Palisadians Lead Teams to NCAA Volleyball Tourney

The NCAA Division I men’s volleyball championships get underway Tuesday in Long Beach and three of the eight participating teams have a Palisadian on the roster.

The first quarterfinal pits top-seeded UCLA, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation regular season champion, against No. 8 Fort Valley State, the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference winner. The Bruins are paced by outside hitter Cooper Robinson, who is second on the team in kills (221), third in service aces (33), tied for third in blocks (57) and tied for fifth in digs (65). A 6-foot-7 redshirt sophomore, Robinson played for SCVC and helped the club win the gold medal in the Open Division 17s at Junior Nationals in 2019. He led Loyola High to the CIF Southern Section semifinals in 2018, 2019 and 2021. His sister Charlie played at Marymount High, then at UC Santa Barbara. Also on UCLA’s squad is 6-foot-5 freshman middle blocker and fellow Loyola alum Spencer Graves, though he has not seen action this season.

Leading fourth-seeded UC Irvine, the Big West Conference runner-up, against No. 5 Penn State, the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association champion, in the second quarterfinal will be 6-foot-2 outside hitter Akhil Tangutur, who has amassed 97 kills, 13 aces, 112 digs and 24 blocks in 93 sets this season. He played for Pac6 Volleyball Club, helped Palisades High win three straight section titles (2017-19) and was named CIF Los Angeles City Player of the

Year in 2018. He earned an Economics degree from UCI last year and is currently pursuing a Masters in Business Analytics.

One of Tangutur’s Pac6 and Pali High teammates was middle blocker Justin Howard, now a 6-foot-6 redshirt senior at No. 6-ranked Ohio State, which won the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association tournament to earn a spot in the NCAAs. Howard has 172 kills and 76 blocks (second on the team) in 114 sets.

Big West champion Long Beach State is No. 2 and opens versus No. 7 Belmont Abbey, the Conference Carolinas tournament winner. The semifinals are next Thursday and the final is Saturday, May 4 at Walter Pyramid.