And then there were none …
St. Thomas scored a huge Summit League upset Thursday night, knocking off South Dakota State, the last unbeaten team in NCAA Division I volleyball this season. The Jackrabbits (22-1, 11-1 Summit) were down 14-8 in the fifth but sided out and then continued on a 5-0 run to tie it at 14. But St. Thomas (15-10, 7-6) regrouped to win the next two points and come away with a 22-25, 25-22, 25-16, 15-25, 16-14 victory.
Second-ranked Nebraska keeps on rolling. The Huskers traveled to No. 12 Oregon for their first Big Ten match in Eugene and made short work of the Ducks 25-12, 26-24, 25-18 for their 20th win in a row.
Washington went in the other direction, playing its first B1G match not only at No. 13 Minnesota but also against its former coach. The Huskies scored a four-set upset.
The only other ranked team in action was No. 18 TCU, which swept at UCF in the Big 12.
Loyola Marymount is alone atop the West Coast Conference after beating second-place Pepperdine17-25, 25-19, 32-30, 36-34 — for its eighth victory in a row.
Five teams are within a game of each other in the loss column atop the Big West after UC Riverside, which is not one of them, stunned visiting Hawai’i in five for the program’s first victory ever over the Rainbow Wahine. They first played in 1974 an UH was 29-0 against the Highlanders.
Southeastern Louisiana swept visiting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the Southland Conference and extended its winning streak to 21.
There were, of course, reverse sweeps. Lamar did it to visiting Nicholls and Houston Christian did it to visiting Texas A&M-Commerce in the Southland Conference, Belmont pulled it off at Evansville (which was playing without NCAA kills leader Giulia Cardona) in the Missouri Valley, and Old Dominion did it at James Madison in the Sun Belt in a wild one, 17-25, 27-29, 25-22, 30-28, 15-10.
Cardona, the senior from Argentina, is likely done for the season after breaking her finger in practice this week. She holds a huge lead in kills in the NCAA with 549, still 56 ahead of Hawai’i’s Caylen Alexander.
Lines of the day:Â
— Speaking of Alexander, in that aforementioned Hawai’i loss, she had 36 kills, hit .318, and had four assists, an ace and 14 digs.
— Troy won in five at Southern Miss in the Sun Belt and Tori Hester had a season-high 33 kills, an ace, 22 digs and three blocks, one solo. Hester took a program-record 100 of her team’s 201 swings.
— In ODU’s win at JMU, JMU’s Brenya Reid had 29 kills, two aces, eight digs and two blocks, one solo, and ODU’s Myah Conway had 26 kills, an assist, eight digs and five blocks. Reid has 87 kills in her last three matches.Â
— Utah Valley’s Avery Shewell had 29 kills in the Wolverines’ five-set WAC win at Abilene Christian as she hit .367 and had four aces, eight digs and two blocks. Teammate Sami Blackett had 27 kills, an assist, three aces, four digs and two blocks, one solo.
— Kyndal Payne of Corpus Christi had 20 kills in that three-set loss to Southeastern Louisiana, hitting .356 with 11 digs and three blocks.
The San Diego Mojo of the Pro Volleyball Federation has a new owner.
It’s all in this edition of Volleyball Today:
NCAA volleyball Friday
There are nine ACC matches, including No. 1 Pittsburgh home for No. 25 North Carolina, No. 4 Louisville at Syracuse, No. 8 Stanford home for Clemson, No. 10 SMU home for Duke, AVCA No. 16 Georgia Tech at Cal and No. 24 Florida State home for Wake Forest. Virginia is at Virginia Tech and Notre Dame is at Boston College.
All three Big 12 matches include a ranked team as No. 6 Kansas is at Arizona, No. 9 Arizona State is home for Kansas State and No. 21 BYU is at No. 23 Utah.
In the Big Ten, No. 3 Penn State is at Northwestern, No. 7 Wisconsin is home for Iowa, No. 11 Purdue goes to Indiana, No. 20 USC is at Illinois, Michigan State is at Rutgers and Ohio State is at Michigan.Â
The SEC has No. 16 Kentucky home for Texas A&M, No. 22 Florida home for Auburn, Oklahoma at Ole Miss, LSU at Tennessee and South Carolina at Arkansas.
Fifth-ranked and Big East-leading Creighton, which has won 14 in a row, is home for Butler and No. 15 Dayton, which has won 17 in a row, is home for an Atlantic 10 match with Davidson.
Conference USA-leading Western Kentucky, which has won 17 in a row, goes to Sam Houston.
Northern Iowa, leading the Missouri Valley and on a 13-match winning streak, is home for UIC.
