NCAA men’s volleyball: Long Beach new No. 1; Penn State reverse sweeps Ohio St.
Penn State’s Toby Ezeonu hits against Ohio State/Caleb Craig photo
Penn State not only knocked off then-No. 1 and unbeaten Ohio State in Columbus last Saturday, the Nittany Lions did it again with a reverse sweep at home Sunday.
There were eight total NCAA men’s Division I-II volleyball matches the past three days including a win for Hawai’i, which finished its mainland trip with a victory at Ball State.
The recaps and the AVCA poll follow, but first a look at Wednesday’s eight-match schedule that includes the first MIVA opener when Lewis goes to Lindenwood.
There are a couple of MPSF-Big West battles when UCLA goes to UC Irvine and USC goes to UC San Diego.
The MPSF’s Grand Canyon is at the NEC’s Merrimack and the Big West’s UC Santa Barbara is at the EIVA’s Princeton.
The NEC has two home matches against ECC teams when LIU plays Dominican and Sacred Heart faces St. Thomas Aquinas. Belmont Abbey of Conference Carolinas is home for the SIAC’s Benedict.
If a match is being shown, we have the viewing link in our VolleyballMag TV & Streaming Listings.
AVCA TOP 20: Long Beach State jumped two spots and is the unanimous No. 1 in this week’s AVCA National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Poll. Long Beach, 7-0, got all 23 first-place votes.
Grand Canyon (6-0) moved up to three spots to No. 2, the highest ranking in program history.
Hawai’i moved up one spot to No. 3, while Stanford (at 6-0 the only other unbeaten) moved up two notches to No. 4 and UCLA dropped three spots to No. 5.
Ohio State, after losing twice to Penn State, fell from No. 1 to No. 6 and is followed by UC Irving, Penn State, BYU and Pepperdine.
Charleston dropped out and independent Lincoln Memorial is back in at No. 20.
Click here for the complete AVCA Poll.
Also, the AVCA national player of the week is Long Beach State freshman Lazar Bouchkov, a middle from Bulgaria who had 18 blocks in sweeps of Concordia Irvine and Pepperdine.
RECAPS: Penn State of the EIVA and Ohio State of the MIVA were both 6-2 after the Nittany Lions’ 23-25, 22-25, 25-21, 25-18, 17-15 victory Sunday.
Michal Kowal led Penn State with 15 kills, hit .344, and had two assists, three aces, a block and six digs. Michael Valenzi had 14 kills — six in the last set with no errors in eight attacks — hit .393, and had two assists, three blocks and six digs. Toby Ezeonu, this week’s EIVA player of the week, had 10 kills with one error in 18 attacks, two aces, three blocks and two digs. Owen Rose had four kills in 11 errorless swings and six blocks one solo. He also had no aces and six serving errors as the Nittany Lions hit .282 and had seven aces and 27 errors. Luke Snyder made the most of his birthday, taking over at setter in the third set to finish with 23 assists, an ace, three blocks and three digs. Michael Schwob, the previous setter, had a kill, 20 assists, a block and four digs. Ryan Merk had eight digs and four assists.
Ohio State, without star outside Jacob Pasteur in the Buckeyes’ four-set loss to Penn State, returned and had a match-high 16 kills. But he hit .100 and had one ace and 10 errors to go with three blocks and six digs. Shane Wetzel had 13 kills, hit .346 and had an ace, three blocks and five digs …
Hawai’i (6-1) of the Big West won 25-23, 23-25, 25-21, 25-19 at Ball State (7-5) of the MIVA. Hawai’i, which beat Ball State for the fourth time in a row and won its 15th consecutive road match, hit .366 and had nine aces and 11 errors. Spyros Chakas had 14 kills, three assists, two aces, four blocks and five digs. Alaka’i Todd had 12 kills, three aces, eight digs and three blocks, one solo. Guilherme Voss had nine kills in 10 errorless attacks and six blocks, two solo. Ball State, which hit .333 and had four aces and 12 errors, got 16 kills each from Tinaishe Ndavazocheva and Braydon Savitski-Lynde. Will Patterson had six kills, an ace, two digs and nine blocks …
Also Sunday, Charleston (5-1) of the EIVA swept at independent Tusculum (1-6) by hitting .387. Garret Schnitker led with 18 kills, hitting .556 … D’Youville (4-0) of the NEC won in five at the ECC’s St. Thomas Aquinas (0-6) as Shaun Vattakuzhiyll had 13 kills, three aces and two blocks … St. Francis (PA) improved to 3-4 by sweeping Queens (4-5) of the MIVA. SFU hit .415. Andrew Deardorff led with 10 kills, hitting .412 …
Monday, Emmanuel (1-4) of Conference Carolinas won the only match of the day, beating the SIAC’s Edward Waters (1-2) in four. Emmanuel’s Eli Zdonek had 14 kills, hitting .400 …
The MIVA’s Quincy (4-0) swept independent Missouri S&T (3-3) on Tuesday as Raje Alleyne went off for 22 kills, hitting .447, to go with two assists, an ace, four digs and three blocks, two solo … the ECC’s Dominican (2-2) swept DIII Yeshiva and Roosevelt (1-0) swept Concordia Chicago (3-3).
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Ball State’s Tinaishe Ndavazocheva hits past the Hawai’i triple block/Ball State photo
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