Going West might mean going broke for the fifth-ranked Lewis men.
They lost again Thursday, this time to No. 14 USC a day after losing at No. 7 UCLA. In the only other NCAA men’s Division I-II matches Thursday, Belmont Abbey swept North Greenville in Conference Carolinas and NJIT of the EIVA swept visiting Coker.
Friday is a busy day in college volleyball, with a full slate for the men, dotted with inter-conference action, and more beach in the second weekend of the women’s season.
In Columbus, top-ranked and unbeaten Ohio State has UC San Diego of the MPSF after No. 6 UC Irvine plays No. 12 Ball State. This is the first meeting between Ohio State, riding a 41-match winning streak, and UCSD since 2011.
There are two other non-conference matches involving MPSF teams as No. 11 CSUN entertains No. 10 Loyola of the MIVA and No. 2 Long Beach State plays host to the EIVA’s George Mason.
And there are two MPSF matches with a lot at stake as No. 8 Stanford is at No. 4 Hawai’i and No. 3 BYU plays at No. 9 Pepperdine.
There is one MIVA league match when Grand Canyon goes to McKendree. Lindenwood is at King of the Conference Carolinas.
The EIVA has one league match when Princeton goes to NJIT. In non-conference matches, Charleston goes to Lincoln Memorial and Mason is at Long Beach.
In Conference Carolinas, there are three non-league matches as King plays host to Southern Virginia and Lindenwood and Limestone goes to Warner.
USC sweeps Lewis: Gianluca Grasso had 19 kills and 10 digs in the Trojans’ 25-23, 25-23, 29-27 victory played not in the Galen Center butUSC’s old North Gym.
The Trojans improved to 7-12 after breaking a three-match losing streak after their fifth win against a top-10 team this season.
Lewis, which likely seriously damaged its hopes of an NCAA at-large bid, dropped to 15-5.
USC, playing without leading attacker Lucas Yoder, out with an abdominal strain, still hit .407. Lucas Lossone had nine kills and hit .333 and Andy Benesh had six kills and hit .667.
Mitch Perinar led Lewis with 13 kills and hit .407. Trevor Weiskircher added 10 kills and hit .273 as his team hit .354.
Lewis continues its West Coast swing at UCSB on Saturday.
NCAA Beach
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.
Long Beach's Bryce Yould finds a hole in the Loyola defense. His team moved up to No. 1 in the AVCA poll./Ed Chan, VBshots.com
There were a handful of Monday matches involving NCAA Division I-II teams and Tuesday’s slate includes NJIT of the EIVA at Coker and conference mate Harvard at USC.
In Conference Carolinas there are two league matches on Tuesday as Belmont Abbey goes to Lees-McRae and King plays at Pfeiffer. Also, Limestone plays host to Cal Baptist of the MPSF.
All the polls follow — men’s Division I-II, men’s Division III and NCAA women’s beach — plus some analysis, the POWs, and notes.
Polls
AVCA Division I-II Poll: UC-Irvine’s upset of Ohio State caused some mild ripples in the weekly poll. Ohio State dropped a notch to No. 2, still getting 11 first-place votes. Long Beach State moved up a spot to No. 1 with the 13 other first-place votes.
BYU stayed No. 3, Hawai’i stayed No. 4, but UCI moved up a spot to fifth. UCLA moved up to No. 6, while previous No. 5 Lewis, which went 1-2 on its West Coast trip, dropped to No. 7. Otherwise movement was minimal and no new teams broke through.
Click here for the AVCA Division I-II poll
AVCA Division III Poll: Springfield is still No. 1 and got all 17 first-place votes, but UC Santa Cruz tumbled from three spots to No. 5, allowing SUNY New Paltz, Stevens and Vassar to move up one spot each. Wentworth jumped from 10th to No. 6.
Click here for the full AVCA Division III poll
AVCA Collegiate Beach Poll: Defending-champion and still unbeaten USC stayed No. 1, but Pepperdine moved up a notch to No. 2 and UCLA the same to third as Florida State dropped from second to No. 4 after losing to Pepperdine and UCLA this past weekend.
South Carolina made the biggest jump, going from No. 15 to a tie for 10th.
Two new teams moved in, Cal at No. 14 and Cal Poly at No. 15.
Click here for the entire AVCA Beach poll
Pac-12 beach pair of the week: A different kind of POW, but the honor goes to UCLA Canadian twins Megan and Nicole McNamara. They went 4-0 and so did their team.
