NCAA volleyball: Texas Tech upsets KU; Florida tops Auburn; Wisconsin, Nebraska, Louisville, Pitt win
Louisville’s Anna DeBeer hits against Syracuse/Dior Sy, Louisville Athletics
Texas Tech beat visiting No. 17 Kansas in a Big 12 reverse sweep on Friday night and No. 3 Florida had to come back to win in overtime at No. 24 Auburn.
Three teams — Stonehill, Bethune-Cookman and Tennessee State — got their first victories,.
The recaps and top performances follow, but first a look at Saturday’s key matches on the NCAA Division I volleyball schedule on a day when the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC are off. Accordingly, Sunday’s schedule is loaded.
The Big 12 has three matches Saturday involving four ranked teams, starting with No. 10 BYU home for No. 18 Baylor, No. 17 Kansas back at Texas Tech and No. 9 Texas at back Oklahoma.
The Big East’s No. 11 Creighton goes to Xavier, and No. 23 Dayton of the Atlantic 10 is back at Loyola Chicago. Western Kentucky, tied with Iowa State at No. 25, is home again for UTEP.
Other matches include 11-1 Georgia Southern home for Arkansas State, 12-1 Hofstra at Northeastern, 10-1 Fordham home for Duquesne, 11-1 Wyoming at Boise State, and 12-1 Eastern Illinois at UT Martin.
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.
VBM MEDIA POLL: Our inaugural VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll comes out Monday.
This will be a first in evaluating and ranking NCAA women’s volleyball. We’ve put together a panel of the top media experts around the country who follow the sport closely and they’re excited about this finally happening. It’s something we’ve kicked around for years, but the time is now.
ACC: Fifth-ranked Louisville crushed visiting Syracuse 25-15, 25-11, 25-8 as nine players had kills, nine by Anna DeBeer. She had no errors in 17 attacks and her team hit .452 with 38 kills and five errors in 73 swings. Syracuse hit minus .056 … No. 8 Pittsburgh swept at Duke as Torrey Stafford had 15 kills and Olivia Babcock had 13 … Florida State came away with a 25-20, 20-25, 15-25, 25-23, 19-17 victory at Virginia Tech in which Khori Lewis had 15 kills, hitting .481, and Kiara Robey had 12 blocks. VT’s Iliana Rodriguez had 34 digs and an assist … Notre Dame came away with a huge five-set win over visiting Boston College as Ava Lange had 17 kills and Sydney Palazzolo had 15 and 18 digs … NC State improved to 11-1 with a sweep at Clemson … Wake Forest continued its ascent with a four-set win over visiting Miami, as Paige Crawford had 17 kills and Ava Carney had 15. Wake hadn’t beaten Miami since 2018 … North Carolina swept Virginia as Mabrey Shaffmaster had 16 kills, hit .314, and had six digs and two blocks. Sadie Swith had nine blocks, two solo.
BIG 12: Texas Tech came back to beat visiting Kansas 22-25, 14-25, 25-17, 25-21, 15-12. Caitlin Dugan had 18 kills for the Red Raiders and Maddie Correa had 29 digs, three assists and three aces. KU’s Raegan Burns had 28 digs and five assists … Texas swept at Oklahoma but grinded all the way through a 28-26, 25-18, 30-28 victory. Texas, which hit .343 and faced two set points in the third, got 19 kills from Madisen Skinner … Iowa State swept at West Virginia, hitting .417. Maya Duckworth had 17 kills with two errors in 34 attacks, an assist, 10 digs and two blocks … UCF swept at Cincinnati … Kansas State beat visiting TCU in five as Aliyah Carter had 18 kills and Aniya Clinton had 17. Mackenzie Morris had 30 digs, three assists and two aces. Melanie Parra had 22 kills for TCU to go with 21 digs, three assists, an ace and three blocks, one solo. Sarah Sylvester had 10 blocks, three solo.
Maryland setter Sydney Dowler tries to keep the ball away from the Purdue block of Kanna Wollard, left, and Lizze Carr/Chris Lyons, Maryland Terrapins
BIG TEN: Top-ranked Wisconsin swept at Northwestern as the Badgers hit .367. Devyn Robinson had 11 kills with one error in 18 attacks and Carter Booth had eight kills in 12 errorless attacks and six blocks, three solo … No. 2 Nebraska swept visiting Ohio State as Merritt Beason had 14 kills with three errors in 24 swings and had an assist, two aces, nine digs and a solo block. The Buckeyes have lost seven in a row, all to ranked teams … No. 19 Purdue won in four at Maryland as Eva Hudson had 20 kills, four block and seven digs … Michigan State swept at Michigan behind 19 kills by Tayla Holdem, who hit .417 and had two assist, four aces and six digs.
PAC-12: In the only match of the day, Oregon swept visiting Oregon State as five Ducks had six or more kills, 10 by Kara McGhee. She had one error in 10 attacks and five blocks.
SEC: Florida came away with a 20-25, 26-24, 24-26, 25-19, 17-15 victory at Auburn as the Gators hit .204 and Auburn hit .196. Auburn had four aces and 20 errors and 25 hitting errors. Florida had three aces, 20 service errors and 27 hitting errors. Auburn had a 12-10 fifth-set lead. At 15-15, Auburn’s Sarah Morton had a service error and Kennedy Martin’s kill clinched it for Florida.
