BYU put a bit of drama into the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation race with a five-set victory over error-prone Pepperdine, while Grand Canyon stayed undefeated in the league, and Hawaii made middles magic to highlight men’s NCAA Division I-II volleyball on Friday.
Elsewhere around the nation, Belmont Abbey took an important road triumph in Conference Carolinas and Saint Francis topped Daemen in a showdown of teams unbeaten in the Northeast Conference.
The schedule for Saturday features a Big West rematch in Honolulu between Hawaii and Cal State Northridge and the second in an MPSF back-to-back with BYU at Pepperdine.
Eight of the nine MIVA teams will see action. Ball State visits Purdue Fort Wayne, Loyola travels to McKendree, Quincy entertains Lindenwood and Queens plays host to Lewis.
Conference Carolinas has another full slate: Belmont Abbey at Barton, North Greenville at Mount Olive, Emmanuel at King and one-win Lees-McRae at Erskine, all in the afternoon.
Princeton and New Jersey Institute of Technology meet in an EIVA encounter, while in nonconference affairs, George Mason welcomes Tusculum and Harvard plays host to Dominican (N.Y.).
First place in the NEC again is in play when Daemen has a return match at Saint Francis. Also, Sacred Heart is at Long Island U., and Fairleigh Dickinson entertains Merrimack.
In the SIAC, Morehouse’s “0” has a chance to go when the 0-11 Tigers greet one-win Benedict and Fort Valley State is at Edward Walters.
Elsewhere, Morningside and Thomas Moore visit Maryville and in the ECC, Roberts Wesleyan travels to Saint Thomas Aquinas.
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Friday’s recaps
MPSF: Ranked seventh in the weekly AVCA coaches poll, BYU (12-7, 3-4) regained some traction in the conference through productive serving during a 24-26, 25-19, 25-22, 20-25, 15-12 rip-snorter over No. 8 Pepperdine (16-6, 4-4) before a crowd of 1,273 in Malibu. The Cougars snapped the host Waves’ six-match winning streak.
Serving sub Ian Little played a key role with four of BYU’s nine aces (against 12 errors) and opposite Kapuno Brown dialed up three service winners, to go with 11 kills, eight digs and five blocks. Topping the kills list for the Cougars was Luke Benson with 21, and sophomore setter Tyler Herget (a Penn State transfer) dished 45 assists, made 10 digs and logged four…
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