The at-large NCAA Tournament stakes are high.
Between top-ranked UCLA sweeping at No. 5 USC on Thursday and No. 4 Hawai’i at No. 2 Long Beach State on Friday, four of the top five teams in the AVCA Poll are battling it out this weekend in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball.
Saturday, USC returns the favor by going to UCLA and Hawai’i and Long Beach play again at the Pyramid.
In addition to UCLA’s MPSF win, unranked CSUN knocked off No. 9 UC San Diego in the Big West, and Tyler Mitchem went off for Lewis. Thursday’s recaps follow, but first a look at the other Friday matches.
Also in the Big West, No. 14 UC Irvine is at No. 6 UC Santa Barbara. UCSB won their meeting in Irvine on Wednesday, hitting .409 in a 25-19, 25-18, 26-28, 25-22 victory.
The EIVA is back in action with four matches, but No. 3 Penn State is off until Saturday when the Nittany Lions play at Saint Francis (PA), which plays host Friday to independent Daemen. Also Friday, Sacred Heart is at NJIT, Harvard is at St. Francis Brooklyn, and George Mason is at Charleston.
The MIVA is off Friday but has four matches Saturday, including No 7 Ball State vs. No. 13 Lewis.
The MPSF is also off, but Saturday’s slate includes the UCLA-USC rematch, No. 12 Stanford at No. 10 Grand Canyon and No. 8 Pepperdine home for Concordia.
Conference Carolinas has two league matches when Emmanuel goes to Mount Olive and Erskine goes to Barton, while Belmont Abbey is home for independent Queens.
There are three matches in the SIAC with Central State at Edward Waters, Fort Valley State at Morehouse and Kentucky State at Benedict.
MPSF — UCLA (16-3, 6-1) overpowered USC (17-5, 4-3) 25-23, 25-19, 25-17, seemingly going stronger as the match progressed. The Bruins, who hit .364 with six aces and 16 serving errors, got 14 kills from Kevin Kobrine. Kobrine had one error in 22 attacks and hit .591 to go with an ace, five digs and two blocks, one solo. Ethan Champlin had nine kills with one error in 16 attacks, two assists, an ace, a block and four digs. Alex Knight had six kills but hit .000 and added an ace and 11 digs. Miles Partain had three kills, 32 assists, two aces, a block and four digs.
USC hit .190 and had one ace and 14 errors. Kobrine’s brother, Sam, led with 10 kills and hit .300 and had an assist, no aces and five errors, a block and a dig. Simon Gallas had seven kills, an ace, two blocks and five digs. The match was played in the upstairs auxiliary gym in USC’s Galen Center because the main arena is unavailable …
Grand Canyon (15-9, 5-4) hit .400 and swept visiting Stanford (10-10, 2-5) 25-21, 25-20. 25-15. Camden Gianni led with 13 kills and hit .478. He had an assist, two aces, two digs and two blocks, one solo. Christian Janke had nine kills and hit .467 and had three aces, an assist and four digs. Hugo Fischer had eight kills, hit .333, an dhad an ace and seven digs. GCU had six aces and 18 errors. Stanford hit .141 and had three aces and 15 errors. Will Rottman had eight kills …
Jaylen Jasper had 18 kills and Jacob Steele had 15 as Pepperdine (13-7, 4-3) won 25-21, 27-25, 25-23 at Concordia (10-11, 3-6). Jasper had six errors in 35 attacks to hit .343 and had three assists, a solo block and six digs. Steele hit .360 and had an assist, an ace, a biock and a dig. Alex Gettinger had six kills, hit .313, and had 10 digs. The Waves hit .330 and had two aces and 12 errors. CUI hit .281 and had one ace and 10 errors. Owen Chun led with 17 kills, hit .353, and had four blocks and seven digs …
BIG WEST — Visiting CSUN (6-10, 1-4) knocked off UC San Diego (11-8, 3-3) 25-23, 25-21, 25-19. Kyle Hobus had 12 kills, hit .417, and had an assist, an ace, six digs and five blocks, one solo. Daniel Wetter had 11 kills, hit .529 and had a dig and two blocks, one solo. Their team hit .368 and had three aces and 19 errors. UCSD hit .141 and had two aces and 11 errors. Ryan Ka led with eight kills.
MIVA — Visiting No. 11 Loyola (15-7, 9-2) hit .443 and made short work of Lindenwood (8-10, 4-7) 25-16, 25-9, 25-17. Loyola’s top three attackers combined for 23 kills with no errors in 34 attacks. Cole Schlothauer led with nine kills in 17 swings as he hit .529 and had two assists, three aces, two blocks and six digs. Loyola had six aces and 13 errors. Lindenwood hit .070 and had an ace and 13 errors …
Ball State (18-2, 10-1) won its ninth in a row, a 25-17, 27-25, 25-20 sweep of visiting No. 15 McKendree (12-9, 7-4). Kaleb Jenness led with 15 kills as he hit .345 and had four digs. Angelos Mandilaris had 13 kills, two ads, three blocks and nine digs. Ball State hit .367 and had five aces and nine errors. McKendree, which got 13 kills from Patrick Ross, hit .181 and had two aces and seven errors …
Tyler Mitchem had a career-high 20 kills as Lewis (13-10, 5-6) won 26-24, 17-25, 25-23, 25-18 at Ohio State (10-13, 4-7). Lewis, which hit .370, had four aces and 15 errors. Mitchem had two errors in 29 attacks to hit .621 and added an ace, two digs and eight blocks, one solo. Max Roquet had eight kills, six digs and two blocks. Ohio State hit .327 and had seven aces and 19 errors. Samuel Clark had 17 kills, an assist, two aces, seven digs and a solo block. Jacob Pasteur had 14 kills and Martin Lallemand 13 …
Purdue Fort Wayne (14-10, 5-6) won 25-13, 25-21, 25-20 at Quincy (4-15, 0-11). PFW, which hit .384 and had two aces and 15 errors, bot 13 kills from Jon Diedrich and 11 from Bryce Walker, who had no errors in 18 attacks. Rico Wardlow had eight kills in 11 errorless swings. Quincy hit .162 and had no aces and 10 errors. Raje Alleyne led with 17 kills, three blocks and six digs.
CONFERENCE CAROLINAS — King (13-11) swept independent Tusculum (5-17) 25-18, 36-34, 25-21, while Belmont Abbey (13-11) got swept by independent Limestone (16-7) 25-7, 25-19, 25-22.
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