BYU sweeps Iowa St.; Omaha’s streak ends; Waves win; big NCAA volleyball Friday ahead

Long Beach State’s Abby Karich jousts with UCI’s Ella Gardner, left, and Nicole Feliciano/Jim Wolf photo

The only ranked team in action, BYU, blasted visiting Iowa State in the Big 12 on a Thursday night in which Omaha’s eight-match Summit League win streak ended and Pepperdine won a big West Coast Conference match.

The recaps and top performances follow — including 29 kills by UNLV’s Isabel Martin in a losing effort — but first a look at Friday’s NCAA Division I women’s volleyball schedule, one with a handful of key matches.

While the college volleyball world awaits Saturday’s Big Ten showdown between No. 1 Wisconsin at No. 2 Nebraska, the only other unbeaten, The Citadel, plays host to Samford. The Citadel is 20-0, 8-0 in the SoCon.

There are three B1G matches when No. 11 Penn State plays host to Iowa, Rutgers is at Minnesota and Illinois goes to Maryland.

The SEC has a showcase match when second-place No. 12 Tennessee (16-2, 7-1) goes to league-leading No. 7 Arkansas (17-2, 7-0). The battle behind them could tighten as AVCA No. 20 Kentucky (8-7, 6-1) tries to keep pace when it entertains Mississippi State (9-8, 2-5), VBM No. 15 Florida (12-4, 4-3) is at Texas A&M (14-4, 6-2) and Missouri (12-7, 4-4) is at AVCA No. 23 Auburn (14-4, 4-3).

There’s a full slate in the ACC, including No. 5 Louisville at Wake Forest, No. 7 Pittsburgh at NC State and No. 13 Georgia Tech home for Duke. Notre Dame is at Virginia Tech, Boston College is at Florida State, Syracuse is at Miami and North Carolina is at Clemson.

In the Pac-12, no ranked teams play each other as No. 3 Stanford goes to Oregon State, No. 4 Washington State is at USC, Washington goes to UCLA, No. 9 Oregon is home for Cal, No. 14 Arizona State is at Utah and Arizona is at Colorado.

The Big 12 slate includes Iowa State back at BYU, AVCA No. 22 Houston at Texas Tech, Kansas State at Oklahoma and Cincinnati back at West Virginia.

In the Atlantic 10, VBM No. 15 Dayton (20-2, 9-0) is home for Saint Louis, while VCU (11-8, 8-1) tries to keep pace when it plays host to Loyola Chicago. 

St. John’s (15-5, 7-1) and tied with Marquette (11-8, 7-1) are tied atop the Big East and AVCA No. 15 Creighton is right behind at 6-2, tied with Xavier. St. John’s is at Georgetown, Marquette is at Butler, Creighton is at UConn and Xavier is home for DePaul.

SMU, which leads the American Athletic at 8-1, plays host to Rice (7-1), while the other team in second, 7-1 Wichita State, is home for Tulsa.

There are six matches in the MAC, none bigger than Ball State (12-8, 9-0) and tied with Western Michigan atop the West, at East leader Buffalo (17-4, 7-2). WMU is at Eastern Michigan.

There are two key battles in the Sun Belt when West-leading South Alabama (8-0) plays third-place Texas State (5-1) and East leader Coastal Carolina (8-0) plays host to second-place James Madison (6-0).

Could this be the day Le Moyne (0-17) breaks through? The Dolphins from Syracuse, N.Y., play an NEC home match against 2-22 Stonehill. The Skyhawks from Easton, Massachusetts, have lost six in a row.

Want to watch? We have the conference-by-conference schedule with viewing links for any match that is being shown in our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.

BYU (17-3, 6-2) overwhelmed visiting Iowa State (13-5, 4-3) as the Cougars hit .370 in the 25-14, 25-17, 25-18 sweep. Erin Livingston had 15 kills with two errors in 24 attacks to hit .542 and had an ace, three digs and three blocks. Also in the Big 12, Cincinnati (9-9, 2-4) won in five at West Virginia (9-12, 2-6) as Elissa Alcantara had 23 kills, hitting .395. WVU’s Hailey Green had 21 kills with two errors in 37 attacks to hit .514. Oklahoma (7-10, 1-7) got its first conference win, a five-set victory over visiting Kansas State (10-8, 4-5) …

Pepperdine beat Loyola Marymount in five and now the West Coast Conference standings now show Pepperdine alone at the top at 12-6, 8-0, followed by San Diego (11-7, 7-1), which moved a game up in the loss column on Loyola Marymount (14-5, 7-2). In Pepperdine’s 21-25, 25-12, 23-25, 25-21, 15-11 at LMU, Grace Chillingsworth had 18 kills, an ace, three blocks and 13 digs. San Diego swept visiting Portland, which hit minus .011 … 

WAC-leading Stephen F. Austin won in four at Utah Tech, its nine victory in a row, and Grand Canyon stayed a game back by beating visiting Utah Valley in four. GCU’s Tatum Parrott had 18 kills, hit .412, and had four digs and four blocks, one solo …

Utah State (8-1)maintained its Mountain West lead with a five-set win at UNLV despite 29 kills by UNLV’s Isabel Martin, who hit .388 and had two assists, three aces, 11 digs and four blocks, one solo. Utah State’s Shelby Copllonch had 19 kills, hit .341 and had an assist, four aces and 12 digs. Boise State (6-2) got 25 kills from Paige Bartsch, but dropped 1.5 games back by losing in four at San Diego State. Bartsch hit .389 and had an assist, nine digs and five blocks. Also in the MWC, in Wyoming’s sweep of Nevada, Tierney Barlow had 16 kills with no errors in 21 attacks to hit .762 and she had an assist, two aces, three digs and four blocks, one solo. Fresno State won in five at Colorado State in a match with a lot big numbers. Fresno’s Addison Haluska had 19 kills, hit .356, and four blocks, one solo. Brooke Cowie had four kills with one error in seven tries, 52 assists, four aces, 11 digs and four blocks. Four CSU players had 10 or more kills, 18 by Kennedy Stanford and 12 by Karina Leber, who had one error in 19 swings. Emery Herman had four kills with one error in nine attempts, 56 assists, 18 digs and a solo block …

Southland-leading Southeastern Louisiana won in four at Houston Christian as Kailin Newsome had 21 kills, an assist, an ace, 14 digs and a solo block. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi stayed a game back in the win column with a four-set win at McNeese …

South Dakota (6-3) beat visiting Omaha (8-2) in five, ending the Racers’ eight-match winning streak, which allowed idle Kansas City (7-1) to move into first place in The Summit League. Also in the Summit, Denver (7-2) won in five at North Dakota State as Cassie Davis had 22 kills, hit .309 and had an ace, six digs and six blocks …

Sacramento State (7-1) has a game lead on 6-2 Montana State and Weber State in the Big Sky after the Hornets beat visiting Montana in four and Weber State lost in four to Northern Colorado and Montana State lost in five at Portland State. Portland State’s Sophia Meyers had 21 kills, hit .327, and had four aces, 20 digs and a block …

UC Santa Barbara stayed two games up in the Big West as the 9-0 Gauchos swept at CSU Bakersfield. Briana McKnight had 13 kills, hit .333, and had an assist, nine digs and two blocks, one solo.Idle Hawai’i and Long Beach State, which swept at UC Irvine, are tied for second at 7-2. Long Beach hit .345 as Katie Kennedy had 12 kills with one error in 16 attacks and Elise Agi had 10 with one error in 30 swings to go with four aces.

Utah Tech setter Marley Rose gets the ball over against SFA/Stan Plewe, Utah Tech Athletics

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