NCAA volleyball: Pepperdine opens with a win; AVCA Poll; two women’s hires
Jaylen Jasper and Pepperdine of the MPSF swept visiting independent Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday night to open the NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball season.
There have also been a couple of women’s coaching hires, the AVCA men’s poll came out, and the future stars of women’s volleyball played in the Under Armour All-American match.
THURSDAY MEN: There are four matches on the schedule, three of them at UC Santa Barbara.
USC of the MPSF plays the home Gauchos of the Big West at 3 p.m. Pacific, followed by UCLA of the MPSF vs. the Big West’s CSUN and then Lincoln Memorial vs. UC San Diego of the Big West.
Central State of the SIAC plays at the MIVA’s Ohio State.
Want to watch a match? If it’s being shown, and two of those are, we have the viewing links in our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.
WAVES SWEEP: Jaylen Jasper had 21 kills and hit .486 as Pepperdine beat visiting Lincoln Memorlal 25-18, 25-22, 25-20. Jasper’s teammates combined for 17 kills. Jasper had five of his team’s seven aces, two blocks and six digs. The Railsplitters from Tennessee got 10 kills from Shay Spadaro.
AVCA POLL: Hawai’i got 21 of the 22 first-place votes in the coaches top 15 preseason poll. UCLA, which got the other vote, is No. 2, and is just ahead of Long Beach State. Penn State is fourth and Pepperdine is No. 5. Five teams got votes but did not make the cut, including BYU.
Click here for the complete AVCA Men’s Division I-II Coaches Poll.
UNLV TABS SHOJI: Longtime Utah assistant coach Malia Shoji will replace Dawn Sullivan, who left to coach Missouri. Shoji, the niece of legendary Hawai’i coach Dave Shoji, was at Utah for eight seasons. She previously was an assistant at Williamette University and Western Oregon.
UNLV finished 26-5 last season, 17-1 in the Mountain West, and after losing in the conference tournament final was one of the few mid-majors to get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Rebels were swept by Washington State in the first round.
LMU HIRES KERSTEN: San Jose State coach Trent Kersten, a former UCLA player for Al Scates and John Speraw, headed south to Los Angeles to take the Loyola Marymount job.
In three seasons at San Jose, Kersten finished 47-28. The Spartans went 21-9 this season, 14-4 in the Mountain West. SJSU lost to Utah State in the MWC tournament championship match.
Kersten previously spent five seasons as an assistant at TCU.
LMU finished 18-10 last season, 13-5 in the West Coast Conference, and was swept in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by Oregon. Aaron Mansfield left LMU to become the coach at Oklahoma.
UNDER ARMOUR STARS: The all-star match in Orlando was won by the “Speed” team 27-25, 26-24, 26-28, 21-25, 15-12. Torrey Stafford, who is going to Pittsburgh, led with 22 kills, an assist, an ace, six digs and a block. Andi Jackson, a Nebraska commit, had 11 kills with two errors in 18 attacks to hit .500 and added a solo block. The “Phantom” team got 13 kills from Harper Murray, a Nebraska commit, and 10 each from Olivia Babcock, who is headed to Pitt, and Caroline Jurevicious. Babcock hit .364 and had five blocks, three solo. Jurevicius, also headed to Nebraska, hit .364 and had two blocks.
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