PRINCETON, N.J. – Penn State won the EIVA Tournament for the 37th time in program history, taking down No. 19 Princeton 3-0 (25-20, 27-25, 25-19) in the championship match Saturday at Dillon Gymnasium. The Nittany Lions swept all three of their opponents in the tournament to improve to 14-15 and grab the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers, who won the regular season title and hosted the event as the top seed, closed the season at 15-11 overall.
Matthew Luoma led the offensive effort with 18 kills, while Ryan Merk anchored an outstanding defensive performance by Penn State with his 12 digs. The Nittany Lions held the Tigers to .159 hitting, which was well below their final season efficiency of .277.
Michael Schwob tallied 35 assists and led Penn State to .290 hitting. His bigger production came from the service line, where he recorded three aces for the fifth-consecutive match. His nine aces through three matches this week played a large role in his receiving the EIVA Tournament Most Outstanding Player award. Schwob was joined on the EIVA All-Tournament Team by Luoma, Merk, and Will Kuhns.
Gaige Gabriel contributed both offensively and defensively in the win, hitting .667 with eight kills while also leading the team in blocks with five. Kuhns finished with nine kills and three blocks, Carter Dittman contributed six kills and two blocks, and Owen Rose chipped in with two kills and two blocks. Rose helped Penn State get to the championship match with great numbers through the first two wins as he hit .733 with 2.00 kills/set and 1.67 blocks/set in sweeps over Harvard and NJIT.
Saturday marked Penn State’s first EIVA Tournament win at a location other than Rec Hall since securing the title at Rutgers-Newark in 1996.
Princeton was paced by Nyherowo Omene with 13 kills, three aces, and two blocks. He was joined on the All-Tournament Team by setter Henry Wedbush.
Set 1 Luoma hit .357 with seven kills to lead Penn State to a 25-20 win in the opening set. Schwob racked up 12 assists and recorded his first ace of the night. The Nittany Lions started to pull away early with a 4-0 run that put them up 8-4. Luoma was in on the first three points of the run with a pair of kills and a block alongside Kuhns and Gabriel. Schwob capped it with an ace. They went on to lead by as much as eight at 14-6 following a kill by Dittman, but Princeton was able to fight back and get as close as one at 16-15 after an ace by Wedbush. Penn State responded with a 4-0 run and never looked back. Set point was later scored on a kill by Luoma.
Set 2 Set two was much more closely contested with 13 ties and six lead changes before Penn State came through with the 27-25 win. Luoma again led the way with seven kills, while Schwob again tallied 12 assists. The largest lead by either team was three, which Princeton had at 10-7 after an ace by Wedbush and again at 11-8 with a kill by Omene. Penn State led by three at 18-15 following a kill by Gabriel. Penn State clawed its way to 24 first with a kill by Kuhns to make it 24-22. Princeton avoided two straight set points with a solo block by Owen Mellon and an attack error by the Nittany Lions. Schwob followed with a kill but Omene responded with another kill for the Tigers to knot the score at 25-all. A service error by the Tigers made it 26-25, and the Nittany Lions capitalized with a kill by Gabriel for set point.
Set 3 Gabriel, Luoma, and Kuhns contributed four kills apiece as Penn State hit .375 and rolled to a 25-19 win in the third set. Schwob added 11 more assists and two more aces. The Nittany Lions used a 6-0 run to go up 10-4 and led the rest of the way. The first four points of the run went in the order of Gabriel kill, Schwob ace, Gabriel kill, and another Schwob ace to force a Princeton timeout. The Nittany Lions came out of the timeout with two more points on kills by Gabriel and Luoma. Penn State went on to lead by as much as nine at 19-10 after a kill by Schwob. Match point was later scored on a kill by Luoma to secure the EIVA Championship for the Nittany Lions.
Up Next The NCAA Tournament selection show will air live on April 27 at 4 p.m. ET on NCAA.com.
Libero/Defensive Specialist: Ava Bessette, Iola, sr.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The 2025 Marion County girls volleyball season was one to remember. We saw breakout performances from outside hitters all over the Ocala area. The Trinity Catholic Celtics went undefeated in the county while fielding one of the program’s most talented rosters. Forest made history with its ninth county title in a row under head coach Jim Collins.
The season was much more than those leading lines. We saw scores of volleyball players give their all in hopes of having the best season of their careers. Now that the ball is no longer in play, the Star-Banner is ready to unveil the latest edition of all-Marion County volleyball players.
