Hawai’i sweeps, Ohio St. tops Princeton, NJIT wins EIVA opener in NCAA men’s volleyball

Non-conference victories by top-ranked Hawai’i and No. 13 Ohio State and a win in the EIVA opener for NJIT on Thursday set up a busy Friday and Saturday in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball. 

Among the ranked teams in action: No. 2 UCLA is at CSUN, No. 5 Pepperdine faces  NJIT at George Mason, No. 6 UC Irvine is home against No. 12 BYU, No. 8 Ball State is home for Queens, No. 9 Grand Canyon entertains Erskine, Princeton is back at Ohio State and No. 15 Lewis is home for St. Francis Brooklyn.

We will have our next roundup on Sunday, so here’s a look at Saturday’s schedule, that has Hawai’i wrapping up its three-match North Carolina road trip at Barton, Pepperdine playing George Mason, Ball State taking on Sacred Heart, No. 7 Stanford facing UC Santa Cruz, No. 11 Loyola Chicago home for St. Francis Brooklyn, and Lewis playing Maryville.

Want to watch a match? If it’s being shown, we have the viewing links in our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.

Hawai’i (6-0) of the Big West won 25-18, 25-18, 25-21 at Belmont Abbey (1-6) of Conference Carolinas. Hawai’i, playing without setter Jakob Thelle and outside Spyros Chakas, still won comfortably before a sellout crowd in Belmont, North Carolina. Dimitrios Mouchlias led the Rainbow Warriors with eight kills as he hit .538 after having one error in 13 attacks. He had a block and a dig. Chaz Galloway had seven kills, three blocks and five digs. Hawai’i hit .270 and had two aces and 16 service errors. BA, which got 12 kills from Matteo Miselli, hit .086 and had three aces and 18 errors … 

Jacob Pasteur had 17 kills and hit . 556 as Ohio State (5-2) of the MIVA beat visiting Princeton (2-4) of the EIVA 27-25, 25-18, 28-30, 25-23. The Buckeyes, who hit .339 and had five aces and 20 errors, also got 12 kills from Sam Clark. Pasteur had an ace, a block and six digs and Clark had an assist, an ace, four blocks and 11 digs. Cole Young had 11 kills with two errors in 14 attacks and three blocks. Ben Harrington had 18 kills and hit .343 for Princeton go with an assist, six aces against five errors, four blocks and seven digs. Nyherowo Omene ahd 14 kills, three aces and two digs. Princeton hit .178 and had 11 aces and 19 errors … 

NJIT (4-3, 1-0) won in five at George Mason (0-5, 0-1) in the EIVA opener for both teams. NJIT got 17 kills from Alessandro Negri, who hit .350 in the 18-25, 25-16, 21-25, 25-23, 16-14 victory. Negri had two assists and eight digs….