NCAA men’s volleyball: No, 2 UCLA tops No. 1 LBSU; Penn St. atop EIVA; Loyola upsets Ball St.

No. 2-ranked UCLA of the MPSF won the rematch, defeating visiting No. 1 Long Beach State of the Big West 25-20, 25-23, 23-25, 21-25, 15-12 on Saturday in NCAA men’s Division I-II volleyball.

In other matches involving the two conferences, the Big West teams won — No. 6 UC Santa Barbara beat No. 13 BYU, and No. 11 UC San Diego beat Concordia.

Fourth-ranked Penn State beat St. Francis (PA) and stands alone atop the EIVA at 5-0, and in the MIVA, unranked Loyola Chicago knocked off No. 7 Ball State to take sole possession of the lead at 4-0.

The recaps follow, but first a look at Sunday’s light schedule:

In the MPSF, No. 8 Pepperdine is at No. 10 Grand Canyon, and in the MIVA, No. 14 Ohio State is home for Purdue Fort Wayne. No. 3 Hawai’i of the Big West is home for the third day in a row against independent No. 15 Lincoln Memorial, and D’Youville plays Fairleigh Dickinson.

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Eight days after UCLA (8-2) got swept at Long Beach State (7-2), the Bruins came away with the victory in a match between the top two teams in the AVCA poll. Ethan Champlin led the way with 13 kills, hit .308 and had an assist, two aces, seven digs and three blocks — two solo. Ido David added 12 kills, three blocks and a dig, and Guy Genis had 11 kills with one error in 15 attacks, an assist and five blocks. Miles Partain had four kills in seven errorless tries, 47 assists, two aces, a block and 10 digs. UCLA hit .331 and had four aces and 21 errors.

Long Beach, which hit .286 and had two aces and 17 errors, got 19 kills from Alex Nikolov, 15 from Spencer Olivier and 13 from Clarke Godbold. Nikolov hit .300 and had three assists, three aces and six digs. Spencer had five blocks and five digs, and Godbold had an ace, four blocks and two digs. Grant Marocchi had eight kills with one error in 10 swings, a dig and seven blocks. Mason Briggs had 12 digs and two assists. Eric Beebe, playing for normal starting setter Aidan Knipe, had 42 assists and six digs. Long Beach reported that Knipe was out with a non-COVID illness … 

UCSB (9-4) took a tough 25-22, 28-26, 26-28, 26-24 victory over BYU (5-7). Dayne Chalmers led with 16 kills, hit 364 and had two assists, seven digs and two blocks. Ryan Wilcox had 15 kills, hit .367, and had two assists, two aces, six digs and four blocks. Todorov Donovan and Nick Amoruso had 11 kills each. UCSB hit .350 and had five aces and 22 errors. BYU also hit .350 and had four aces and 26 errors. Davide Gardini led BYU with 25 kills, hit .568 and had two aces, three digs and two blocks, one solo. Miks Ramanis had 15 kills, and Alex Ah Sue had 12 kills, eight digs and three blocks …

UC San Diego (7-5) hit .427 and beat Concordia 25-23, 25-20, 25-20. The Titans had 49 kills and 14 errors in 82 attacks and got 15 kills from Matthew Lim, who hit .524 and had eight digs. UCSD had five aces and 17 errors. CUI (5-2) hit .225 and had four aces and 11 errors …

Hawai’i (12-2) swept Lincoln Memorial (8-2) for the second straight day, this time 25-11, 25-16, 25-17. The Rainbow Warriors hit .377 and had four aces and 10 errors. Dimitrios Mouchlias led them with 14 kill, hit .436 and had five digs and four blocks, one solo. LM hit minus .028 and had one ace and 10 errors … 

Penn State (10-3, 5-0) hit .500 and broke the tie at the top of the EIVA be sweeping visiting St. Francis 25-21, 25-10, 25-20. Brett Wildman had 13 kills, hit .524 and added three digs for the Nittany Lions, who had 45 kills with seven errors in 76 attacks, four aces and 15 errors. St. Francis (7-4, 4-1) hit .169 and had two aces and nine errors …

Also in the EIVA, Harvard (4-6, 2-2) hit .411 and had a four-set victory over NJIT (7-3, 3-1), Princeton (4-8, 3-3) swept visiting Charleston (4-4, 1-3), St. Francis Brooklyn (6-4, 3-3) won in five at Sacred Heart (4-5, 0-4), and George Mason 4-6) beat independent Queens (6-7) in five….

Loyola (8-5, 4-0) broke the tie at the top of the MIVA with its 19-25, 25-23, 25-21, 25-20 win over visiting Ball State (9-2, 3-1). Parker Van Buren continued to come up big, this time with 22 kills, two blocks and three digs. Cole Schlothauer had 17 kills, three assists, two blocks and seven digs. Garrett Zolg had three kills in as many tries, 44 assists, two aces and 10 digs, and Loyola hit .278 and had eight aces and 13 errors. Ball State hit .303 and had two aces and 13 errors. Kaleb Jenness led the team with 18 kills, hit .325 and had an assist, four blocks and six digs. Felix Egharevba had nine kills with one error in 16 attacks, four digs and eight blocks … Also in the MIVA, No. 9 Lewis (8-4, 1-2) swept at Quincy (2-7, 0-3), and McKendree (5-4, 2-1) swept at Lindenwood (3-6, 1-3) …

In Conference Carolinas, North Greenville (8-3, 4-1) moved atop the standings as it won in four at Lees-McRae (4-4, 1-3), and Belmont Abbey (4-8, 2-1) swept Erskine (4-11, 2-3). North Greenville’s Gregory Torres had 18 kills, two aces, six digs and seven blocks. Fort Valley State of the SIAC was to play at Emmanuel of Conference Carolinas but that match was postponed …

In action involving independents, Fairleigh Dickinson (1-6) got the first victory in program history with a sweep of D’Youville (4-5), and Limestone swept the SIAC’s Edward Waters. FDU’s Jack Lydon had 11 kills and 10 digs, and Artem Vetrov had 10 kills and eight digs.

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