NCAA men’s volleyball: Daemen upsets UCSB; Princeton thumps Pepperdine
Ball State’s Lucas Machado jousts with Loyola’s Jake Read/Samantha Blankenship, Ball State University
Unranked Daemen of the NEC upset No. 12 UC Santa Barbara, the second time the young program has beaten a ranked team in its six-year existence.
Tenth-ranked Pepperdine was swept by No. 16 Princeton.
There were no other upsets Friday as No. 1 Long Beach State and No. 2 Grand Canyon stayed unbeaten, No. 3 Hawai’i won easily, No. 5 UCLA bounced back against No. 7 UC Irvine and No. 8 Penn State rolled on.
The recaps and top performances follow, but first a look at Saturday’s NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball schedule that includes three Big West teams in action as CSUN is back at Stanford, UCSB is back at the EIVA’s Harvard here it plays the home team, and Long Beach is home for King again.
Also in the MPSF, Grand Canyon goes to the NEC’s Daemen, Pepperdine tries to bounce back when it stays in New Jersey and goes to the NEC’s FDU.
There is one MIVA conference match when Queens goes to Quincy. The MIVA’s Penn State heads to Purdue Fort Wayne and McKendree is home for independent Missouri S&T.
The EIVA’s Charleston is home for Central State of the SIAC. Two other SIAC teams are in action when Kentucky State plays Warren Wilson and Benedict plays twice, against Truett-McConnell and Milligan.
The NEC’s Merrimack is at independent Dominican. Another independent, Lincoln Memorial, plays Emmanuel of Conference Carolinas, and the ECC’s Roberts Wesleyan is at Houghton and St. Thomas Aquinas plays host to Russell Sage.
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Daemen (3-1) of the NEC came away with a 25-20, 28-26, 22-25, 19-25, 16-14 victory over UC Santa Barbara (3-7) of the Big West in a match played at Harvard. The Wildcats, who hit .212 and had three aces and 21 serving errors, built a 10-5 fifth-set lead. But UCSB rallied to tie it at 12. Daemen had two match points before closing it out on a block by Cameron Milligan and Ondrej Arabasz. Milligan led with 17 kills, hit .333, had an assist, six digs and one other blocks. Billy Weiberg had 12 kills, an ace, 11 digs and four blocks, one solo. Arabasz had 10 kills with two errors in 16 attacks, five blocks and a dig. Sean Califf had two kills, 48 assists, six blocks and 14 digs. UCSB’s Rees Barnett — who had 27 total kills in 2023 — had 23 kills but no aces and six errors to go with a block and four digs. Ben Coordt had 12 kills, hit .360 and had two aces, a block and 10 digs. The struggling Gauchos hit .250 and had five aces and 27 errors …
Princeton (6-3) of the EIVA knocked off visiting Pepperdine (6-2) of the MPSF 25-19, 25-23, 25-23. The Tigers, coming off their victory over UCSB two days earlier, hit .435. Nyhero Omene led with 15 kills, hit .500, and had two aces, two blocks and three digs. Ben Harrington had nine kills, hit .333, had two assists, an ace, a block and four digs. Ryan Vena had seven kills in nine errorless swings, an ace, three digs and four blocks, one solo, and Jameson Vaccaro had seven kills, an assist, a dig and four blocks, two solo. Cole Ketrzynski led Pepperdine with 15 kills, hitting .400. He had an assist, no aces and five errors, three blocks and four digs …
Top-ranked Long Beach State (8-0) of the Big West had an easy time of it against visiting King (0-6) of Conference Carolinas as it hit .579 in the 25-17, 25-11, 25-17 victory. Ten players had kills, eight by Clarke Godbold in nine errorless attacks. Nathan Harlan, who had seven kills in 14 errorless swings, had three of Long Beach’s seven aces. It marked win No. 400 for Long Beach coach Alan Knipe. King hit .068 …
No. 2 Grand Canyon (6-0) of the MPSF swept 25-17, 25-13, 25-17 at No. 18 UC San Diego (2-5) of the Big West. The Lopes, who hit .462, got 13 kills from Camden Gianni, who hit .4345 and had an ace and 11 digs. Cameron Thorne had four kills in five errorless attacks, three of his team’s seven aces, four digs and five blocks, three solo. UCSD hit .078 …
Third-ranked Hawai’i (7-1) of the Big. West hit .586 and made short work of visiting independent Tusculum (1-7), winning 25-11, 25-16, 25-17. Nine Rainbow Warriors had kills, 13 by Alaka’i Todd, who had no errors in 17 attacks. Louis Sakanoko had nine kills with one error in 15 swings and Keoni Thiim had a career-high seven of his team’s 10 aces …
No. 4 Stanford of the MPSF improved to 7-0 for the first time since 1998 as it downed visiting No. 17 CSUN (5-4) of the Big West 25-22, 22-25, 25-20, 25-14. The Cardinal, which hit .232 and had a season-high 10 aces, got 10 kills each from Kevin Lamp and Moses Wagner. Lamp had four aces and nine digs. CSUN, which hit .235 and had one ace and a whopping 28 serving errors, got 11 kils from Jalen Phillips. Kyle Hobus had 10 kills and that ace to go with four digs, an assist and six blocks, four solo …
