Vegas victorious in first PVF match; Hawai’i, Ohio State, UCI win in men’s volleyball
UCI’s Hilir Henno had a career match on offense but worked hard on defense, too/Jim Wolf photo
The Vegas Thrill made the first Pro Volleyball Federation match in franchise history a memorable one with a five-set victory at the Omaha Supernovas on Wednesday night.
In NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball, No. 3 Hawai’i, No. 6 Ohio State and No. 7 UC Irvine where among the winners.
The recaps and top performances follow but first a look at Thursday’s men’s schedule, that includes more MPSF-Big West matches when No. 12 Pepperdine goes to No. 17 UC Santa Barbara ad Concordia Irvine is home for No. 19 UC San Diego.
The MPSF’s BYU plays host to the NEC’s LIU.
In the MIVA, McKendree goes to Quincy.
Daemen and visiting D’Youville play the first NEC match of the season, EIVA’s NJIT is at the NEC’s Sacred Heart and Fort Valley State of the SIAC is home for St. Andrews. Dominican has a home ECC match against Mount St. Vincent, which is playing its season opener.
If a match is being shown, we have the viewing link in our VolleyballMag TV & Streaming Listings.
A Thrill for Vegas
The rest of the seven teams in the first-year league had already played at least one match before the Vegas Thrill opened at Omaha with a 19-25, 25-23, 25-20, 18-25, 15-12 victory.
Each team had unlikely stars, rookies from teams that are not in the Power 5.
Hannah Maddux, who played last fall for South Alabama, led Vegas with 18 kills, three blocks, 11 digs and her team’s only ace. Maddux, a right side for South Alabama and a 2023 VolleyballMag.com honorable-mention All-American, got five of her kills in 16 errorless attacks in the fifth set.
Molly McCage, a freshman middle on the 2012 Texas NCAA-championship team, had 14 kills and only two errors in 32 attacks, nine blocks — eight solo — and a dig. German national-teamer Saskia Hippe had 11 kills, five blocks — two solo — and 10 digs.
Gabby Gonzales, who had 10 digs, and Layne Van Buskirk had nine kills each. Van Buskirk had one error in 23 swings, two digs and three blocks, one solo. 2016 Olympic setter Alisha Glass Childress, 35, had 46 assists, 16 digs, a block and two kills. Libero Kylie Murr had 28 digs and five assists.
Omaha, picked first by the coaches, dropped to 1-2 two days after it was announced that coach Shelton Collier was moved becoming “an Advisor to the Organization” and assistant Bird Kuhn was named interim head coach. Both the Supernovas’ losses were in five sets. Wednesday, before an announced crowd of 9,076 in the CHI Health Center, outside Paige Briggs had 14 kills, two aces, a block and 19 digs. Briggs played last fall for Western Kentucky and was a VolleyballMag.com third-team All-American. Briggs played most of the Omaha sweep of San Diego last week when she subbed for injured Brooke Nuneviller, who did not play against Vegas.
Jess Schaben-Lansman led the Supernovas in kills with 15 and had 14 digs and six blocks, two solo. Bethania De La Cruz added 13 kills, six of her team’s eight aces, six blocks and seven digs. Tori Dixon had five kills, three digs and six blocks, two solo.
Setter Sydney Hilley had 40 assists and 20 digs and counterpart Natalia Valentin-Anderson had seven digs and five assists. Libero Kendall White had 12 digs and five assists.
The next PVF match is Friday when the Grand Rapids Rise (1-0) play at the Atlanta Vibe (3-0).
NCAA men
Hawai’i (9-1) of the Big West beat visiting No. 5 Stanford (7-2) of the MPSF 21-25, 25-15, 25-22, 25-12 behind a career match from Alaka’i Todd. He had a career-high 17 kills, hitting .367, with a career-high nine digs and three blocks, two solo. Spyros Chakas added 15 kills, also hit .367, and had five assists, an ace, two solo blocks and eight digs. Hawai’i hit .346 and had six aces and 10 serving errors.
Stanford, which hit .153 and had five aces and 15 errors, got nine kills apiece from Kevin Lamp and Moses Wagner …
Connor Campbell and Brett Sheward of UCI put up the block against USC’s Dillon Klein/Jim Wolf photo
Hilir Henno had a career-high 29 kills as UC Irvine (6-3) of the Big West battled to a 19-25, 25-22, 30-28, 27-25 victory over visiting No. 15 USC (7-4) of the MPSF. Henno, who had four errors in 44 swings to hit .568, had an assist, a block and seven digs. Maxim Grigoieve had a career-high 17 kills, hit .353, and had two aces, three blocks and six digs. Setter Brett Sheward had 56 assists, three blocks and seven digs. His team hit .391 and had seven aces and 20 errors. USC lost despite hitting .422. The Trojans had four aces and 13 errors. Jack Deuchar led USC with 21 kills, hitting .500 to go with an ace, two blocks and six digs. Dillon Klein had 14 kills, hit .440 and had four blcoks and 14 digs. Caleb Blanchette had a kill in his only try, 49 assists, an ace, two blocks and five digs …
Ohio State (8-2, 2-0) swept visiting Lewis (7-4, 2-1) in a MIVA match that left the Buckeyes atop the early season standings. The Buckeyes won 25-20, 25-21, 25-23 as Jacob Pasteur led with 17 of his team’s 37 kills. He had two errors in 24 attacks to hit .625 and had four aces, two blocks and three digs. Thomas Poole had eight digs and two assists and Noah Platfoot had a kill in his only try, 30 assists, a block and four digs. His team hit .368 and had five aces and 15 errors. Lewis hit .259 and had two aces and 14 errors. The Flyers got 13 kills from Max Roquet, who hit .300 and had four digs and three blocks, one solo …
No. 16 CSUN (7-4) of the Big West had to go four to beat UC Merced. The Matadors hit .398 and Kyle Hobus had 14 kills, hitting .435, and had two assists, three digs and a block … Lindenwood (3-6) of the MIVA swept at independent Missouri S&T (4-5), hitting .429 … the ECC’s American International (1-8) lost to DIII Rivier (4-4), which got 14 kills each from Ryan Peace and Sokunbuth Ly.
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