NCAA Women
November 2, 2024
What a Friday in NCAA Division I volleyball:
— No. 2 Nebraska not only won for the first time since 2013 at Wisconsin, the Huskers swept the No. 7 Badgers;
— Unranked Miami, which earlier this season upset then-No. 1 Texas, was down 24-22 in the fourth, came back to win the set 31-29 and then upset No. 6 Stanford by winning the fifth 16-14;
— Unranked Missouri won in five at No. 7 Texas and is tied with the Longhorns and Kentucky atop the SEC at 7-2;
— There were, of course, reverse sweeps on a day when most matches were done in three sets. Youngstown State pulled off a reverse sweep against visiting Oakland in the Horizon League, Central Michigan did it at Ohio in the MAC and Evansville did it to visiting Illinois State in the Missouri Valley.
Lines of the day: Speaking of Evansville, NCAA kills leader Giulia Cardona, the Argentinian senior who hits outside for the Purple Aces, had 34 kills, hit .453, and had two aces, three blocks and eight digs. Cardona, who has had 30 or more kills six times this season, has 518 kills, well ahead of Caylen Alexander of Hawai’i (437 kills), who had 19 Friday in a sweep of UC Santa Barbara.
UC Riverside won its Big West match in five at Long Beach State as Trinity Sheridan had 31 kills, hit .324, and had 10 digs and three blocks, one solo.
James Madison lost in five to Sun Belt-leading South Alabama, but Bre Reid had 28 kills, an ace, 13 digs and two blocks.
Baylor’s Elise McGhee had 24 kills — eight kills per set — in a Big 12 sweep of Colorado, hitting .475, and added eight digs and two blocks.
Duke’s Mailinh Godschall had 37 digs and three assists in a five-set ACC loss to Georgia Tech.
And Jayln Stout, the 5-foot-10 setter for Coastal Carolina, had 15 kills with one error in 34 attacks, 19 assists, an ace, 18 digs and a block in the Chanticleers’ four-set Sun Belt win over Georgia Southern.
Athletes Unlimited started its last weekend of its season. The details follow in this edition of Volleyball Today:
NCAA volleyball Saturday
There’s one ACC match when No. 4 Louisville goes to Notre Dame, a team it swept this past Wednesday.
In the Big 12, No. 8 Kansas is home for West Virginia. No. 13 Arizona State goes to No. 22 Utah, No. 23 BYU is home for Arizona and UCF goes to Texas Tech.
No. 12 Oregon is home for UCLA in the Big Ten, which also has No. 10 Purdue at Rutgers and Indiana at Maryland.
No. 15 Dayton tries to make it 16 in a row when the Flyers go to George Mason in the Atlantic 10.
There’s a showdown in the Southland when Southeastern Louisiana, which has won 19 in a row, plays host to second-place Stephen F. Austin, which trails the Lions by a game.
The only unbeaten team, 21-0 South Dakota State, is at Kansas City in The Summit League.
And Hampton, 0-25, gives it another shot in a CAA match at College of Charleston. The Pirates were swept at Charleston on Friday as they hit .050.
The best of NCAA volleyball Friday
The showcase match was Nebraska’s 25-21, 25-22, 25-19 victory at Wisconsin, which hit .094. Read the Nebraska recap here and the Wisconsin recap here.
All else went as expected in the Big Ten as No. 3 Penn State beat visiting Iowa in four, No. 10 Purdue swept at Maryland, No. 14 Minnesota swept at Michigan State, Illinois won in four at Northwestern and Indiana did the same at Rutgers …
Miami is 15-7 and 6-5 and tough to figure. The Hurricanes, who, as mentioned beat Texas, have losses to Ohio State, Wright State and Virginia. But it wasn’t tough to figure out Puerto Rican star Grace Lopez, who had 27 kills, hit .407 and had an assist, 13 digs and four blocks, one solo, against Stanford. Also in the ACC, No. 1 Pittsburgh hit .393 and swept at Virginia, No. 11 SMU swept at Virginia Tech, No. 16 Georgia Tech got 27 kills from Tamara Otene as it went five to win at Duke, No. 23 Florida State swept visiting Cal, No. 25 North Carolina beat visiting Clemson in four, Boston College swept at Wake Forest and NC State swept visiting Syracuse …
In the Big 12, No. 18 TCU had to go five to beat visiting Iowa State as Jalyn Gibson had 26 kills, No. 17 Baylor swept Colorado behind Elise McGhee’s 24 kills and Houston beat visiting Cincinnati in four as Kate Georgiades had 31 digs, seven assists and an ace …
In the SEC, Missouri won its seventh in a row to improve to 16-5, 7-2 in the SEC, while dropping two-time NCAA-champion Texas to 12-5, 7-2 in its first season in the conference. Read the Missouri recap here and the Texas recap here.