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – It’s not uncommon for athletes to transfer schools in this era of collegiate sports.
However, for new University of Hawaii middle blocker Trevell Jordan, it wasn’t a move he was expecting to make.
Jordan — who has U.S. National team experience — had a stellar freshman season at Grand Canyon University, playing in all 21 of the Lopes’ matches as a freshman, amassing 111 kills and 67 blocks.
In April, the GCU team was blindsided when the school announced that it would no longer sponsor the sport.
“None of us saw it coming, like it was out of the blue,” Jordan said. “Went into this meeting thinking it was just gonna be how like next year was gonna go, and then that’s what they dropped the bomb, and like the meeting was like five minutes before they left.”
It was reclassified as a club sport with GCU putting out a release saying that the move was to stay competitive with other NCAA Division I programs.
Grand Canyon just joined the Mountain West Conference, a league that does not carry men’s volleyball.
With the abrupt shutdown, it left the entire Lopes roster looking for a new home, with many players catching the eyes of coaches around the country.
Jordan found his way to Manoa.
“He had offers to go to every top program in the country and ironically they were pushing him to make a fast decision,” UH head coach Charlie Wade said. “They pushed him towards us because I was the one saying, ‘hey, I’m in for the long haul, I want you here, take your time to figure it out.’”
Jordan is now getting accustomed to volleyball in the islands as he joins a squad with big aspirations in 2026.
UH ended last season one game shy of the National Championship.
“The difference in commitment here with the fans, the program, the school, as at GCU, we didn’t get as much love as we did like any other sport,” Jordan said. “It’s been really cool, the team and squad has been really inviting, so they’ve been working with me to get more like accommodated to here.”
Jordan and the ‘Bows open the 2026 season on Friday, the first of two home matches against the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
First serve is set for 7 p.m. Hawaii time.
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
At a specialist treatment centre in Ukraine, as other amputees play volleyball nearby, Vladislav shows a video on his phone of how he lost his left leg. He found the footage – of a drone closing in rapidly on a buggy, Vladislav standing exposed at its rear – on a Russian military social media channel.
The 31-year-old, an arbitration lawyer before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, makes a double whistling noise to describe the drone’s ominous progress. “That’s me,” he says, pointing at the video, filmed from a fibre optic drone, chasing him down with terrifying ease as the vehicle slows for a corner. Then the screen goes blank.
Vladislav was driving between positions somewhere near Lyman, in the north-east of Ukraine, on 21 August when his life changed for ever. An explosion “bam on the left ear” threw him and the driver to the ground. Still conscious, he could see the injury to his left leg was obviously very serious. But this was not his immediate priority.
“To be honest, I checked my crotch, if everything’s in the right place,” he says, grinning. The check was affirmative and so in that moment, the stricken soldier says, he reasoned life was worth still living. “Only after that, I turned my tourniquet.” That choked off the blood supply to his left leg, giving himself a chance of survival.
Video purports to show moment Vladislav was struck by Russian drone – video
The respite was short. Once rescued, Vladislav was soon losing consciousness. “I don’t know if it’s real or a common trope, but pictured in my memory I saw a white tunnel with a light at the end.” But it was not the end. “My comrade fell on me with his elbow on my wounded leg and I opened my eyes with every curse I knew.”
Dozens of seriously wounded Ukrainians such as Vladislav, who have had or need to have amputations, come to this specialist treatment centre every month. No one will say exactly how many are being treated here, but across Ukraine crude estimates suggest the total number of amputees runs well into the tens of thousands.
Providing help, support and advice to Ukrainian staff at the centre are a small number of British military personnel – doctors, physiotherapists and occupational therapists from the UK’s defence medical services, part of Project Renovator. The Guardian observed some of their work during a day visit, including sessions where British practitioners discussed their use of temporary prosthetics with Ukrainian counterparts.
“The numbers here are truly humbling,” says Mike, a British rehab consultant and an army lieutenant colonel, who is part of the UK team helping out. Mike worked in Afghanistan, where the British military was present until 2014, and says professionals like himself can contribute “an understanding of complex amputee rehabilitation” and “can help move their patients on to new legs quicker”.
