Volleyball Today: Nebraska tops Minnesota; AVCA POY list pared to 14
Nebraska won for the 22nd time in a row as the No. 2 Huskers beat visiting No. 16 Minnesota in four sets in the Big Ten on Thursday.
There were no upsets and there were four five-set matches and, incredibly, none resulted in reverse sweeps in this season of the reverse sweep.
Line of the day: Red-hot Tori Hester had a season-high 35 kills in Troy’s Sun Belt loss to App State. She hit .291 and had four assists, an ace, nine digs and a block. It’s the third match in a row in which she’s 30 or more kills.
And the AVCA pared its national-player-of-the-year list to 14.
It’s all in this edition of Volleyball Today:
NCAA volleyball Friday
Two SEC teams riding winning streaks square off in the ACC when No. 21 Florida, which has won seven in a row, goes to No. 25 Missouri, which has won nine in a row. No. 13 Texas is at Auburn, Georgia is at Tennessee, Mississippi State goes to Alabama and Arkansas is at Ole Miss.
The only match of the eight in the ACC involving two ranked teams has No. 1 Pittsburgh home for No. 22 Florida State. Third-ranked Louisville is home for Duke, No. 9 SMU is home for Miami, No. 7 Stanford is home for Virginia Tech, No. 16 Georgia Tech is home for Syracuse, Boston College is at Clemson, North Carolina is at Notre Dame and Virginia is at Cal.
The lone Big 12 match has No. 18 TCU at Kansas State.
Two of the four Big Ten matches involve ranked teams when No. 5 Penn State is home for Illinois and No. 11 Oregon is home for Northwestern. Michigan goes to Michigan State and Maryland is at Ohio State.
Fourth-ranked Creighton has a Big East match home against Seton Hall as the Bluejays go for their 17th victory in a row.
No. 11 Dayton, which has won 19 in a row, has an Atlantic 10 match at Saint Louis.
The CAA logjam, with four teams at 13-3 atop the league, will lose at least one team when Towson is home for Hofstra. Delaware is home for Elon and Charleston is home for Northeastern. And Hampton, which is 0-28 and the only team in the nation without a victory, goes to William & Mary.
The two teams tied for the lead in the Ohio Valley, Lindenwood and Southeast Missouri, got at it again after Lindenwood beat SEMO in four on Friday.
NCAA volleyball Thursday
Second-ranked Nebraska built its Big Ten lead over idle Penn State with a 25-12, 22-25, 25-22, 25-19 victory over visiting No. 16 Minnesota. Harper Murray had 13 kills for the Huskers and added two assists, 19 digs and three blocks. No. 6 Wisconsin cruised to a 25-18, 25-19, 25-12 sweep at No. 23 USC as Sarah Franklin had 13 kills with no errors in 19 attacks, an assist, two aces and five digs. USC hit .079. No. 10 Purdue swept visiting Rutgers and Iowa, which used just seven players, swept visiting Indiana …
In the Big 12, No. 8 Arizona State swept at West Virginia to build its lead to a full game over idle Kansas, No. 20 Utah swept at Houston, No. 24 BYU won in four at UCF, and Arizona won in four at Cincinnati as Carlie Cisneros had 13 kills, an assist, two aces, 19 digs and a solo block …
There were two ACC matches as Stanford hit .440 swept visiting Virginia and Cal did the same to Virginia Tech. Stanford’s Jordyn Harvey had a career-high 16 kills, hitting .467, and Elia Rubin had 14 kills, hit .500, and had two assists, two aces, nine digs and three blocks. Cal’s Maggie Li had 13 kills with one error in 29 attacks, two aces eight digs and a block …
FGCU, which has won 10 in a row, swept visiting North Florida to win the ASUN regular-season title. Shelby Kent had 17 kills with one error in 29 swings to hit .552 and had 11 digs and a block … Speaking of streaking, Southeastern Louisiana extended its nation-best winning streak to 23 matches with a four-set Southland victory at East Texas A&M. Cicily Hidalgo had 17 kills, two assists, two aces and 22 digs. Also in the SLC, Northwestern State beat New Orleans in four as Teresa Garza had 22 kills, hit .367, and had two assists, three aces, 12 digs and a block … South Dakota State stayed a game ahead of Omaha as both won in The Summit League, where St. Thomas beat South Dakota in four as Lauren Galvin had 23 kills, an assist, three aces, eight digs and two blocks …
Loyola Marymount won its ninth in a row and maintained its two-game lead in the WCC with a sweep of San Francisco. San Diego kept pace with a sweep at Portland and so did Pepperdine with a sweep of Santa Clara …
Northern Colorado maintained its one-game lead over Weber State as both won their Big Sky matches. UNC won in four at Idaho State as Isabel Bennett had 16 kills, hit .406, and had four blocks, one solo. Weber State swept visiting Northern Arizona as five players had six or more kills … UC Davis is alone again atop the Big West. by a half-game after the Aggies beat visiting CSUN in four. Jade Light had 21 kills, an assist, two aces, 13 digs and a solo block, and Olivia Utterback had 17 kills with one error in 32 attacks to hit .432 and had two assists, two aces, 12 digs and a block … Western Kentucky won its 20th match in a row as the Toppers swept visiting Liberty in the only Conference USA match. Alivia Skidmore and Kaylee Cox had 16 kills each …
Colorado State still holds a two-game lead in the loss column over San Jose State and Fresno State in the Mountain West, but the Rams were knocked off in four at Fresno. Addison Haluska led Fresno with 24 kills, hitting .396, and added eight digs and a solo block. Also in the MWC, Utah State got 20 kills each from Andrea Simovski and Kaylie Ray in a five-set win over visiting UNLV …
Lindenwood beat visiting Southeast Missouri State, leaving both teams 12-3 in the Ohio Valley. Four Lions had 11 or more kills in the four-set victory, 14 by Rebecca Janke, who hit .300 and had seven digs, four solo. Also in the OVC, Western Illinois beat Tennessee State in four as Keyana Cruise had 21 kills, an ace, 12 digs and five blocks, two solo … ETSU swept at Western Carolina in the SoCon as Whitney Rammel had 13 kills with no errors in 22 attacks to hit .591 to go with a dig and five blocks …
App State and Arkansas State both won to get to 10-2 and stay atop their respective Sun Belt Divisions. App State beat Troy in five despite those 35 kills from Tori Hester, — her teammates combined for 25 kills and 14 errors — and Arkansas State won in four at Old Dominion. Also in the SBC, Samantha Wunsch had 22 kills and hit .327 for Texas State in its four-set win over visiting James Madison to go with six digs and five blocks … UT Arlington, which already clinched the WAC title, won its 16th in a row with a four-set win at Southern Utah.
AVCA’s final list for POY
The AVCA created a watch list for its 2024 Division I Player of the Year award and it’s been pared from the first 36 announced on September 20 to 14.
The AVCA announces its national player of the year on Friday, December 20. VolleyballMag waits until the NCAA Championship is over and will have its player of the year on December 24.
The players come from 11 schools, three from Pittsburgh: Olivia Babcock, Rachel Fairbanks and Torrey Stafford. There are two from Nebraska, Bergen Reilly and Lexi Rodriguez.
The others are Kendra Wait of Creighton, Kennedy Martin of Florida, Camryn Turner of Kansas, Eva Hudson of Purdue, Kami Miner of Stanford, Elena Scott of Louisville, Jess Mruzik of Penn State, Melanie Parra of TCU and Sarah Franklin of Wisconsin.
Franklin was the AVCA national POY in 2023.
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