Three quarters of the NCAA Tournament field is set, with six automatic bids earned Saturday during conference championships for the MPSF, SIAC, MIVA, Conference Carolinas, EIVA and Big West. Most notably, Grand Canyon upset UCLA in the MPSF and Long Beach State beat UC Irvine in the Big West,
But both the losing teams should expect to hear their names called Sunday on NCAA.com at 4 p.m. Eastern when two at-large bids will be announced to fill out the eight-team bracket. The NCAA’s National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship begins with quarterfinals April 30 at Long Beach State, with the semifinals May 2 and the final May 4.
MPSF: GCU gets first title
Second-seeded Grand Canyon pulled off the biggest win, defeating national champion and top-seeded UCLA, 25-16, 24-26, 25-17, 19-25, 15-10 to earn the MPSF’s automatic NCAA bid.
UCLA (23-5), which had won 12 matches in a row, defeated Grand Canyon (25-4) in their two regular-season meetings. This is GCU’s first MPSF title. The Lopes got an at-large bid last year.
“The things that we’ve been saying in the last few weeks is the importance of focusing on those little things and making sure that you have each other’s backs and deflecting other teams’ big points and just making sure that we’re taking care of everything on our side of the net,” GCU coach Matt Werle said.
GCU’s Camden Gianni led all players with 16 kills to go with five digs, four total blocks and four aces. Jarrett Anderson added 12 kills, nine digs and two aces. The Antelopes out-served the Bruins, 10 aces to five, and out-hit the Bruins .361-.288.
The Bruins helped the Antelopes’ cause with 23 service errors – 10 more than GCU – and 10 serve-receive errors to GCU’s five.
Zach Rama led UCLA with 14 kills (.550), and Ethan Champlin and Cooper Robinson had 11 each. The Bruins now hope to land one of the two at-large bids.
Big West: Long Beach tops UCI
Top-seeded Long Beach State (25-4) earned its third consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament with a 25-23, 21-25, 25-16, 25-15 victory over second-seeded UC Irvine (19-10). Coach Alan Knipe’s team is in the tournament for the seventh time in eight years.
Clarke Godbold had 17 kills and a personal-best five aces for the Beach. Sotiris Siapanis finished with 15 kills — hitting a…
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