Vladislav was an arbitration lawyer before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian
He is keen to emphasise that the British presence works both ways, in that there are opportunities for him and his colleagues to learn. Thanks to a combination of innovative surgery, electrical stimulation and rehab, the Ukrainians “are managing to fix nerve injuries faster than I’ve previously seen”, he says.
Britain has only minimally acknowledged a wider military presence in Ukraine, beyond its staffing at the embassy in Kyiv. Security measures around the medical crew remain tight, with only Mike able to be identified.
“I’m proud that the UK is stepping up to ensure wounded Ukrainian soldiers get the best possible treatment,” said John Healey, the defence secretary, praising their work. He said their goal was to work alongside Ukrainian teams “to deliver care and rehabilitation”, an effort that will have to continue long after the war finally ends.
Mike, a British rehab consultant helping at the centre, says he and his colleagues can ‘help move their patients on to new legs quicker’. Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian
There are a wide range of classes, and family and friends are able to visit unless the staff believe it would be unhelpful to an individual’s recovery. Part of the approach is to have “psychologically aware clinicians”, according to Mike, who can identify when patients run into mental problems. But a key part, as the volleyball shows, is being part of a group so the wounded can motivate each other.
Vladislav’s case is one of the simpler. He hopes to have a final prosthetic leg ready soon and to be discharged earlythis year. He says his mental state is strong, though at some point after two or four weeks, when he was on his own, he admits, “I cried a lot”. It was “like a divorce” until he eventually thought: “Let it be.”
What helped, the former lawyer says, was having his family nearby, including baby son Adam. However, he says: “I did not tell my wife about my injury for around a month and a half because she was pregnant.” Two weeks after Adam’s birth he told her what had happened, though by then she had “suspected something”, he admits.
Injured veterans playing volleyball at the rehabilitation centre in Kyiv region. Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian
Oleksandr, 48, is a former fitness teacher and swimming instructor who had both his legs amputated below the knee after an artillery shell landed close to him on 18 October 2024. After he arrived at the treatment centre, a succession of further surgeries proved necessary. One was to stabilise his wound, which had become infected; later, a metal brace was attached to the bone so the prosthetics would fit.
It has been a long, gruelling treatment, including a month in intensive care, and at one point Oleksandr wells up in tears at the thought of it. “In the beginning it was hard for me just to sit in the wheelchair. I was sweating immediately,” he says. But gradually, going to the gym with rehabilitation experts helped, and at some point as his exercising gradually improved, “I knew then I would get through,” he says.
There is a brightness and purpose in his eyes now but the future is uncertain. He wants to leave this year, when his legs are ready. “I hope I will be able to get back to my job as a fitness trainer,” he says. “But I just don’t know. I just need to understand what my abilities will be on the prostheses, how long I can walk. When I will learn walking, I will understand what my abilities are.”
Pictured is one of the groups of participants in the recent Chautauqua Lake Central School Alumni Volleyball Tournament.
Submitted photo
MAYVILLE — Recently, Chautauqua Lake Central School hosted its first ever Alumni Volleyball Tournament, welcoming volleyball alumni back to the court for a day of friendly competition, shared memories, and community connection.
Varsity Volleyball coach Joanne Meadows came up with the idea a few months ago with the help of her brothers, David Sturm, who coaches Junior Varsity, and Eric Sturm who is the assistant coach for both teams. The goal was to create an opportunity for both former and current players to reconnect, play for fun, and celebrate the tradition of volleyball at Chautauqua Lake Central School.
Meadows said the tournament did just that, adding that it not only celebrated the tradition of the program but also strengthened the sense of community among players across generations.
“It was a great day for past and present Mayville and Chautauqua Lake Volleyball players and shows why this program has been so special for so many years,” Meadows said. “The camaraderie in the gym was amazing to see.”
To get the tournament going and gather interest, Eric Sturm created a Facebook page for the event and invited alumni from across the years through it. Some alumni responded with full teams already, while others reached out individually and were placed on rosters, with five teams of about nine players formed overall.
Participants ranged from alumni dating back to the Class of 1993 to current students. Participants were both men and women, and Chautauqua Lake officials said it served to create a unique mix of experience, camaraderie and fun.
“We are so blessed to have the Meadows family coaching at Chautauqua Lake,” Chautauqua Lake Superintendent Josh Liddell said. “Their leadership, and the incredible support of all the alumni who returned to play and reconnect, helped make an event that truly celebrated the impressive volleyball tradition and community they’ve built over the past three decades.”
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