Hot-hitting UCLA, Penn St., UCSB win

UCLA opened its men’s volleyball season with sweeps of two visiting SIAC schools, Fort Valley State and Morehouse, hitting a school-record .822 against Morehouse. 

Other winners Thursday included Penn State, UC Santa Barbara, Grand Canyon and UC San Diego.

Recaps follow but first a look at Friday’s NCAA Division I-II schedule that includes Loyola Chicago back at Hawai’i after getting swept there Wednesday.

Fort Valley plays at USC, while Morehouse goes to Pepperdine.

At Santa Barbara, UCSD plays GCU, George Mason plays the home team and CSUN faces NJIT. 

Ball State goes to BYU for back-to-back matches and Lewis heads to Central State.

Want to watch an NCAA men’s volleyball match? If a match is being shown, we’ve got the viewing link at the VolleyballMag TV & Streaming Listings.

UCLA (2-0) of the MPSF hit .427 and swept Fort Valley State (0-2) as Ethan Champlin had 13 kills in the 25-18, 25-12, 25-17 victory. Champlin had two errors in 20 attacks to hit .550 and added three assists, an ace, a block and 10 digs. Ido David had 10 kills, an assist, five digs and three blocks, one solo. FVSU got 11 kills from Chey Cooper, who hit .400 and had an assist, an ace and seven digs …

The Bruins then hit a program-best .822 and demolished Morehouse 25-9, 25-15, 25-6. UCLA had 38 kills with one error in 45 swings. UCLA’s previous school record hitting percentage for a match was .666 against Loyola Marymount in 1984. The previous MPSF record was .667 UCSB  in 2011 …

For both matches the defending national champions played en route to their 14th win in a row, the Bruins had 89 kills with 10 errors in 120 attacks. Against Morehouse, Zach Rama had 10 kills with no error in 12 attacks, an assist and three aces. Cooper Robinson had nine kills with that only error in 11 swings, two assist, two blocks and three digs.

Penn State of the EIVA rolled to a 25-14, 25-17, 25-19 sweep of visiting Central State of the SIAC in the opener for both teams. Tony Ezeonu had 10 kills in as many tries, becoming just the fourth player in program history to hit 1.000 with a minimum of 10 attacks, joining Norm Keil (10-0-10) vs. Rutgers in 2002, Zeljko Koljesar (11-0-11) vs. Springfield in 2002, and Max Holt (12-0-12) vs. Harvard in 2009. Penn State hit .508 with 39 kills and nine errors in 59 attacks. John Kerr had seven kills with one error in…