National POWs
AVCA Division I-II POW: The honor goes to UC Irvine senior setter Michael Saeta. He averaged 10.67 assists, 1.44 kills while hitting .750 and 1.78 digs in a week in which the Anteaters went 3-0 and upset No. 1 Ohio State. Teammate Tamir Hershko won the award two weeks ago and teammate Thomas Hodges is this week’s MPSF POW.
AVCA Division III National POW: Wentworth Institute of Technology junior setter Collin Ritter. Ritter’s team had three victories and he had 50-plus sets in two of them. He also averaged 1.83 digs and .58 blocks. The last time a player from his school got the honor was in 2000.
NCAA men’s volleyball
It’s relatively late in the season, but there is still a lot of out-of-conference action going on.
That includes Monday, when UC Santa Barbara of the MPSF beat visiting Harvard of the EIVA in five and No. 12 USC swept visiting George Mason of the EIVA. Also, Charleston of the EIVA won in four at North Greenville.
MPSF
Player of the Week: UC Irvine senior outside hitter Thomas Hodges. The Australian who previously played at Pacific averaged 3.67 kills in a 3-0 week in which UCI upset No. 1 Ohio State. He hit .353 and also averaged 1.22 digs, .44 aces and .78 blocks.
Key matches this week: In the league, Hawai’i at BYU and Pepperdine at Stanford. In non-conference action, Sacred Heart of the EIVA goes to UCLA, Long Beach State and USC.
Last week’s key results: Everything pales in comparison to UC Irvine’s upset sweep at top-ranked Ohio State. Hawai’i had back-to-back sweeps of visiting Stanford, BYU did the same to Pepperdine and UCLA and USC both beat visiting Lewis of the MIVA.
Worth noting: Hawai’i has broken the school record by winning 32 sets in a row … BYU gets home court advantage in the MPSF quarterfinals with its next league victory … Dimitar Kalchev has 56 aces this season for CSUN, one off the school record set by Eric Vance in 2009.
Click here for the MPSF standings
EIVA
Offensive Player of the Week: NJIT senior outside Jabarry Goodridge. The 6-4 product of Barbados averaged 5.83 kills per set in two victories and hit .509.
Defensive Player of the Week: NJIT junior opposite Raymond Kowalski. Kowalski had 11 blocks and nine digs in the two wins. His offense wasn’t bad, either, with 23 kills in those two matches.
Key matches this week: The EIVA is almost entirely out of conference this week, with the exception being NJIT at Charleston for back-to-back matches. Among the non-league matches worth noting are Harvard at USC on Tuesday, and Sacred Heart at UCLA on Friday and Long Beach State on Saturday.
Last week’s key results: NJIT swept Princeton, which put Penn State, off for the week, alone in first. George Mason lost at Long Beach State, but bounced back with an upset — and sweep — of then No. 11 CSUN.
Worth noting: Goodridge leads the league in kills (267), kills per set (4.45) and aces (28) … Second-place Sacred Heart leads in team hitting percentage, .308, and also in opponent hitting percentage, .202. SFU is also the league leader in digs at 9.35 per set, although Saint Francis has the most at 725, and leads in service aces per set, 1.60, but NJIT has the most overall, 93.
Click here for the EIVA standings
MIVA
Offensive Player of the Week: Grand Canyon junior outside hitter Cullen Mosher. Mosher averaged 4.22 kills in two wins over McKendree. He .316 for the two matches.
Defensive Player of the Week: Loyola junior middle Jeff Jendryk. Jendryk averaged 1.25 blocks per set and had four digs in two matches.
Key matches this week: Lewis gets back into MIVA __play by entertaining McKendree on Thursday and then Ohio State on Friday in truly the Flyers’ last chance to make up any ground in the league and improve their NCAA at-large status. Ohio State will be coming off a loss for the first time in more than 400 days when it first goes to Loyola on Thursday.
Last week’s key results: Ohio State’s non-conference loss to UC Irvine, which ended its 42-match winning streak, and Lewis losing at UCLA and USC
Worth noting: Ohio State lead in attack percentage (.372) and kills per set (13.56), Lewis leads in total kills with 1,024. Ball State leads in total digs (704) and digs per set (9.14) … Ohio State’s Miles Johnson and Nicolas Szerszen and Ball State’s Matt Szews are tied for the lead with 275 kills each.
Click here for the MIVA standings
Conference Carolinas
Player of the Week: King junior setter Nick Drooker. He led his team to a 3-0 week and averaged 10.33 assists per set and also had 21 digs, six blocks and five aces.
