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It was a holiday weekend that featured everything in college men’s volleyball from the top seeds for conference tournaments being decided to multiple nationally ranked teams losing.
Check out the top five things to take away from this weekend’s action.
1. BYU gets home court for MPSF Tournament — BYU swept USC on Saturday to clinch a share of the MPSF regular season title and the No. 1 seed along with home court advantage throughout the MPSF Tournament in April. The Cougars can now clinch their first out-right regular season conference title since 1999 if they win one of their remaining three MPSF matches.
2. UCLA knocks off UC Irvine — Outside attacker Gonzalo Quiroga had a match-high 21 kills as No. 4 UCLA defeated UC Irvine in four games on Saturday. This match was also the first time John Speraw returned to UC Irvine for a match since resigning from his coaching position at the school last year to become the head coach at UCLA.
3. Stanford struggles after bye weeks — No. 6 Stanford returning to the court from a three-week break in its schedule lost to No. 9 Cal State Northridge on Friday and to No. 3 Long Beach State on Saturday. With their loss to the Matadors, the Cardinal is now 2-7 since 2005 in its first match back from its annual end of the academic quarter three-week break.
4. Penn State closes in on EIVA title — Penn State rallied from one-game deficits to beat both Princeton and George Mason on the road this weekend. These victories clinched the Nittany Lions a share of the EIVA regular season championship and now just need to win one of their two remaining conference matches to secure their 14th consecutive out-right EIVA regular season championship.
5. Gauchos returning to postseason — No. 8 UC Santa Barbara swept a two-match weekend series against Hawai’i to extend its winning streak to seven matches and clinch a berth in the MPSF Tournament. The Gauchos — which will make their first postseason appearance since reaching the 2011 NCAA championship match — are in sixth place and one-match behind Pepperdine for fifth place.
BONUS HIT
MIVA dominates Conference Carolinas — The MIVA went undefeated against Conference Carolinas teams during the weekend and finished the week 7-0 against the newest men’s volleyball conference. In the seven non-conference matches, the MIVA teams had four sweeps as Conference Carolinas teams won a combined three games.