Third-ranked Penn State had to go the distance and then some Sunday at No. 6 UC Irvine to improve to 15-1.
The Nittany Lions won 32-34, 25-23, 18-25, 25-22, 15-11 in a match that took three hours.
In the only other NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball match Sunday, No. 12 Ball State also won in five in California as the Cardinals came away with a 23-25, 25-19, 25-15, 23-25, 15-12 victory at UC San Diego.
The recaps of those matches and all of Saturday’s follow, plus a hire in NCAA women’s volleyball.
Penn State (15-1) of the EIVA was coming off a win at Concordia Irvine in which it won a set 40-38. Sunday, the 34-32 first-set win UCI (10-6) of the Big West saw 22 ties and seven lead changes.
Penn State, which hit .311 and had six aces and 25 serving errors, got 14 kills from Cal Fisher and 12 from Toby Ezeonu. Fisher had three assists, three aces, nine digs and six blocks, one solo. Ezeonu hit .455 after having two errors in 22 attacks and added an assist, three digs and five blocks, one solo. Owen Rose had nine kills in 17 errorless swings, an assist, an ace, a dig and five blocks. Cole Bogner had five kills in eight errorless tries, 43 assists, four digs and three blocks, one solo.
UCI hit .239 and had 13 aces — nine by Hilir Henno — and 20 errors. Francesco Sani led with 22 kills, four assists, an ace — but seven errors — four blocks and six digs. Henno, who broke his own school record for aces, also had 20 kills, an assist and six digs. Cole Gillis had 13 kills, two aces and six digs. Joe Karlous had a kill, 47 assists and 16 digs. Cole Power had 18 digs …
Ball State (11-6) of the MIVA got 21 kills from Kaleb Jenness, who hit .390 and had an assist, two aces, three blocks and two digs. Tinaishe Ndavazocheva had 15 kills, six blocks and five digs. Dyer Ball had seven kills, an assist, two aces, five blocks and nine digs, and Felix Egharevba had six kills with one error in 13 attacks, three digs and 10 blocks. David Flores had two kills in as many tries, 48 assists, an ace, two blocks and nine digs. His team his .378 and had six aces and 14 errors.
UCSD (6-10) of the Big West got a monster effort by Ryan Ka, who had 31 kills. He hit .431 with six errors in 58 attacks, and added an ace, a block and a dig. Sam Warren had 11 kills, an assist and seven digs. UCSD, outblocked 16-2, hit .272 and had four aces and 20 errors.
SATURDAY: The big match of the day was No. 5 Grand Canyon’s five-set MPSF win over…
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