No. 15 Ohio St. wins in 5 at new No. 1 Penn St.; AVCA polls, POWs; women’s coaching moves

Penn State was No. 1 for a day and a half until No. 15 Ohio State made sure the Nittany Lions won’t be next week.

On a Tuesday night non-conference showdown in State College, the Buckeyes of the MIVA got not only a much-needed victory, but they upset Penn State of the EIVA in an up-and-down five-set affair, all but ensuring that there will be a new holder of the top spot in next week’s AVCA Men’s National Collegiate Coaches Poll. 

Speaking of which, in this report we have the AVCA men’s and beach polls, the respective POWs, results of the six NCAA Division I-II men’s matches played Tuesday, a look at the limited Wednesday and Thursday schedules, and some NCAA women’s coaching moves.

Ohio State (13-9) won 25-21, 18-25, 22-25, 25-21, 15-13 by hitting .314 with a balanced attack at Penn State (18-3). Shane Wetzel led with 15 kills, three aces and six digs. Jack Stevens had 12 kills, hit .375, and had a block and four digs. Jacob Pasteur had 12 kills, three assists and seven digs. Michael Wright had 43 assists, a block and two digs. His team hit .314 and had six aces and 15 serving errors. The Buckeyes beat a No. 1 team for the first time since knocking out BYU in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, also at Penn State’s Rec Hall.

Penn State hit .342 and had seven more kills (58) than Ohio State. The Nittany Lions had 12 aces but 29 errors. Cal Fisher led with 19 kills and hit .500 after having only two errors in 34 attacks to go with an assist, five aces and six digs. Toby Ezeonu had 10 kills with one error in 13 attacks, an ace, a dig and four blocks, two solo. Brett Wildman and Owen Rose had nine kills each and Michael Valenzi eight. Cole Bogner had a kill, 48 assists, two aces, three blocks and seven digs. 

Also Tuesday, in the EIVA, NJIT (8-11, 2-3) hit .508 and swept visiting George Mason (9-10, 1-3) as Martin de Chavarria had 11 kills with one error in 12 attacks in the 25-20, 25-12, 25-22 victory. The Highlanders had 40 kills with eight errors in 63 attacks and seven aces and 12 errors. Jens Feldthus had eight kills with one error in 18 attacks to go with four assists, three aces, three blocks and three digs. Roque Nido had five kills in as many tries, 27 assists, an ace, two blocks and nine digs. Omar Hoyos had nine kills for Mason … 

In the SIAC, Edward Waters (7-3, 4-0) hit .424 and swept at Morehouse (0-13, 0-5) as 12 players had kills in the…