A wacky Saturday — perhaps the most unpredictable day ever — in NCAA men’s volleyball saw the top three teams in the AVCA Poll get upset.
Top-ranked and previously unbeaten Hawai’i, which hadn’t played in two weeks and was without four key players, got swept at No. 15 Ball State.
Second-ranked and previously unbeaten UCLA got swept by visiting No. 7 Lewis, which the day before got swept at Pepperdine.
Third-ranked and previously unbeaten Long Beach State lost in five to visiting No. 4 Penn State, which the day before got swept at unranked UC Santa Barbara.
Speaking of UCSB, the Gauchos did it again, this time beating visiting No. 9 Ohio State.
And Mount Olive might have made some kind of Conference Carolinas history against the MPSF when it won another set at BYU a day after losing in five. The teams combined for one ace and 39 serving errors.
There are no matches scheduled Sunday. On Monday, Hawai’i is back at Ball State, while Erskine plays host to Tusculum.
Ball State of the MIVA improved to 4-0, while Hawai’i of the Big West dropped to 4-1 after the 25-20, 25-18, 25-19 outcome in Muncie, Indiana.
According to Hawai’i, the Rainbow Warriors were without “due to health and safety protocols or injuries — setter Jakob Thelle, middle blocker Guilherme Voss, outside hitter Chaz Galloway, and outside hitter Filip Humler.”
Ball State reported that it was the school’s first victory over a No. 1 ranked team since 1995 when the Cardinals swept UCLA.
Ball State, which hit .410, got 19 kills from Kaleb Jenness, who had five errors in 30 attacks and hit .467. He had two blocks and four digs. Angelos Mandilaris had 14 kills, hit .385, and had three blocks and three digs. Nick Martinski had five kills, an assist, three blocks, and 12 digs. The Cardinals had one ace and 13 serving errors. Hawai’i, which hit .159, got six kills apiece from Spyros Chakas, Kana’i Akana and Dimitrios Mouchlias. Jak Walmer, called on to set, had a kill in his only try, 22 assists, two blocks, and five digs. Hawai’i had one ace and 11 errors …
Lewis (5-2) of the MIVA swept at UCLA (4-1) of the MPSF 25-21, 25-20, 25-23. Lewis, which won at UCLA for the first time since 2009, hit .333 and had five players with six or more kills. Jason Gibbs led with 10 kills as he hit .400 with two errors in 20 attacks. He added two assists, two blocks, and nine digs. Cole Brillhart had eight kills, an assist, two blocks, and four digs. Kevin Kauling had eight kills, hit .429, and had 15 assists, a block, and four digs. Tyler Mitchem had seven kills, hit .357, and had three digs and five blocks, one solo. Lewis had no aces and eight errors. UCLA, which hit .210 and had three aces and 15 errors, had five players with five or more kills, nine each by Alex Knight and Ido David and eight by Kevin Kobrine. Knight had one error in 13 attacks, three assists, two blocks, and two digs …
Penn State (5-3) of the EIVA, which had lost three in a row, bounced back to win 25-27, 25-21, 20-25, 25-23, 15-11 at Long Beach State (5-1) of the Big West as Toby Ezeonu had 16 kills in 17 errorless attacks. Ezeonu, who had a total of 37 kills in Penn State’s previous seven matches, also had an ace, two digs, and five blocks, two solo. Brett Wildman led with 18 kills as he hit .432 with four errors in 32 swings to go with four aces, two blocks, and four digs. Cal Fisher had 15 kills, an ace, a block, and seven digs. Will Bantle had 14 digs and three assists. Cole Bogner had a kill, 52 assists and two digs. While Penn State hit .302 and had six aces and 22 errors, Long Beach hit .260 and had three aces and 16 errors. Alex Nikolov came up big again for Long Beach, following his 24-kill effort the previous day against Ohio State with 23 more to go with an assist, all three of his team’s aces, two blocks, and a dig. Spencer Olivier had 19 kills, hit .469, and had three blocks and five digs. Clarke Godbold had 13 kills, an assist, two digs, and eight blocks, one solo. Mason Briggs had 14 digs and an assist. Aidan Knipe had 52 assists, a block, and five digs …
