All the favorites won Friday — most in three sets — but No. 18 TCU not only was upset by Kansas State, the Wildcats swept their Big 12 match.
Kennedy Martin had a program-record 32 kills as No. 21 Florida battled to an up-and-down five-set SEC win at No. 25 Missouri, which ended the Tigers’ nine-match win streak.
There were a handful of five-set outcomes but none ended in reverse sweeps in this season of 0-2 comebacks. One of them saw Southeast Missouri State win at Lindenwood to take over first place in the Ohio Valley Conference.
It’s an NCAA edition of Volleyball Today with a college beach note:
NCAA volleyball Saturday
There are five Big 12 matches, including No. 17 Baylor at No. 12 Kansas. Sixth-ranked Arizona State goes to Cincinnati, No. 20 Utah is at UCF, while No. 24 BYU is at Houston and Iowa State is at Texas Tech.
In the Big Ten, second-ranked Nebraska is home for Indiana, No. 6 Wisconsin goes to UCLA and Rutgers is at Ohio State.
The lone ACC match has NC State at Wake Forest. The SEC is off.
No. 11 Dayton closes out the Atlantic 10 regular season at Saint Louis.
The top two teams in the Mountain West square off when Colorado State, which is not going to forfeit, goes to San Jose State.
And in the CAA, 0-20 Hampton, which got swept at William & Mary on Friday, is back there on Saturday.
NCAA volleyball Friday
K-State, which has had its challenges this season, dealt TCU a 25-23, 27-25, 25-23 defeat that did nothing to help the Horned Frogs’ hopes of a top-16 NCAA Tournament seed. Aliyah Carter had 22 kills, hit .306, and had an assist, 10 digs and three blocks in the only Big 12 match of the day …
In the ACC, No 1 Pittsburgh hit .473 and swept visiting No. 22 Florida State, No. 3 Louisville swept visiting Duke, No. 7 Stanford swept visiting Virginia Tech, No. 9 SMU beat visiting Miami in four, No. 16 Georgia Tech swept at Syracuse, North Carolina won in four at Notre Dame, Clemson beat visiting Boston College in five and Virginia won in four at Cal …
The Big Ten saw No. 5 Penn State sweep Illinois, No. 11 Oregon beat visiting Northwestern in four, Michigan State defeat visiting Michigan in four, and Maryland win in four at Ohio State. …
Three of the five SEC matches went five, including Florida’s 15-25, 25-21, 27-25, 22-25, 15-6 victory at Missouri. Kennedy Martin had 32 kills for the Gators, hitting .450 with just five errors in 60 swings to go with an assist, an ace, six digs and two blocks. No. 13 Texas swept at Auburn, Alabama beat visiting Mississippi State in five, Georgia won in five at Tennessee and Ole Miss beat visiting Arkansas in four. Lines of note included Georgia’s Erykah Lovett with 23 kills, four assists, an ace, 20 digs and four blocks, one solo; Alabama’s Paris Thompson also with 23 kills while hitting .360 to go with an assist, an ace and six digs; and Madi Skinner of Texas getting 23 kills while hitting .413 to go with nine digs and three blocks, one solo …
Fourth-ranked Creighton swept its Big East match with visiting Seton Hall for its 17th win in a row as Ava Martin had 11 kills, hit .429, and added eight of the Bluejays’ program-best 15 aces and 13 digs … No. 15 Dayton won its 20th in a row, a sweep at Saint Louis in the Atlantic 10 … Western Kentucky won in four at Liberty in Conference USA for its 21st victory in a row and 92nd consecutive in regular-season league play. WKU finished the regular season 25-6, 18-0.
AVCA Beach National Championships
The AVCA’s third annual Beach National are underway in Huntsville, Alabama, featuring a women’s pairs and men’s team national competitions.
All the action can be seen on Volleyball World TV. Click here for the link.
The women’s field includes 64 pairs selected from college team teams around the country. There are four men’s teams.
Click here for more from the AVCA.
