UNI wins Valley; EIU takes the OVC; Louisville, Kentucky get key victories
UNI wins the 2023 Missouri Valley title
Northern Iowa won the Missouri Conference title, but not before fighting off a determined Drake team that took the Panthers to five sets after falling behind 0-2.
Eastern Illinois won the Ohio Valley title.
Louisville, No. 5 in the VolleyballMag.com Super 16, won in a tough four over No. 15 Georgia Tech in the ACC, where No. 4 Pittsburgh blasted Miami.
In the battle of the day in the SEC, No. 8 Kentucky swept No. 10 Arkansas.
The recaps follow, but first a look at the Thanksgiving Day schedule, and, yes, there is NCAA Division I women’s volleyball on Thanksgiving.
The Mountain West semifinals are set with top-seeded Utah State playing fifth-seeded Fresno State and No. 2 Colorado State playing sixth-seeded New Mexico.
The Big Sky semifinals pits top-seeded Sacramento State vs. No. 4 Weber State and seventh-seeded Eastern Washington — which pulled off a huge upset — vs. No. 3 Montana State.
For the complete schedule with viewing links to every match, go to the VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.
NORTHERN IOWA: UNI (26-6) held off Drake (22-10) 25-19. 25-19, 23-25, 23-25, 15-6 as six players had seven or more kills, 17 by Kira Fallert. Fallert had an assist, three aces, 16 digs and a solo block as the Panthers won their 21st match in a row. Emily Holterhaus had 14 kills, three digs and four blocks, two solo. Layanna Green had 13 kills, hit .370, and had five digs and eight blocks, one solo. Tayler Alden had seven kills, 51 assists, an ace, 12 digs and five blocks. Erin Powers had 28 digs, 10 assists and two aces.
Taylor Oberpriller led Drake with 19 kills, hitting .459, to go with two assists, two blocks and 17 digs. Haley Bush had 15 kills, an assist, two blocks and 11 digs. Macy Daufeldt had 11 kills, an assist, two aces, a block and 21 digs. Jada Wills had 22 digs, four assists and an ace.
Eastern Illinois wins the 2023 Ohio Valley title
OHIO VALLEY: Eastern Illinois (28-4) won the conference title for the third time — the first since 1998 — as the Panthers swept Southeast Missouri (22-10). Kaitlyn Flynn and Giovana Larregui Lopez had 12 kills each and Kate Dean had eight with no errors in 11 attacks. Christina Martinz Mundo had an incredible 33 digs in the three sets to go with six assists and an ace.
MOUNTAIN WEST: Fifth-seeded Fresno State ousted fourth-seeded Boise State and sixth-seeded New Mexico knocked out third-seeded UNLV.
Fresno (17-13) got 13 kills from Paige Bartsch, who had three aces, seven digs and a block. Boise State’s season ended 14-15 …
New Mexico 19-11) won 24-26, 25-19, 23-25, 25-14, 15-12 and is in the conference semifinals for the first time in program history. Uxue Guereca led with 21 kills, hitting .366. She had two assists, two aces, two block and 15 digs. Athena Dimitriadis added 14 kills and had one error in 28 attacks to go with three assists, an ace, two blocks and four digs. UNLV (19-12) got 25 kills from Isabel Martin.
BIG SKY: Eastern Washington (13-16), the seventh seed, stunned the field with a 25-23, 18-25, 23-25, 25-23, 15-10 upset of second-seeded Northern Colorado (17-11) on its home floor. EWU won a postseason match for the first time since 2008.
Sage Brustad had 17 kills, an assist, an ace, four blocks and six digs. Bri Gunderson had 15 kills, an assist, an ace, six digs and five blocks. Makenzie Harris led Northern Colorado with 24 kills, an assist, two blocks and nine digs …
Top-seeded Sacramento State (21-10) swept Idaho State (8-20) as Kalani Hayes and Caitlin Volkmann had 11 kills each and Bridgette Smith had 10 … No. 3 Montana State hit .395 and (20-7) swept Montana (11-18) as Kira Thomsen had 13 kills. Jourdain Kamps had nine kills with one error in 17 attacks … fourth-seeded Weber State (19-9) swept Portland State (16-12) as Baylee Bodily had 16 kills, hitting .481.
ACC: Louisville beat visiting Georgia Tech in four, Pitt swept Miami, Boston College won in four at Wake Forest, Clemson swept Virginia Tech and NC State swept Virginia.
SEC: Kentucky (18-7, 16-1) kept its one-game lead over Tennessee (24-3, 15-2) and dropped Arkansas (24-5, 14-3) alone into third by sweeping the Razorbacks to clinch the league title …No. 9 Tennessee swept visiting Mississippi State … AVCA No. 20 Florida beat visiting South Carolina in four …Georgia had a four-set win at LSU … Texas A&M swept visiting Ole Miss … Auburn swept visiting Alabama, which is 0-17 and has one more shot at a conference victory when it plays host to A&M on Saturday.
PAC-12: No. 2 Stanford swept visiting Utah, No. 11 Washington State beat visiting AVCA No. 18 Arizona State in five, Washington beat Arizona in four, UCLA got past Oregon State in five and Colorado won in four at Cal.
BIG 12: AVCA No. 25 Baylor beat No 22 Houston in four, VBM No. 16 Kansas swept Cincinnati, AVCA No. 16 BYU swept West Virginia, Iowa State swept UCF and Texas Tech beat Oklahoma in five.
BIG EAST: Third-seeded St. John’s swept sixth-seeded Villanova and fifth-seeded DePaul knocked off fourth-seeded Xavier for its Big East tourney victory in program history.
St. John’s (22-9) got 12 kills from Erin Jones, who had two assists, an ace and eight digs. Villanova’s season ended 17-14. DePaul (19-12) beat Xavier (18-3) in four as Jill Pressly had 24 kills, hitting .340, to go with two assists, an ace, 12 digs and a block. Audrey Kemp had 20 kills, hitting .385.
The Friday semifinals pit St. John’s against Marquette and DePaul vs. Creighton.
BIG WEST: The tournament got underway with two five-setters as fourth-seeded Long Beach State ousted No. 5 UC Irvine and third-seeded Cal Poly pulled off a reverse sweep to get past sixth-seeded UC Davis.
Long Beach State (20-9) won 25-16, 25-27, 25-14, 22-25, 15-10 as Elise Agi led with 19 kills, two assists, an ace, nine digs and two blocks. UCI ended its season 11-19 …
Cal Poly (21-10) won 19-25, 15-25, 25-19, 25-22, 15-13 as UC Davis ended its season 13-16. Tommi Stockham led the Mustangs with 16 kills, an assist, an ace and six digs. Reese Diersbock led UC Davis with 17 kills.
The semifinals are Friday when Long Beach faces top-seeded UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly plays Hawai’i.
AAC: Conference-winner SMU (25-6 18-1) won its 15th in a row with a regular-season-ending sweep at Temple as seven Mustangs had kills, 12 by Jamison Wheeler. She had eight digs and two blocks … Danyle Courtley had 22 kills for Rice in a five-set loss to South Florida, which got 17 kills from Buse Hazan … Kayley Cassaday had 17 kills for Tulsa in a four-set win over Charlotte. Cassaday, who had an ace and 15 digs, is second in the NCAA in kills with 575, one behind Giula Cardona of Evansville and 27 ahead of USC’s Skylar Fields, who missed her team’s last two matches.
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