UC Santa Barbara (4-3) of the Big West beat Ohio State of the MIVA (4-3) 25-19, 25-15, 26-28, 25-17. Ryan Wilcox led with 16 kills as he hit .387 and had an ace, three digs and four blocks. Dayne Chalmers had 11 kills with three errors in 19 attacks, three digs and two blocks. Donovan Todorov had nine kills and hit .500 to go with three digs and nine blocks, and Haotian Xia had eight kills, an ace, four digs, and seven blocks, one solo. UCSB hit .382 and had three aces with 20 errors. Ohio State, which hit .151 and had two aces and 23 errors, got 16 kills from Martin Lallemand and 11 each from Samuel Clark and Jacob Pasteur …
Eighth-ranked BYU (4-2) of the MPSF got all it could handle in back-to-back matches with Mount Olive (2-2) of Conference Carolinas. A day after beating the visitors in five, this time BYU won 26-24, 27-25, 19-25, 25-20. BYU hit .244 and had no aces with 20 errors. Miks Ramanis had 22 kills with only four errors in 40 attacks to hit .450. He had six of those serving errors, nine digs, and four blocks, one solo. Gavin Julien had a career-high 12 kills, hit .450, and had two digs and eight blocks, one solo. Bartosz Slawinski had a kill, 42 assists, five digs, and two blocks. Tobi Azeez led Mount Olive, which hit .197, with 19 kills. He hit .342 and had his team’s only ace — MO had 19 errors — eight digs and four blocks. Jarrod Ferguson had two kills in four errorless tries, 43 assists, seven digs, and a block …
No. 12 UC San Diego (3-2) bounced back from its five-set loss at NJIT to win in five at another New Jersey school, Princeton (1-5) of the EIVA. Kyle McCauley had 18 kills in the 21-25, 25-14, 19-25, 25-19, 15-12 victory as he hit .368 and had three aces, eight digs, and two blocks, one solo. Wyatt Harrison, who had three aces, and Logan Clark had 12 kills each. UCSD hit .345 and had nine aces and 16 errors. Princeton hit .254 and had 10 aces and 19 errors. Nate Thompson and Ben Harrington, who had four aces, led Princeton with 13 kills each. Brady Wedbush had 10 kills with one error in 17 attacks. All five of Princeton’s losses are to California schools …
No. 11 Loyola Chicago (4-4) of the MIVA got away from King (1-6) of Conference Carolinas with a 25-18, 20-25, 22-25, 25-18, 15-12 victory as Parker Van Buren led with 18 kills as he hit .429 to go with two assists and six digs. Henry Payne had 14 kills, an ace, six blocks and three digs. His team hit .250 and had two aces and 25 errors. King, which hit .140, had two aces and 21 errors, meaning the teams combined for four aces and 46 errors. Diego Marcano had 12 kills, four blocks, and eight digs, and Suetonius Harris and Chance Hoffman had 11 kills each. Kellan Kennedy had eight kills and 10 blocks, three solo …
A day after knocking off Loyola, independent Lincoln Memorial (4-0) took it to another MIVA team, this time McKendree (2-3) as Cole Campisano had 17 kills and hit .429 in the 25-22, 18-25, 25-17, 25-16 victory. Campisano had two aces, four blocks and two digs. Johansen Negron had nine kills, three assists, two aces, a block, and a dig. LM hit .316 and had seven aces and 14 errors. McKendree, which hit .212 and had four aces and 13 errors, got 14 kills from Ethan Carroll and 12 from Patrick Ross …
Saint Francis (3-4) of the EIVA won in five at Purdue Fort Wayne (4-4) of the MIVA. Blake Liprando had 12 kills, two assists, two aces, two blocks, and nine digs. PFW’s Jon Diedrich and Vicente Ibarra had 16 kills each. SFU hit .194 and had seven aces and 25 errors, while PFW hit .215 and had three aces and 26 errors …
George Mason (3-2) of the EIVA won in four at North Greenville (2-2) of Conference Carolinas behind 21 kills by Omar Hoyos, who hit .341 and had two assists, three aces, 11 digs, and a solo block. Jack Bolz had 16 kills, hit .342, and had an ace and 11 digs. Mason hit .278 and had five aces and 25 errors. North Greenville, which hit .230 and had one ace and 17 errors, got 21 kills from Gregory Torres. He hit .378 and had 11 digs … Also in the EIVA, St. Francis Brooklyn beat Daemen in five and D’Youville in four, and Charleston lost in four to Queens …
Also in Conference Carolinas, Belmont Abbey swept both Reinhardt and the SIAC’s Fort Valley State … Emmanuel won at the SIAC’s Edward Waters in five … Barton got swept at Limestone … and Lees-McRae swept Bluefield.
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