NCAA volleyball Thursday
South Dakota State’s lead in The Summit League is now one game over idle Omaha. In St. Thomas’s victory at SDSU, Lauren Galvin led with 16 kills, two assists, an ace, seven digs and two blocks. South Dakota State, which hit .197, got 21 kills from Sylvie Zgonc, who had four assists, two blocks and 13 digs. Also in The Summit, in Kansas City’s four-set win at Denver, Kaia Dunford had 21 kills, hit .409 and had an ace, eight digs and a block …Â
Oregon drew a record crowd of 8,566 but the Ducks (17-5, 9-4) got swept by Nebraska (23-1, 13-0), which took a one-game Big Ten lead in the win column over idle Penn State. The Huskers got 14 kills from Harper Murray and 13 from Taylor Landfair. Murray hit .414 and had two assists, an ace and 10 digs and Landfair hit .407 and had an assist, two digs and two blocks. Bergen Reilly had three kills in six errorless tries, 33 assists and an ace. Oregon, which hit .133, got 13 kills from Mimi Colyer …Â
Washington (18-5, 8-5) won 25-21, 25-23, 14-25, 25-22 at Minnesota (16-7, 9-4) despite hitting .123 and having fewer kills (54-46) and blocks (16-10). Emoni Bush led Washington with 19 kills, two assists, one of her team’s 13 aces, two blocks and 12 digs. Molly Wilson had a kill, 37 assists, two aces, four blocks and 15 digs, Julia Hunt had six aces to go with four kills, four blocks and six digs. Minnesota’s Julia Hanson had 15 kills, an ace, three blocks and six digs and Melanie Shaffmaster had four kills with no errors in nine attempts, an ace, 10 digs and five blocks, one solo. Her team hit .248 …Â
Also in the Big Ten, Maryland beat visiting Michigan State in four and UCLA swept at Rutgers as Anna Dodson had 11 kills with one error in 17 attacks and four blocks …Â
WCC-leader LMU (19-4, 10-1 WCC) hit just .197 but it was enough to win in four at Pepperdine (12-9, 9-1). Paige Flickinger led with 18 kills and had an assist, two aces, a block and 17 digs. Sophia Meyers had 13 kills, an assist, an ace, a block and 10 digs. Grace Chillingworth led Pepperdine with 19 kills and had three aces and 18 digs. Birdie Hendrickson had 16 kills, an assist, an ace, a block and 11 digs …Â
In TCU’s Big 12 sweep of visiting UCF, Melanie Parra had 15 kills, hit .344, and had an ace, five digs and two blocks, and Jalyn Gibson had 14 kills, hit .458, and had six digs and a block. Also in the Big 12, Cincinnati hit .407 and swept visiting West Virginia as five players had all the Bearcats’ kills, 12 by Sydney Nolan. She had one error in 20 attacks to hit .550 and had an assist, two digs and a block …Â
Idle Idaho State (9-2) and Northern Colorado (9-2) are now tied for the Big Sky lead after UNC was swept by visiting Sacramento State (8-3). Sacramento State, tied with idle Weber State, got 19 kills from Bridgette Smith, the league leader in kills who hit .459 and had an assist, an ace and eight digs …Â
In UC Riverside’s comeback victory over Hawai’i, Trinity Sheridan had 19 kills, an ace, six digs and two blocks. Jessica Dean had 27 digs, eight assists and two aces … In Belmont’s comeback win at Evansville, Brooke Gilleland had 20 kills and nine digs, while Evansville’s Angelica Gonzalez Maltes had a career-high 21 kills, hit .400, and had five digs and two blocks …Â
Idle Colorado State’s lead grew in the Mountain West when second-place San Jose State lost in four at UNLV and third-place Fresno State lost in five at San Diego State … Furman upset Mercer, which had won eight in a row, in the SoCon but freshman MeMe Davis had a career-best 37 digs to go with four assists.
San Diego Mojo get new owner
The San Diego Mojo of the Pro Volleyball Federation announced that Gary E. Jacobs has acquired controlling ownership.
More from the Mojo:
A San Diegan since 1966 and alumnus of the University of California San Diego (UCSD), Jacobs is a co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High Charter School and majority owner of the Lake Elsinore Storm, the Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. He is the managing director of Jacobs Investment Company (JIC).
Jacobs reunites with San Diego Mojo President Billy Johnson, with whom he worked as owner the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers professional hockey team where Johnson served as the club’s President and Chief Operating Officer from 2003 to 2014. The Wranglers established themselves as the preeminent professional resident team-sports organization in Las Vegas, paving the way for the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights and the rapid expansion of the professional sports culture that followed.