Key matches this week: Barton plays at Erskine on Friday, while Mount Olive goes to Erskine and King plays host to Quincy of the MIVA on Saturday.
Last week’s key results: King beat Lindenwood of the MIVA in five.
Worth noting: Mount Olive leads the league at 10-1, King is second at 9-1 and Barton is 10-2. Erskine’s Isaac Lanier leads the CC in kills with 3.87 per set, but Jeff Sprayberry of King leads in total kills with 241.
Top-ranked USC beat No. 12 Florida International and No. 10 LSU at the East Meets West Invitational in Manhattan Beach and then headed to Hawai’i for spring break and to prepare for playing Nebraska and No. 2 Florida State on Friday in Honolulu. USC plays FSU again Saturday in a rematch of last spring’s title tilt at the NCAA Beach Championships.
FSU, also in Mahattan Beach, beat No. 6 Long Beach State and Cal Poly, but on Sunday lost to No. 3 Pepperdine and No. 4 UCLA. The Seminoles also face Utah, No. 8 Arizona and No. 5 Hawai’l in Honolulu.
Pepperdine is at Long Beach Thursday to __play the home team and Loyola Marymount. And then next weekend the Waves are back at Zuma Beach when the field includes Cal State LA, TCU and No. 12 Arizona State.
UCLA this past weekend went 4-0 with wins over LSU, FIU, No. 7 Georgia State and Florida State. The Bruins go to Monterey this weekend to __play Portland, San Jose State, San Francisco, No. 11 Grand Canyon and Saint Mary’s.
Stetson, ranked ninth, has a home tournament in Deland, Fla., this weekend that includes No. 7 Georgia State, Jacksonsville State, New Mexico, Morehead State, and Florida Atlantic.
LSU is in Baton Rouge at Mango’s, home site for the Wannabes, with Tulane, No. 15 South Carolina, FIU and North Florida.
Katy Hogan, FIU
Katie Friesen, FIU
Nicole McNamara, UCLA
Chelsea Ross, Georgia State
Rachel Nieto, Long Beach State
Megan Kruidhof, Long Beach State
Heather Weiss, Long Beach State
Hailey Harward, Long Beach State
Hailey Harward, Long Beach State
Brooke Kuhlman, Leigh Andrew, Florida State
Francesca Goncalves, Florida State
Callan Molle
Megan Davenport, LSU
Megan Davenport (passing) and Callan Molle, LSU
Jenna Belton, USC
Callan Molle, LSU
Nicolette Martin and Terese Cannon of USC collide
Terese Cannon, USC
Chelsea Ross, Georgia State
Shannon Fouts, Cal Poly
Delaney Rohan, Georgia State
“Sit in my lap, I’ll give you all of my energy”, says USC coach Anna Collier to Katrina Kernochan in set three.
Jim Moore huddles up with his Oregon team at the 2012 NCAA national semifinals/Ed Chan, VBshots.com
As of 10 a.m. local time Tuesday, head coach Jim Moore and his wife, assistant Stacy Metro, were still listed on the Oregon website, but it was reported by the university’s student newspaper the Daily Emerald that they’d been fired.
Moore, when reached by phone Tuesday morning, said, “I can’t say anything yet because we’re in the middle of negotiations.”
Moore’s agent, Nick Meeker, told VolleyballMag.com, “At this time, the only thing I can tell you is that yesterday’s reports stating that he and Stacy had been terminated are incorrect. They are both still employees at Oregon.”
On goducks.com, the Oregon athletic website, Moore is still listed as the head coach and Metro as his assistant. Metro is still listed as the head coach for beach volleyball.
Oregon finished 21-10 in 2016, 13-7 and in fourth place in the Pac-12, and lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Michigan. Moore has a 12-year record at the school of 246-132. His wife has been his assistant coach the entire time.
The Daily Emerald story says, “Sources indicated that Moore and Metro, husband and wife, were fired for cause last week.”
The Oregon senior women’s administrator is Lisa Peterson, also the head of the NCAA Division I volleyball committee. Peterson said in a Monday-night email, “I have no comment.”
The Oregon volleyball sports information director replied to VBM in an email, “We have no comment or information to give at this time.”
Oregon’s roster is considered one of the better group of young players in the nation. VolleyballMag.com will have more on this story as it develops. Click here for the Daily Emerald story.
Brett Rosenmeier of Hawai'i attacks against Clay Jones of Stanford/Hawai'i photo
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.
