).
The MPSF standings are here.
Conference Carolinas: Dylan Lavner of Limestone College is the CC POW.
The senior middle blocker had 14 kills and hit .480 against Barton and also had five blocks and three aces. Lavner ranks fifth in Conference Carolinas with one block per set, while ranking fourth in points per set and ninth in kills per set (2.86).
Among the CC matches this week of note, Barton has the aforementioned trip to Ohio State, where it also plays Saint Francis. Also, King (4-1) and Lees-McRae (2-2) open CC play.
The CC standings are here.
Aaron Mansfield
Women’s hires: LMU tabbed Mansfield, an assistant at Santa Clara the past five seasons, to replace Black, who left for Georgia. Mansfield was also the Santa Clara beach coach.
Mansfield was an All-American player at Santa Barbara. Click here for the LMU release.
Sixth-year North Dakota State coach Kari Thompson is in a weird place. According to WDAY, she’s been told her contract won’t be renewed but she’s still the coach in 2017. She signed a four-year extension in 2014. The Bison were 14-18 in 2016, 11-5 in the Summit League …
Brian Doyon, who resigned as head coach at Montana, has been hired as an assistant to Todd Dagenais at Central Florida. Doyon previously was an assistant at Utah …
Head-coaching openings remain at Stanford, Penn, Texas-Arlington, Virginia and Stetson.
Saturday was another good day for the MIVA, especially against the EIVA, as No. 8 Lewis beat Saint Francis, No. 9 Loyola beat No. 11 George Mason and No. 13 Ball State beat Sacred Heart.
There were two MPSF matches. No. 5 Hawai’i got a league win over No. 6 UC Irvine and UC San Diego got into the winners’ column for the first time this season by beating Concordia.
Everyone is off until Tuesday when there is another showcase MIVA-EIVA battle as No. 15 Penn State travels to No. 1 Ohio State. Also Tuesday, there is a Conference Carolinas match when Mount Olive goes to Belmont Abbey.
Lewis’ Kyle Bugee had seven blocks against Saint Francis/Lewis athletics
MIVA goes 3-0 vs. EIVA: It took Lewis five to defeat Saint Francis 25-21, 25-22, 27-29, 17-25, 15-11 and improve to 6-1. Saint Francis is 3-4.
Mitch Perinar led the Flyers with 27 kills. He had just five errors in 46 swings and hit .478. Ryan Coenan added 12 kills.
Michael Fisher led SFU with 20 kills and Stephen Braswell had 17.
Jeff Jendryk had 11 kills and hit .588 to lead Loyola at Mason 23-25, 20-25, 26-24, 26-24, 15-13. Loyola, which improved to 4-3, was down 12-10 in the fifth. The Patriots won on Cole Murray’s ace and a GMU hitting error.
Loyola got nine kills from Paul Narup, who hit .375. Jendryk had six blocks, one solo, and Narup three block assists.
Mason’s Jack Wilson had 18 kills but 11 errors, and teammate Radoslav Popov had 11 kills. Their team dropped to 4-2.
Ball State improved to 6-1 by sweeping previously unbeaten Sacred Heart 25-18, 25-22, 25-22.
Mitch Stahl led the visitors with 12 kills and three blocks. Matt Walsh added nine kills and four blocks and Brendan Surane had eight kills.
Emerson Waumans led Sacred Heart (3-1) with 13 kills.
More MIVA, EIVA: The scores make you scratch your head, especially after Grand Canyon swept Lindenwood on Friday.
The MIVA’s Grand Canyon improved to 3-3 and kept visiting Lindenwood winless with a 14-25, 17-25, 37-35, 25-23, 15-11 victory.
What’s more, they are the only schools to have played MIVA matches, so Grand Canyon is atop the league at 2-0, while Lindenwood is 0-2.
“Lindenwood deserves a lot of credit for the way they performed tonight,” Grand Canyon coach Matt Werle said. “They came out with a lot of energy and were making some plays that we didn’t match. They blocked extremely well and our pin attackers struggled.”
Cody Williams led Grand Canyon with 17 kills and three blocks. Ashton King and Will Schwob had 11 kills each. Michael Millstein had four blocks and 40 assists.
