NCAA Men
April 14, 2024
Top-ranked Long Beach State was having none of it. A day after getting swept at No. 4 UC Irvine, the Beach swept the visiting Anteaters on Saturday to win the Big West regular-season title.
All four higher seeds — Ball State, Loyola Chicago, Ohio State and Lindenwood won their MIVA quarterfinal matches.
Eighth-ranked Penn State finished the EIVA regular season 10-0 with another win over George Mason, No. 2 UCLA swept Concordia Irvine for its 11th win in a row, Saint Francis (PA) beat FDU and finished the NEC regular-season 12-0, and Lincoln Memorial won the Independent Volleyball Association title for the sixth year in a row.
The NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball regular season concludes Sunday when the only men’s match is in the SIAC, where Fort Valley State, which has already clinched the league’s regular-season title, goes to Benedict.
Big West
The Big West Men’s Volleyball Championship starts Thursday at Hawai’i when fourth-seeded UC San Diego (12-14, 4-6) plays fifth-seeded CSUN (12-15, 3-7) and third-seeded Hawai’i (22-6, 5-5) plays sixth-seeded UC Santa Barbara (9-17, 2-8). It’s a rare occurrence for Hawai’i not to be seeded first or second but it certainly ensures a big Thursday crowd in the Stan Sheriff Center.
Top-seeded Long Beach State (23-2, 9-1) awaits the UCSD-CSUN winner on Friday, while UCI (18-9, 7-3) gets the Hawai’i-UCSB winner. The championship match is Saturday.
A day after getting swept at UCI, Long Beach bounced back with a 27-25, 25-21, 25-17 home victory as the Beach hit .431. Sotiris Siapanis had 13 kills, hitting .409, and had three blocks and four digs. Skyler Varga had nine kills with one error in 17 attacks, an assist, three aces and four digs. Clarke Godbold had seven kills, an ace, two blocks and two digs. DiAeris McRaven had five kills in as many swings and two blocks, and Simon Torwie had four kills in eight errorless attacks and five blocks. Aidan Knipe had a kill in two errorless tries, 36 assists, two blocks and five digs. Long Beach had seven aces and 11 serving errors.
Hilir Henno led the Anteaters with 13 kills, a block and four digs as UCI hit .359 and had two aces and 18 serving errors. Henno had no aces and six errors. Nolan Flexen added nine kills, hit .400 and had a block and a dig…
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