Martin led with 16 kills, two aces, five blocks and 12 digs. AC Fitzpatrick had 15 kills, two blocks and five digs, and Sofia Victoria had 13 kills, a block and four digs. Kennedy Muff, playing her first full match at setter after Florida lost Alexis Stucky to injury, had 46 assists, two blocks and eight digs. Auburn’s Akasha Anderson had 18 kills — five in the fifth set — two aces, three blocks and 10 digs. Madison Scheer had 15 kills, an assist and two digs. Jacke Barrett five kills in nine errorless tries, 40 asisets, an ace, two blocks and 10 digs …
No. 16 Arkansas swept visiting South Carolina … No. 22 Kentucky beat visiting LSU in four as Brooklyn DeLeye had 19 kills and hit .444 … Ole Miss swept Alabama.
Around the nation
Creighton swept its Big East match at Butler as seven players had kills … In Marquette’s Big East swep of Villanova, Aubrey Hamilton had 13 kills with one error in 20 attacks, an assist, an ace, three digs and three blocks … Western Kentucky hit .397 and swept its Conference USA match with UTEP as Kenadee Coyle had 18 kills with no errors in 29 attacks. Paige Briggs also had 18 kills and two assists, an ace, 10 digs and two blocks, one solo …
In the Atlantic 10, Dayton beat Loyola Chicago in four. Lexie Almodovar had 19 kills, three assists, 12 digs and three blocks … Fordham improved to 10-1 with a five-set A10 win over Duquesne as Audrey Brown had 21 kills, hit .429 and had two digs and five blocks. Fordham trailed 14-10 in the fifth before Lola Fernandez went on a five-point service run. The Rams won 25-19, 17-25, 21-25, 25-20, 18-16 … VCU beat Saint Louis in five and Anja Kujundzic had 27 digs, four assists and three aces …
UC Davis beat Cal State Fullerton in five as Olivia Utterback had 16 kills in the Big West victory to go with three assists, an ace, 11 digs and five blocks, one solo … Long Beach State’s Natalie Glenn had 21 kills in a Big West five-set win over Cal Poly. Glenn hit .472 and had two aces, eight digs and four blocks … Also in the Big West, Amber Igiede had 12 kills with one error and five blocks, two solo, in a Hawai’i sweep of CSU Bakersfield …
Delaware, which had lost 14 in a row to Towson, won there in five and Lani Mason had 22 kills in the five-set CAA win to go with 12 digs and three blocks …
In Green Bay’s five-set Horizon win over Purdue Fort Wayne, Tiffany Paalman had 18 kills, hit .429 and had three blocks, one solo … Robert Morris win in four at Cleveland State, but CSU’s Liberty Torres had 24 kills …
Northern Illinois beat Bowling Green in five, winning a MAC match at the Ohio school for the first time since 2015. Katie Erdmann and Nikolette Nedic had 17 kills each … Western Michigan improved to 12-2 with its MAC sweep at Miami …
Evansville got swept at Murray State but Giula Cardona had 26 kills in three sets to go with an ace, eight digs and a block in the Missouri Valley loss … Southern Illinois beat UIC in four as Nataly Garcia had 19 kills, three aces, 10 digs and two blocks. UIC’s Martina Delucchi had 21 kills, an assist, six aces, eight digs and two blocks …
In American’s four-set Patriot victory at Holy Cross, Zeynep Uzen had 20 kills, hit .421, and had two assists, two aces, five digs and a block …
The Citadel improved to 13-0 with its four-set SoCon win at Chattanooga as Ali Ruffin had 21 kills, two aces, 15 digs and three blocks. Angelina Sayles and Maddy Cardenas had 17 kills each … In Furman’s five-set SoCon win at Western Carolina, Lauren Haynes had 21 kills … Samford beat UNC Greensboro in four and Gracie Lynn Butler had 26 kills in the SoCon win. She hit .434 an had an assist, an ace, seven digs and a solo block …
James Madison got 25 kills from Miette Veldman in its four-set win at App State. She had 16 digs and three blocks, two solo …
Stonehill got its first win as the Skyhawks from Easton, Massachusetts, improved to 1-14, 1-0 in the NEC, with a 25-12, 23-25, 25-16, 25-19 win over Le Moyne (0-10, 0-1). Emma Graves had nine kills, two digs and three blocks and three of her teammates had eight kills each … Also in the NEC, LIU beat Central Connecticut State in five and Camelia Melendez had 20 kills, hit .340, and had three assists, an ace, 16 digs and three blocks …
Tennesse State got into the win column with a five-set Ohio Valley Conference at Tennessee Tech. Jayla Holcombe had 18 kills, hit .359, and had three aces, 13 digs and five blocks. Kennedy Davis had seven kills and 11 blocks, two solo … Lehigh lost its Patriot match in five to Bucknell but Madison McCartney had 14 blocks, one solo, to go with five kills, an assist, an ace and three digs …
Bethune-Cookman broke through in the SWAC and is 1-11 after holding off visiting Alabama A&M in five. Nine players had kills in the 25-20, 19-25, 18-25, 25-15, 17-15 victory, eight by Mecca Freeman.
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