“I am proud that we fought back from a two set deficit, but I don’t find our efforts tonight acceptable,” Werle said. “Even though we won, we are chalking tonight up as a loss and hoping to use it as a huge motivator. If we __play like this against Lewis this coming weekend, they will sweep us straight sets. We have to be better at every facet of the game.”
Jake Duckworth led Grand Canyon with 19 kills.
Also, Quincy of the MIVA beat Emmanuel of Conference Carolinas 25-20, 25-20, 21-25, 25-19 for its first win of the season as it improved to 1-4. Emmanuel drops to 1-3.
Rajahl Moxey of Charleston attacks against Lees McRae/Charleston athletics
The EIVA had two winners in non-conference matches, as Charleston beat Lees-McRae and NJIT held off UC Santa Cruz. Charleston improved to 3-2 with its 27-25, 25-22, 25-18 sweep, while NJIT also got to 3-2 by beating the Banana Slugs 25-20, 25-18, 18-25, 22-25, 15-12.
Thomas Hodge of Irvine tallied 21 kills in the Anteater’s loss to Irvine/Irvine athletics
Hawai’i, UC San Diego get MPSF victories: The trip to the mainland started with back-to-back losses at Long Beach State, so the Warriors desperately needed their 25-16, 25-23, 15-25, 25-23 victory at UC Irvine.
It left Hawai’i 6-2 overall, 1-2 in the MSPF, while the Anteaters fell to 6-2, 3-2.
Stijn van Tilburg led Hawai’i with 19 kills and hit .485. He also had five blocks. Kupono Fey added 10 kills and seven digs.
Irvine’s Thomas Hodges had 21 kills and hit .444. Tamir Hershko had 10 kills.
UC San Diego had to go out of the league and go five to get its first victory, 19-25, 25-13, 21-25, 25-21, 15-11 over Concordia.
UCSD, coming off a five-set loss the night before against UC Irvine, improved to 1-5 as Tanner Syftestad led with 22 kills and hit .366. He also had four blocks. Ian Colbert added nine kills and Alec Flowers eight.
UCSD had four aces and 20 service errors and Concordia zero and 22.
Concordia got 15 kills from Jonathon Predney, 13 from Ryan Anselmo and 11 from Hunter Howell.
Conference Carolinas: Limestone knocked off Barton in the only CC match, while King won two out-of-conference matches.
Barton dropped to 3-1 overall, 2-1 CC, as Limestone improved to 1-1 in its league opener after its 25-21, 25-22, 24-26, 25-23 victory.
Dylan Layner led with 14 kills and hit .480. He also had five blocks, three solo. Bruno Kretzschmer had 12 kills and Kevin Rocklein 11.
Vasilis Mandilaris led Barton with 15 kills and 11 digs. Michael Tyler had 12 kills and eight digs and Jonathan Novoa-Miralles had 10 kills and nine digs.
King beat both East Mennonite and Lancaster Bible, winning in four both times.
Long Beach puts up the triple block against Hawai'i's Stijn van Tilburg/Long Beach photo
Second-ranked UCLA started the MPSF season as the team to beat. Now the Bruins are the ones to catch after they beat visiting USC on a Friday night when just one of the six MPSF matches played was not decided in a sweep.
In MIVA vs. EIVA action, top-ranked Ohio State, Lewis and Ball State were winners.
And Barton won to stay atop Conference Carolinas.
All the recaps ahead, but first Saturday’s schedule.
There are two MPSF matches as No. 5 Hawai’i stays on the mainland after back-to-back losses to Long Beach and hopes to get back on track at UC Irvine, and winless UC San Diego tries to break through when it goes out of conference at Concordia.
The EIVA has all non-conference matches — including three against the MIVA — starting with No. 11 George Mason playing host to No. 11 Loyola of the MIVA. Saint Francis entertains No. 8 Lewis of the MIVA and Sacred Heart is home to No. 13 Ball State of the MIVA.
NJIT gets a cross-country visit from UC Santa Cruz and Charleston is home to Conference Carolina’s Lees-McRae.
