What a Thursday at the Outrigger Invitational in Hawai’i.
And what a Friday on tap in NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball.
Top-ranked Grand Canyon of the MPSF, the last unbeaten team, was knocked off by No. 5 UC Irvine of the Big West.
Then third-ranked Hawai’i of the Big West swept visiting No. 14 Lewis of the MIVA, setting up Friday’s No. 1 vs. No. 3 faceoff between two teams that now have one loss each. Earlier, UCI and Lewis play each other in the Stan Sheriff Center.
Second-ranked Long Beach State opens Big West play when No. 19 UC Santa Barbara visits the Pyramid.
Fourth-ranked UCLA of the MPSF plays host to No. 9 Penn State of the EIVA.
Eighth-ranked Ohio State of the MIVA is at No. 12 USC of the MPSF.
Sixth-ranked BYU is at No. 7 Stanford for a big MPSF match.
No. 10 Pepperdine of the MPSF continues its Conference Carolians swing when the Waves head to Tigerville, South Carolina, to play at North Greenville. Also, the MPSF’s Concordia Irvine is home for St. Xavier of Illinois. SXU is coming off losses at Vanguard and The Masters on its California trip.
The MIVA has two other non-conference matches when No. 20 McKendree plays Erskine of Conference Carolinas and Quincy faces independent Maryville.
There are two EIVA matches as NJIT is at No. 17 George Mason and Harvard goes 28 miles north in Massachusetts to the NEC’s Merrimack. Also in the NEC, LIU plays host to Barton of Conference Carolinas and Daemen is home for independent Tusculum.
Lees-McRae of Conference Carolinas plays Campbellsville and Emmanual of Conference Carolinas plays Talladega.
There are four SIAC matches. Winelsss Benedict (0-10) plays at Central State (3-17) — which is coming off back-to-back victories over Morehouse — twice, Edward Waters is at Kentucky State and winless Morehouse (0-10) is at Fort Valley State.
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Thursday’s action includes those victories by UCI and Hawai’i, and also Pepperdine at Belmont Abbey.
UCI (13-4) beat Grand Canyon (15-1) to ensure that no team will go unbeaten this season. UCI, which won its seven match in a row, got a career-high-tying 29 kills from Hilir Henno in the 25-21, 19-25, 24-26, 29-27, 15-6 victory. Henno had three errors in 64 attacks to hit .406 and added an assist, an ace, a block and eight digs. William D’Arcy had 19 kills with two errors in…
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