Ohio State and BYU will meet in the NCAA DI-II men's volleyball national championship match for the second straight year after each team swept through the semifinals on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.

Top-seeded OSU clinched its spot in the title game by cruising past Hawaii in straight sets (25-23, 25-18, 25-19). Earlier in the night, BYU met second-seeded Long Beach State for the third time this season and pulled off the upset in a sweep (25-20, 25-18, 25-23).

Last May, it was OSU seeded third and upsetting its semifinal opponent. In a reversal of roles ahead of Saturday's championship game, the Buckeyes enter as No. 1 seed with a 30-2 overall record, and the Cougars are the No. 3 seed with a 24-4 overall record.



"I'm pretty speechless with this group of guys," BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead said. "Sometimes in coaching I get caught up in watching these guys compete. Just the performance that these guys put in tonight was incredible."

Junior outside hitter Brenden Sander led the Cougars with 15 kills, which tied his season high, and hit .619. Senior outside Jake Langlois had only seven kills with five errors, hitting .111, but he contributed heavily from behind the service line, bombing four aces.

"I think the guys did a good job of trying to be resilient, trying to hang in there," Long Beach State head coach Alan Knipe said.

"We would get some good serving for awhile and then not make the most of our blocking; we'd pass the ball well and barely hit a ball out of bounds. We'd score a point and then maybe not keep our servers behind the end line as long as we'd like to."



In the second semifinal match of the night, defending champion Ohio State ended Hawaii's season with a sweep on its home court.

The Buckeyes hit .358 for the match to the Rainbow Warriors' .256, and OSU out-blocked the Hawaii 11 to 1.

Nicolas Szerszen led Ohio State with 10 kills and only one error to hit .409. The Frenchman also contributed five aces from behind the service line and scooped up a team-leading eight digs. Blake Leeson championed the blocking effort, collecting one solo and six block assists.



For Hawaii, Stijn van Tilburg led with 13 kills but had six errors to hit .233.

Saturday's national championship match is scheduled for a 7 PM ET start and will be broadcast live on ESPN2.

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