Other MIVA matches include winless Lindenwood at Grand Canyon and Quincy playing host to Emmanuel of ConfCarolinas.
And in Conference Carolinas, there is a league match when Barton goes to Limestone. King plays matches against East Mennonite and Lancaster Bible and North Greenville plays host to Coker.
Alex Harthaller of Pepperdine hits against-Stanford’s Kevin Rakestraw, left, and Paul Bischoff/Ricky Davis photo
Top half of MPSF wins: 1 through 6 beat 7 through 12 on Friday.
Start with UCLA’s 25-20, 23-25, 25-20, 25-22 win over unranked USC that left the Bruins 6-1 overall and 4-0 in the MPSF. Jake Arnitz led UCLA with 20 kills and hit .450. He also had five blocks and six digs. Daenan Gyimah had 10 kills, hit .444 and had three blocks. Mitch Stahl had nine kills, eight blocks and three aces.
Lucas Yoder had 15 kills for USC, while Woody Cook added 13 kills, hit .321 and had seven digs. Aaron Strange had 11 kills, four blocks and a match-leading 17 digs. Their team is 2-5, 1-3.
Third-ranked and second-place BYU improved to 6-1, 2-0, by going to CSUN and coming away with a tough 26-24, 25-15, 22-25, 26-24 victory.
BYU libero Ben Worthing had a career-high 14 digs, Ben Patch had 24 kills and hit .415 and Brendan Sander had 15 kills.
“We had another great team win tonight,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. “Each one of these guys showed a ton of heart and fight. I’m proud of the way they battled back to take the first and fourth sets.”
CSUN, which dropped to 6-3, 1-3, got 15 kills from Arvis Greene, who hit .244 and had five blocks. Dimitar Kalchev added nine kills.
No. 10 Stanford won the MPSF opener for both teams and improved to 4-2 with its 29-27, 25-16, 13-25, 26-24 win at No. 7 Pepperdine. The Waves dropped to 2-2.
Jordan Ewert had a career-high 21 kills for the Cardinal and also had seven digs and two blocks. Kevin Rakestraw had 11 kills on 18 swings with one error and hit .556. He also had a match-high five blocks. Matt Klassen had 10 kills.
Stanford had a chance for a sweep but in the third set hit .069 with nine errors, while Pepperdine hit .421. But for the match, Pepperdine hit .207 as Michael Wexter led with 12 kills, David Wieczorek had 11 and Alex Harthaller nine. Wexter added five blocks and two of the Waves’ eight aces in a rare match when a team had the same number of aces — eight — as errors. Harthaller led with three aces.
Two days later it was much easier and the end result was the same as No. 4 Long Beach State beat visiting No. 5 Hawai’i 25-19, 25-14, 25-18.
It left Long Beach, which never had a reception error, 6-1, 3-1, and dropped Hawai’i to 5-2, 0-2.
Long Beach had only three attack errors — one in each set — and hit .534. And the Beach had 10 blocks to Hawai’i’s none.
Kyle Ensing led with 11 kills and hit .579. TJ DeFalco had seven kills and hit .438 to go with five aces, while Bjarne Huus had six kills.
Click here for a post-match interview with Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe.
Stijn van Tilburg led Hawai’i with 10 kills and Patrick Gasman had nine in 11 swings and hit .727. He also had three of the Warriors’ 12 service errors. They had no aces.
UCSB kept pace as the 12th-ranked Gauchos beat visiting Cal Baptist 25-12, 25-22, 25-16. UCSB is 6-1, 3-1, while Cal Baptist dropped to 2-5, 1-3.
The Gauchos won for the sixth time in seven matches as Jacob Delson had 15 kills and hit .522 and Corey Chavers had 13 kills and hit .476. They out-hit their opponents .359 to .091.
“Any time you get a little winning streak like this going in our conference, that’s a good thing,” UCSB coach Rick McLaughlin said. “I thought our passing was the difference tonight, and Delson had another strong game to lead us. He’s been playing great every night.”
Luis Palos led Cal Baptist with eight kills but hit .120. Logan Crzyzewski had seven kills and hit .462.
