The NCAA men’s season remains unpredictable.
Saturday, unranked Purdue Fort Wayne, which had lost three of four matches before rallying to beat Saint Francis a day earlier, stunned No. 8 Penn State in five sets. The Nittany Lions had won three in a row, including back-to-back over then-No. 1 Ohio State.
No. 17 CSUN, which lost at No. 4 in four sets on Friday, turned around and knocked off the previously unbeaten Cardinal in four for its first win over a top-five team in four years.
Top-ranked Long Beach State and No. 2 Grand Canyon swept to stay unbeaten.
In the International Volleyball Hall of Fame Morgan Classic, Division III power Springfield swept Lasell to improve to 7-1
The recaps and top performances follow.
There are five matches on the Sunday NCAA Division I-II men’s schedule, including No. 3 Hawai’i again playing host to independent Tusculum.
Sixth-ranked Ohio State of the EIVA is back in action when the Buckeyes are home for the MIVA’s Lindenwood. Merrimack of the NEC is at the EIVA’s NJIT and Daemen of the NEC, coming off that upset of UC Santa Barbara, plays the ECC’s American International. The SIAC’s Fort Valley State entertains Life.
There are no matches Monday, but Tuesday there’s a MIVA match when Loyola Chicago goes to Purdue Fort Wayne. There are two matches in Conference Carolinas, Belmont Abbey at North Greenville and Emmanuel at at Erskine. The ECC’s Domincan is at the NEC’s Sacred Heart, independent Maryville is at Missouri Baptist and the SIAC’s Morehouse is home for Life.
If a match is being shown, we have the viewing link in our VolleyballMag TV & Streaming Listings.
Purdue Fort Wayne (6-3) of the MIVA rallied again and again to beat Penn State (7-3) of the EIVA 21-25, 26-24, 25-23, 18-25, 20-18. Mark Frazier led the Mastodons with 24 kills, hitting .306, and had an assist, an ace against seven serving errors, a block and seven digs. Jon Diedrich had 21 kills with one error in 39 attacks to hit .513 and had an ace, three blocks and eight digs. Andrej Polomac had 48 assists, two aces, three blocks and a dig. His team hit .344 and had five aces and 20 errors. Penn State, which hit .343 and had eight aces and 23 errors, got a career-high 25 kills from Michal Kowal. He hit .343 and had three aces, a block and seven digs. Michael Valenzi had 13 kills, an ace and seven digs. Owen Rose had 11 kills, hit .333 and had a dig and five blocks, one solo …
CSUN (6-4) of the Big West won 19-25, 25-19, 25-21, 25-22 at Stanford (7-1) of the MPSF. Kyle Hobus led the Matadors with 22 kills, hitting .415, to go with an ace, five digs and three blocks, one solo. Jalen Phillips had 19 kills, hit .412, and had two blocks and eight digs. Griffin Walters had 11 kills, hit .333, and had an assist, an ace against seven serving errors, and five digs. CSUN hit .383 and had five aces and 28 errors. Stanford hit .264 and had four aces and 14 errors. Kevin Lamp had 17 kills, hit .500, and had two assists, an ace, a block and four digs. His teammates combined for 21 kills …
It was a good Friday for the Big West as Long Beach State (9-0) swept visiting King (0-7) of Conference Carolinas and UC Santa Barbara (4-7) did the same at Harvard (1-4). Long Beach, which hit .436, got 10 kills from Sotiris Siapanis, who had no errors in 14 attacks, three assists, six digs and six blocks, one solo. UCSB’s Geste Bianchi had 14 kills, hit .370, and had three digs and three blocks, one solo. Owen Loncar had four kills in six errorless swings, three digs and seven blocks, three solo …
The two other MPSF teams in action won as Grand Canyon (9-0) swept the NEC’s Daemen (3-2) at Harvard and No. 10 Pepperdine (7-2) did the same at Fairleigh Dickinson (6-2) of the NEC. Camden Gianni had nine kills for GCU. Akin Akinwumi had 16 kills and hit .438 for Pepperdine to go with an ace, 10 digs and three blocks, one solo …
The MIVA had a conference match when Quincy (5-1, 1-1) held off Queens (5-6, 1-1) in five a night after losing to the visitors in five. Quincy’s Raje Alleyne had 22 kills, hit .571 and had all four of his team’s aces, four digs and solo block. Jack Brinkman led Queens with 18 kills, hitting .457, to go with an ace, two solo blocks and five digs … the MIVA’s McKendree (3-4) swept visiting independent Missouri S&T (4-4) as Kevin Schuele had 13 kils in 18 errorless attacks to hit .722. He had an ace, seven digs and a block. Teammate D’Aaron McCraney had nine kills in 11 errorless attacks …
The EIVA’s Charleston (7-1) swept visiting Central State (0-10) of the SIAC. Charleston hit .464 as nine players had kills, eight each by Evens Edouard and Ras Jesse Delancy …
Independent Lincoln Memorial (6-2), ranked No. 20 won in four at Emmanuel (1-5) of Conference Carolinas. Griffin Wheatley led the Railsplitters with 15 kills …
Merrimack of the NEC swept Dominican of the ECC. No stats were available … the ECC’s St. Thomas Aquinas swept Russell Sage and the ECC’s Roberts Wesleyan swept Houghton.
IVHF MORGAN CLASSIC: Springfield, which has only lost to the MPSF’s Concordia Irvine to open the season, beat Lasell 25-21, 25-17, 25-22 on its home court in Springfield, Massachusetts, not far from the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke.
Springfield (7-1) a DIII independent ranked No. 7 in the most recent AVCA DIII poll, hit .351 as six players had four or more kills. Ethan Walters, who hit .462 and had three aces, three blocks, one solo, and Sam Levinson, who had two assists, an ace, three blocks and two digs, had eight kills each. Brennan Cutter had six kills with one error in 11 attacks, two assists and three blocks. Chris Roleau had five kills with one error in 12 swings, five of his team’s 12 aces, three blocks and 11 digs. Setter Dylan Mulvaney had four kills in as many tries, 26 assists, an ace and a match-high 11 digs.
Lasell, a school in Newton, Massachusetts that plays in the Great Northeast, is 4-4. Jordan Sinaut led Lasell, which hit .147, with 11 kills, an ace, three blocks and two digs.
Springfield opened the tournament Friday with a 25-21, 25-23, 23-25, 22-25, 15-11 win over Vassar, hitting .400. Levinson led 19 kills, hit .400, and had two aces, six digs and two blocks, one solo. Walters added 15 kills, hit .407, and had two aces, a dig and two blocks, one solo. Mulvaney had four kills in five errorless tries, 47 assists, three aces, five blocks and eight digs. Vassar, which hit .349 got 16 kills from Jacob Kim, who hit .483, 11 kills and four blocks from Vaughn Ramsey, and 10 kills from Billy Fan.
Also Friday. Lasell (4-3) swept Endicott as Shinaut had 11 kills, hit .429 and had two aces, four digs and six blocks, two solo. In the earlier match Saturday, Vassar hit .585 and swept Endicott as Kim had 11 kills in 13 errorless attacks and Ramsey had 10 kills with two errors in 15 swings, an ace, two digs and five blocks.
Click here for more on the Morgan Classic, which has been in existence since 1989, and here for more on the International Volleyball Hall of Fame.
PFW, CSUN score NCAA men’s volleyball upsets; Springfield wins Morgan Classic Volleyballmag.com.
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