Also in the SEC, No. 16 Kentucky swept at South Carolina, Tennessee won in four at Georgia and Texas A&M beat visiting Alabama in four …
Fifth-ranked Creighton won its 13th in a row and improved to 20-2, 11-0 in the Big East as it swept visiting St. John’s, which hit .051, while Marquette did the same to visiting Villanova to stay a game back of the Bluejays … Central Michigan and Bowling Green are tied atop the MAC with a two-game lead after CMU won in a reverse sweep at Ohio and BGSU won in four at Miami. Also in MAC, Kent State was swept by Akron, but the Golden Flashes’ Mackenzie McGuire had 19 kills … Five of the six Missouri Valley matches were sweeps except for Evansville’s comeback over Illinois State. UNI improved to 17-7, 12-0, with a sweep at Murray State …
Second-place Princeton closed the gap to one game of Yale by beating the Bulldogs in four on their home court as Kamryn Chaney had 25 kills with no errors in 42 attacks to hit .532 and added two assists, two aces, 13 digs and a block …
Austin Peay, which fired its coach last week, was so close to giving interim head coach Connor Crawford a victory, but the Govs dropped to 1-22, 0-11 in the ASUN, with their 21st loss in a row, 25-19, 25-19, 19-25, 20-25, 17-15 to visiting Eastern Kentucky … There was an upset in the Big West when UC San Diego beat visiting first-place UC Davis in five but the Mustangs still have a one-game lead over idle Cal Poly. Jade Light had 24 kills for UC Davis to go with two assists, two aces, 13 digs and a solo block … Western Kentucky improved to 20-6, 13-0 in Conference USA, with a sweep of visiting NM State for its 16th win in a row … Horizon leader Wright State improved to 20-4, 12-1 as the Raiders hit .371 in a sweep of Robert Morris … In Youngstown State’s HL reverse sweep of Oakland, Nyla Setla had 25 digs, seven assists and an ace … Howard is 17-5, 0-0 in the MEAC after sweeping Delaware State …
Southeast Missouri beat Tennessee Tech in five to take over sole possession of first in the Ohio Valley. Nina Schuberth had 27 digs, seven assists and two aces. Little Rock beat Western Illinois in five in the OVC and Andrea Roman had 32 digs and six assists … SoCon-leading Mercer swept Chattanooga to improve to 19-4, 9-1, as Skyler Bumpers (all-name team) had 15 kills, hit .462, and had five digs and three blocks
Rishel solidifies 3rd place in Athletes Unlimited
It’s still a race between first-place Brittany Abercrombie (3,984 points) and Bethania De La Cruz-Mejias (3,607) to win the Athletes Unlimited season, but Madi Kingdon Rishel (3,068) has made it a three-player race with two matches left in the five-week season.
Friday, Team Kingdon Rishel beat De La Cruz 77-66 in the first match before Team Abercrombie won 75-64 over Team (Dani) Drews.
Kingdon Rishel won 27-25, 25-23, 25-18 and she led with 21 kills, hitting .422, and had eight digs and a solo block.
Read the first-match recap here.
In the second match, Abercrombie won 25-22, 25-19, 25-23 behind 18 kills from Temi Thomas-Ailara, who hit .548 and had an assist, an ace, 12 digs and a solo block. Abercrombie had 13 kills, an assist, 13 digs and a solo block.
Read the recap here.
The AU season has two nights left when action continues in Mesa, Arizona, on Sunday and Monday.
