Volleyball Today: No. 10 KU stops No. 6 Purdue; 42 kills for Miami’s Cajic; UConn, SDSU, SJSU stay unbeaten

Top-ranked Pittsburgh (7-0) and No. 10 Kansas (8-0) are now the only unbeaten teams in the AVCA top 25 after the Jayhawks knocked off No. 6 and previously undefeated Purdue on Thursday.

Syracuse (10-0), Arizona (10-0), Washington (9-0) and Texas A&M (8-0) also won Thursday.

The only other unbeaten among the big four conferences is Michigan (9-0) .

Three other undefeateds won Thursday, UConn (10-0), South Dakota State (9-0) and San Jose State (7-0).

Most of those teams are in action Friday and so is 9-0 Tennessee Tech, which plays twice.

In this Volleyball Today, we recap the top matches and list the key performances, including a career-high 22 kills by London Davis in the four-set victory by Kansas over visiting Purdue. 

But the line of the day: No doubt on this one, because Nina Cajic had a program-record 42 kills for Tennessee in its four-set victory over Western Michigan. She had four errors in 76 attacks to hit .500 and had an assist, 13 digs and four blocks, one solo. 

Three other ranked teams won — No. 14 Arizona State, No. 17 Minnesota and No. 21 USC — and No. 25 Arkansas got swept at Miami.

We’ve also got the CAA schedule because that league starts conference play on Friday.

NCAA volleyball Friday 

Things don’t get any easier for Purdue, which stays in Kansas to play No. 9 Creighton of the Big East. Also in the Big Ten, Penn State is home for James Madison, No. 7 Wisconsin plays Troy, Minnesota plays North Dakota, USC plays UNLV, Washington faces Pepperdine and Michigan plays North Carolina. The Missouri-Illinois rivalry is always a good one, Ohio State stays in stay to play at Bowling Green and Indiana does the same at Notre Dame. 

Pittsburgh, coming off that sweep of No. 3 Penn State, highlights the rest of the ACC schedule with a home match against East Carolina. No. 13 Georgia Tech is at Georgia, which was ranked and is still receiving votes. Other in-state matches include Clemson home for South Carolina, and Wake Forest home for App State. Miami plays Texas Tech.

In the SEC, No. 8 Texas is home for Hawai’i in their first meeting since 2013, Tennessee plays host to Western Michigan again, No. 16 Florida plays North Texas, LSU — off to a 7-2 star — is home for both North Florida and San Diego, and Auburn (8-1) plays UAB.

The Big 12’s Utah, off to a 7-1 start, plays twice at Wyoming, against UAlbany and Coppin State. Kansas is home for Tulsa of the American Athletic, which is 8-2. No. 14 Arizona State plays Memphis, No. 19 BYU faces Weber State and No. 23 TCU plays Denver. 

Also Friday, Tennessee Tech plays UNC Greensboro and Marshall, UConn plays Brown, and South Dakota State plays Toledo.

Teams looking for their first victory include 0-11 Hampton vs. N.C. A&T; 0-10 California Baptist, which plays Cal State Fullerton; 0-8 UMBC, which plays High Point; and 0-8 Marist, which plays Rhode Island.

Kansas downs Purdue

Kansas (8-0) of the Big 12 came away with a 31-29, 21-25, 25-22, 25-23 victory over the visiting Boilermakers (8-1) of the Big Ten. London Davis had 22 kills, hit .513, and had two blocks and two digs. Ayah Elnady had 14 kills, two blocks and seven digs, and Caroline Bien had 14 kills, an assist, a solo block and 13 digs. Camryn Turner had a kill in four errorless tries, 59 assists, a block and a team-high 17 digs. Her team hit .319 and had two aces and 13 serving errors.

Purdue, which hit .278, had five aces and 10 errors. Eva Hudson led with 17 kills and hit .302 after having one error in 53 attacks. She had an assist and 11 digs. Chloe Chicoine had 16 kills, hit .333, and had two assists, an ace and 12 digs. Raven Colvin had 14 kills, hit .440 and had two aces, seven blocks and three digs. Taylor Anderson had two kills in seven errorless attempts, 49 assists, an ace, 11 digs and seven blocks. 

Big nights for Vols’ Cajic, Miami

Tennessee beat visiting Western Michigan 24-26, 25-20, 29-27, 33-31 as graduate-student outside Nina Cajic, a 6-foot transfer from Subotica, Serbia via Towson, where she was the 2023 CAA player of the year, notched 42 kills. She hit .500 and had 13 digs and four blocks — one solo — and an assist. The previous Tennessee record for kills was 41, set in 1988 by Stephanie Ehlers against Washington State. Tennessee noted that she’s only the second player in the rally scoring era to get 40 or more kills in a four set match and it’s the kills high for this season.

