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Nothing like some Monday night volleyball to kick off the week.
No. 8 UC Irvine and No. 9 Lewis will meet in the season’s first match-up between two top-10 nationally ranked teams. In addition, No. 1 Pepperdine will play North Greenville and do something it’s never done almost a decade — play a road non-conference match.
Check out the college men’s volleyball matches from around the nation to follow tonight.
No. 8 UC Irvine (0-0, 0-0 MPSF) vs. No. 9 Lewis (0-0, 0-0 MIVA)
Match vitals: 7 p.m. in Irvine, California
Follow live: Live stats, Online video, In-match tweets
What to know: For the second consecutive year, UC Irvine and Lewis will play each other in their season opener. Lewis returns a majority of its starters including Off the Block/Springbak, Inc. Preseason All-American outside attackers Geoff Powell and Greg Petty. In addition, the Flyers last season reached the NCAA Tournament, becoming the second non-West Coast team in the history of the tournament to receive an at-large bid. UC Irvine also had two Preseason All-American selections with libero Michael Brinkley and opposite Zack La Cavera. The Anteaters on the road defeated the Flyers in last year’s season-opener and are undefeated in their four previous meetings. This will be the first of several non-conference matches this week for both teams. UC Irvine following this match will travel to the Outrigger Invitational for matches against No. 3 Penn State, No. 10 Hawai’i and No. 14 Ohio State. Lewis will also play No. 6 BYU and No. 10 Stanford at the AVCA Showcase this weekend. Despite being early in the season, all these matches have additional relevance with the NCAA Tournament selection committee’s emphasis of teams playing more non-conference matches this season.
No. 1 Pepperdine (1-0, 1-0 MPSF) vs. North Greenville (0-1, 0-1 CC)
Match vitals: 7:30 p.m. in Tigerville, South Carolina
Follow live: Online video, In-match tweets
What to know: North Greenville and Pepperdine after a day off will conclude their two-match non-conference series with the Waves looking to complete the sweep. Pepperdine in the series opener out-hit the first-year program .378 to negative-.032 and kept North Greenville to less than 20 points in all three games. Middle attacker Mitchell Penning in the victory led Pepperdine with five kills and five blocks. Unlike the first match that was played on the neutral site of the nearby Upward Star Center, the series finale will be played on North Greenville’s home court. This will be Pepperdine’s first true road match played outside of the West Coast since 2004. North Greenville in its program’s inaugural match had three players with at least four kills. Both outside attackers Martin Alcox and Curtis Westra finished with a match-high six kills against Pepperdine.