Two days after losing at UCI (5-3) of the Big West, fifth-ranked UCLA (8-2) beat the visiting Anteaters 25-23, 23-25, 28-26, 25-22 as Cooper Robinson had a career-high 23 kills, hit .525 and had an assist, an ace, five blocks and eight digs. Guy Genis had 11 kills with two errors in 16 attacks, two asssists, three blocks and a dig. UCLA hit .432 and had 10 aces and 25 errors. Andrew Rowan had three kills in seven errorless tries, 50 assists, no aces and five errors, two blocks and five digs. UCI hit .357 and had five aces — four by Hilir Henno — and 12 errors. Nolan Flexen led UCI with 19 kills, hit .385 and had four digs and two blocks, one solo. Henno had 16 kills, hit .448 and had eight digs and two blocks, one solo. Maxim Grigoriev had 12 kills, two blocks and 11 digs …
Penn State (7-2) of the EIVA hit .433 and swept 26-24, 25-22, 25-19 at No. 15 Ball State (8-6) of the MIVA. Five Nittany Lions had eight or more kills, 13 by John Kerr. He hit .440 and had three digs. Michal Kowal had 12 kills, hit .360 and had an ace, two blocks and seven digs. Michael Valenzi had 10 kills, hit .333 and had three assists, two aces, a block and 10 digs. Ball State, which hit .262, got nine kills each from Tinaishe Ndavazhocheva and Braydon Savitski-Lynde … The day before, Ball State opened MIVA play by beating visiting No. 11 Loyola Chicago (5-6) in the MIVA opener for both teams. Ndavazocheva led with 19 kills, hit .395 and had four assists, an ace, a block and nine digs. Patrick Rogers, who had 11 digs, and Savitski-Lynde had 14 kills and an ace each. Loyola’s Parker Van Buren had 19 kills, an assist, three blocks and 12 digs …
Ball State’s Cameron Gray gets low against Loyola/Samantha Blankenship, Ball State University
No. 12 USC (7-3) of the MPSF, which lost at UC San Diego two days earlier in five, swept the visiting Tritons (3-7) of the Big West 25-21, 25-13, 25-21. USC, which hit .385 and had two aces and 12 errors, got 11 kills from Dillon Klein. He hit .348 and had an assist, an ace, five digs and three blocks, one solo. Riley Haine had nine kills with one error in 14 attacks, three assists, an ace, four bidg and three blocks, one solo. Wesley Smith had six kills in seven errorless swings and six blocks, one solo. UCSD hit .111 and had three aces and 19 errors …
There were two MIVA conference matches. New member Queens (5-5) won its first league match, 25-21, 25-20, 22-25, 22-25, 15-8 at Quincy (4-1). Six Royals had six or more kills, 17 by Jack Brinkman, who had 17, hit .433 and had an assist, an ace and seven digs. Albert Warzocha had 12 kills, hit .409 and had two assists, no aces and five errors, a block and seven digs. Setter Daniel Leitao had six kills with one error in 12 tries, 44 assists, a solo block and four digs. His team hit .386 and had four aces and 20 errors. Quincy hit 248 and had 10 aces and 21 errors. Aleksandar Sosa led with 16 kills, hit .313, and had a solo block and three digs. Raje Alleyne had 14 kills, four aces, a block and eight digs … No. 14 Lewis (7-3) improved to 2-0 in the conference with a 25-18, 19-25, 25-21, 25-16 win at McKendree (2-4, 0-1). Max Roquet led the Flyers with 18 kills, hitting. 351 and had three assists, an ace, 12 digs and three blocks, one solo. Nico Paula had 17 digs and an assist. McKendree’s Kyle Wilson had 11 kills, three blocks and seven digs … Purdue Fort Wayne (5-3) rallied for a 25-23, 16-25, 20-25, 25-23, 15-13 victory over visting Saint Francis (PA) (3-5) of the NEC. Jon Diederich led with 13 kills, two assists, two blocks and seven digs. Mark Frazier had 14 kills, six blocks and 10 digs. The Mastodons hit .229 and had no aces and 16 errors. SFU, which hit .272, had 10 aces and 25 errors. Nathan Zini had 19 kills, hit .471 and had three aces, a block and seven digs. Peyton Blain had 16 digs and seven assists …
In the EIVA, Charleston (6-1) swept visiting independent Thomas More (4-5) as Garret Schnitker had 15 kills, two digs and three blocks, one solo … NJIT (6-4) rallied to beat visiting LIU (3-6) of the NEC 27-25, 22-25, 22-25, 25-13, 15-7. Alessandro Negri led with 16 kills, hitting .375, and had two assists, an ace, six digs and four blocks, one solo …
Independent No. 20 Lincoln Memorial (5-2) won in four at Erskine (4-3) of Conference Carolinas. Griffin Wheatley had 11 kills, an assist, an ace, two digs and three blocks. Erskine hit .032 … Among other independents, Maryville swept Olivet Nazarene and Missouri S&T beat St. Xavier in five behind 21 kills from Nate Meyer, who hit .444 and had an assist, five aces, four digs and two blocks …
The NEC’s FDU improved to 6-1with a four-set win at the ECC’s Dominican (2-4) as Jamal Ellis Carballo had 22 kills, hitting .545 to go with three aces, three digs and four blocks, one solo, and the NEC’s Sacred Heart (2-6) swept visiting American International (1-4) of the ECC. SHU’s Carlos Terrassa had 11 kills with one erorr in 14 attacks …
In the SIAC, Kentucky State (1-4) beat Benedict (0-4) in five in the conference opener for both teams. Jordan Howard had 16 kills, hit .324 and had an assist, an ace and 13 digs … Edward Waters (2-2) swept Talladega.
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Ball State’s Rodney Wallace, right, and Lucas Machado block Loyola’s Jake Read/Samantha Blankenship, Ball State University
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