Cajic’s teammates combined for 26 kills, 11 by Keondreya Granberry, who had one error in 15 attacks to hit .667 and had three blocks and a dig. Ashlyn King had 23 digs and four assists and Caroline Kerry had three kills in five errorless tries, 57 assists, an ace, two blocks and 10 digs. Her team hit .323. WMU’s Keona Salesman had 12 kills, an assist, a block and four digs … 

Miami (7-2), ranked after its upset at Texas but 1-2 after, swept visiting Arkansas (8-2) as Grace Lopez had 18 kills while hitting .615 in the 25-23, 25-20, 25-23 victory. Lopez, who had two errors in 26 attacks, had three digs and four blocks. Paula Guersching had 10 kills, hit .318, and had six digs. Ariana Rodriguez had two kills in four errorless attempts, 35 assists, four of her team’s seven aces and seven digs. Romani Thurman led Arkansas with 11 kills, five digs and three blocks.

Around the nation

Among ranked teams: Arizona State improved to 9-1 with a sweep of Prairie View as the Sun Devils hit .347. Bailey Miller had nine kills with no errors in 14 attacks and a block … Minnesota swept Green Bay as Julia Hanson had 11 kills, hit .333, and had an assist, an ace, a block and nine digs … USC went overtime to hold off visiting Loyola Marymount 26-24, 28-26, 18-25, 33-35, 15-10 as Ally Batenhorst had 18 kills, an assist, an ace, six digs and four blocks, one solo. Mia Tuaniga had three kills in six errorless tries, 48 assists, six blocks and 10 digs. LSU transfer Paige Flickinger had 25 kills for LMU to go with an assist, a block and 13 digs … 

The unbeatens: Arizona hit .361 and is 10-0 after swept North Dakota State as Jaelyn Hodge had 17 kills with one error in 33 attacks … UConn improved to 10-0 with a four-set win at New Hampshire. Emma Werkmeister had 18 kills, four aces, a block and five digs … Syracuse is 10-0 — its best start since 2010 — after sweeping Le Moyne. Anastasiia Nikolnikova had 10 kills with one error in 15 attacks and seven blocks, three solo … Texas A&M got to 8-0 with a four-set win at Northern Iowa as Logan Lednicky had 20 kills, hit .395, and had two assists, nine digs and six blocks … South Dakota State is 9-0 after sweeping Idaho State. Sydni Schetnan had 10 kills with no errors in 18 attacks … Washington is 9-0 after a four-set win at Long Beach State. Madi Endsley had 13 kills, hit .435, and had an ace and three digs, and Emoni Bush had 12 kills, hit .400 and had three blocks and four digs.

Worth noting: UC Davis beat visiting UCLA for the first time in program history. Jade Light had 11 kills, 10 digs and two solo blocks in the 26-24, 15-25, 25-21, 25-22 victory … Washington State beat CSUN in five as Katy Ryan had 23 kills, five digs and seven blocks, four solo … LSU beat visiting Boston College in four as Jurnee Robinson had 15 kills, three assists, eight digs and two blocks, one solo. Earlier, BC beat North Florida in four and Halle Schroder had 22 kills, an assist, three aces, three blocks and 12 digs … 

Southern Illinois beat Missouri State in five to improve to 7-3 as Kelly Franklin and Annabelle Sulish had 17 kills each … Auburn improved to 8-1 with a four-set win over Samford as Lauren Dreves had 15 kills, hitting .371, to go with two blocks and 16 digs … San Diego hit .387 in a sweep of North Florida. Haylee Stoner had 11 kills with one error in 16 swings and two blocks … Louisiana beat Jacksonville State in five and libero Mio Yamamoto had 29 digs, six assists and two aces … In DePaul’s sweep of Milwaukee, Jill Pressly had 14 kills with one error in 23 attacks to hit .565 and she had an ace, 15 digs and a block … Houston hit .374 in a sweep of Texas A&M-Commerce. Avery Shimaitis had 13 kills with one error in 17 swings to hit .7-6 … Utah Valley beat Utah State in five as Avery Shewell had 21 kills, an assist, four of her team’s six aces, eight digs and five blocks.

CAA starts conference play

The fourth and final weekend of pre-conference play doesn’t include the Coastal Athletic Association, which begins league competition Friday.

There are two matches Friday when Hofstra goes to Stony Brook and N.C. A&T is at Hampton. Saturday everyone gets in the mix as Charleston is at Elon, Delaware is at Campbell, UNCW is at Northeastern, N.C. A&T goes to Hampton, William & Mary plays at Towson and Hofstra is at Stony Brook. 

Defending-champion Towson came out of the preseason 9-1 and Stony Brook is 7-2. Towson’s lone loss was in five to Tennessee Tech of the Ohio Valley Conference, which is 9-0. Stony Brook lost to unbeaten UConn and Northern Illinois. 

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