Sixth-ranked UC Irvine needed five sets — and two rallies in the fifth — to win at winless UC San Diego, 3-2 (25-22, 25-19, 26-28, 23-25, 17-15). It left the Anteaters 6-1, 3-1, while UCSD fell to 0-5, 0-4.
UCI was down 8-4 in the fifth and still 13-11. Two kills by Tamir Hershko tied it and then two UCSD errors ended the match.
Hershko, who hit .357, and Thomas Hodges, who hit .379, led with 15 kills each. Andrew Benz had 11 kills, hit .529, and four blocks and Scott Stadick had nine kills, hit. 571, and had three blocks.
Tanner Syftestad had a monster night for UCSD with 23 kills and hit .395. He also had three aces. Devin Pontigon had 11 kills and Alec Flowers had 10.
Big night for MIVA: No. 1 Ohio State won for the 29th time in a row as it steamrolled Saint Francis 25-23, 25-18, 25-18. The Buckeyes are 6-0, while the home team dropped to 3-3 as Ohio State improved to 30-1 all time against Saint Francis.
Miles Johnson led the Buckeyes with 11 kills and four blocks. Maxime Hervoir had eight kills on 12 errorless swings to hit .667.Blake Leeson had eight blocks and four kills.
Saint Francis got 13 kills from Jeff Hogan.
No. 8 Lewis went to No. 15 Penn State and came away with a 28-26, 25-14, 16-25, 19-25, 15-9 victory that left the visitors 4-1 and dropped the Nittany Lions to 3-3.
Ryan Coenan led Lewis with 17 kills and hit .361. Mitch Perinar had 15 kills and hit .406. Both had three blocks. Jacob Schmiegelt had seven kills and four blocks.
Chris Nugent led Penn State with 15 kills, hit .379, and had eight digs and four blocks. Lee Smith had 12 kills and three digs.
“I like the fact that we seem to even out a little bit quicker,” Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said. I like the way we came back in games three and four. The way we played in game three and game four I think kind of gives you glimpses of where our future could be.”
Both teams had three aces and 19 service errors.
Another MIVA team beat a team from the EIVA when No. 13 Ball State went to Harvard and came away with 25-20, 23-25, 25-17, 20-25, 15-13 victory. It left the Cardinals 5-1 and dropped the Crimson to 1-3.
Mitch Weiler and Matt Szews had 14 kills apiece to lead Ball State, which won its third match in a row, while Brendan Surane had 13 — including the match-winner — and Matt Walsh 11.
The only EIVA winner over a MIVA team on Friday was Sacred Heart, which improved to 3-0 and dropped woeful Fort Wayne to 0-8 with a hard-fought 26-24, 25-22, 27-25 victory.
Michael Comens led Sacred Heart with 13 kills and Christopher DeLucie had 10. Pelegrin Vargas continued to lead Fort Wayne, this time with 15 kills as he hit .344.
Also in the EIVA and MIVA: There was one MIVA match Friday when Grand Canyon improved to 2-3 and dropped Lindenwood to 0-4 in the league opener for both teams. Matthew Kinnebrew had 11 kills and Cody Williams and Drake Silbernagel had eight apiece to lead Grand Canyon. Sam Schindler had 11 kills and hit .625 for Lindenwood.
George Mason beat King of ConfCarolinas 25-19, 25-23, 25-16, to improve to 4-1. King is 2-1.
Jack Wilson led Mason with 14 kills and hit .385. Things get more serious for Mason on Saturday when it plays host to Loyola.
In other non-conference EIVA matches, NJIT swept Kean and Charleston did the same to St. Andrews.
Quincy of the MIVA fell to 0-4 as it was swept by Missouri Baptist.
ConfCarolinas results: Every match but Barton’s four-set win over North Greenville was a sweep.
Barton, 3-0, 2-0 CC, won 22-25, 25-21, 25-16, 25-16 as Angelos Mandilaris led with 17 kills and hit .414 and Vasilis Mandilaris added 13 kills and seven digs. North Greenville is 0-4, 0-1.
Also in non-conference CC matches, Belmont Abbey lost to Coker, Lees-McRae beat Alderson Broaddus, and Emmanuel lost to McKendree.
