Georgia Tech took it to visiting No. 13 Florida on Wednesday night as the No. 15 Yellow Jackets played in its big arena and came up with a big sweep.Â
Top-ranked Pittsburgh won the first set 31-29 and then overpowered No. 23 USC, No. 2 Stanford won in four at Pepperdine, No. 6 Texas swept visiting Houston and Western Michigan knocked off Michigan State.
Recaps and top perfomances follow in this all-NCAA Division I edition of Volleyball Today.
Thursday’s NCAA volleyball slate
Two ranked Big Team are in action when No. 19 Minnesota plays LIU and USC is back at against Utah State. UCLA is making a Texas trip and playing three opponents for the first time, facing the SWAC’s Prairie View and the Southland’s Texas A&M-Commerce on Thursday before playing host TCU on Friday. Northwestern goes for its first win when it plays Notre Dame, Rutgers faces Binghamton, and 6-0 Michigan is home for Sacramento State.
Three ranked SEC teams play Thursday, including Florida taking on Alabama State. No. 22 Arkansas, off to a 7-0 start, plays 6-1 Tulsa, LSU goes to No. 18 Baylor and Oklahoma plays Stephen F. Austin.
There are five ACC teams in action, including Georgia Tech back it — but in O’Keefe Gym — when it plays South Alabama. Syracuse, a program that won two matches in 2023, puts its 6-0 mark on the line at Siena, a couple of hours to the east north of Albany. Virginia plays ETSU, Clemson plays App State and Notre Dame faces Northwestern.
In addition to Baylor, the Big 12’s Arizona State, 6-0 and ranked No. 14, plays Wichita State, No. 17 BYU plays San Diego and No. 25 TCU is home for Texas A&M-Commerce and Prairie View. Cincinnati stays in Ohio and plays Xavier, Texas Tech plays UTRGV and Kansas State faces Lipscomb.
Also on the Thursday schedule, 6-0 UT Arlington plays Missouri State and in the something’s-gotta-give department, 0-5 Central Connecticut is at 0-7 Merrimack.Â
Wednesday’s recaps, top performances
Georgia Tech (5-1) had never won in McCamish Pavilion, the school’s basketball arena, before coming away with a 25-19, 25-19, 25-21 victory over Florida (5-2). Bianca Bertolini led with 16 kills as the senior outside from Argentina had one error in 32 attacks to go with an assist, an ac and 12 digs. Tamara Otene had 12 kills, hit .409, and had an ace and nine digs. Larissa Mendes had nine kills with one error in 20 swings, an assist and two blocks. Tech hit .367. AC Fitzpatrick led Florida with 12 kills and seven digs. Isabel Martin had 10 kills, an assist, two blocks and a dig, and Jaela Auguste had 10 kills with no errors in 15 attacks and a block …Â
Pittsburgh (4-0) won its first match as a No. 1 team 31-29, 25-18, 25-16 at USC (3-2) in which there were 15 ties and six lead changes in the first set. Olivia Babcock had 17 kills, two aces, three blocks and five digs, and Torrey Stafford had 13 kills with on error in 32 attacks, an assist, an ace, four blocks and three digs. Rachel Fairbanks ha two kills, 38 assists and eight digs. Her team hit .289. USC’s Ally Batenhorst had 15 kills, three blocks and seven digs …Â
Stanford is 6-0 after hitting .417 in a 25-18, 22-25, 25-17, 25-21 victory at Pepperdine (1-4) and goes back to Palo Alto for the first time this season to play Texas on Sunday. In Malibu, Elia Rubin led with 20 kills, hitting .318, to with two blocks and six digs. Ipar Kurt had 18 kills, hit .536 and three digs. Jordyn Harvey had 15 kills with no errors in 27 attacks, four of the Cardinal’s five aces, two digs and three blocks. Elena Oglivie had 23 digs and 11 assists and Kami Miner had four kills in seven errorless attempts, 48 assists, a block and 12 digs. Pepperdine’s Grace Chillingworth had 17 kills, three aces, a block and three digs, and Birdie Hendrickson had 14 kills with one error in 33 attacks to hit .433 to go with an assist, two aces, a block and nine digs …Â
Texas and Houston are both 3-2 after the Longhorns won 25-19, 25-18, 25-20. Texas hit .370 at home in Gregory Gym. Madi Skinner had 13 kills, three blocks and seven digs. Reagan Rutherford had 12 kills with one error in 19 swings, an assist, two digs and four blocks, one solo. Jenna Wenaas had 11 kills, hit .360, and had an assist, three of her team’s seven aces, two blocks and five digs. Ella Swindle, who set the entire match, had three kills, 37 assists, two blocks and eight digs, and libero Emma Halter had 11 digs, three aces and five assists. Katie Corelli and Lily Barron had eight kills each for Houston …Â
Keona Salesman had 17 kills with one error in 34 attacks as Western Michigan won 25-17, 25-21, 25-21 at Michigan State. Three other Broncos had eight kills each, including Mary Clare Brusek, who had no errors in 17 swings and three blocks … Iowa State hit .407 and swept visiting Iowa 25-10, 25-19, 19-25, 25-18. Nayeli Gonzalez had 18 kills, hit .483, and had an ace, three digs and a block. Iowa’s Malu Garcia had 15 kills, hit .344, and had three digs and two blocks … Northern Colorado won 25-23, 18-25, 25-18, 22-25, 15-8 at Colorado behind senior middle Maddie Davis, who had 22 kills, hit .529, and had a dig and two blocks, one solo. Davis never had more than 14 kills in a match in her first three seasons … Tsvetelina Ilieva had 20 kills, hit .349 and had an ace, seven digs and five blocks in Binghamton’s four-set win over Hofstra … Bryant improved to 6-2 with a sweep of Holy Cross. Fabi Castro had 10 kills with one error in 15 attacks, an assist, an ace, four digs and two blocks … Long Beach State swept visiting Omaha as Zayna Meyers had six kills with no errors in 13 attacks …Â
Finally, NC State beat visiting Liberty in four as Skye Stokes had 15 digs, an assist and three aces. But one of the plays by Stokes, a graduate-student libero from Wellsville, Ohio, was special.
Of course, in our sport the players give their all all the time and women going long ways and then diving for a ball is the norm. But our friends outside of volleyball love it when a libero crashes into something, and that was the case Wednesday when Stokes made this effort that was No. 2 on ESPN SportsCenter’s top 10 plays:
WHAT. A. RALLY.
THE SAVES 😱
THE DODGE😱45 SECOND OF CHAOS@NCAAVolleyball pic.twitter.com/KcsuVWGTUD
— Wolfpack Volleyball (@PackVball) September 11, 2024
