The Big Ten began conference play with a bang Wednesday, as Minnesota, the No. 16 team in the VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll, upset No. 7 Wisconsin in five sets, and fifth-ranked Penn State spanked No. 10 Purdue
In a nearly empty gym because the campus had already closed in anticipation of the impending hurricane, AVCA No. 18 Florida State rallied for a five-set win over — who else? — the Hurricanes of AVCA No. 25 Miami.
Baylor beat previously unbeaten Arizona in the Big 12.
Western Carolina won its SoCon opener in an absolutely wild five — losing the fourth set 43-41 — in a match at The Citadel that put up some remarkable numbers including seven players with 20 or more digs.
Nina Cajic had 31 kills in Tennessee’s win over Alabama to go with four aces, a block and 11 digs. Georgia lost in five to Arkansas, but Erykah Lovett — who used to play at Tennessee — had 33 kills — a rally-scoring era record for that program — 21 digs and four blocks.
The recaps and top performances follow.
NCAA volleyball Thursday
Just two teams ranked in either the VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll or the AVCA top 25 play Thursday.
VBM No. 16 Florida makes its first SEC trip to Oklahoma.
AVCA No. 17 BYU, home for Colorado, and Utah, off to a 10-1 start, at Texas Tech are the two Big 12 matches.
There are two Big Ten matches, Iowa at Rutgers and Northwestern at Maryland.
The Mountain West has four matches including UNLV at New Mexico and Wyoming at Nevada.
Southland Conference play continues with four matches including two teams that got through the pre-conference season at 8-4 when Lamar goes to Southeastern Louisiana.
The Summit League opens with four matches including South Dakota at Denver, a rivalry that almost always provides exciting matches.
Worth noting on the four-match WAC slate is UT Arlington at Grand Canyon.
And the WCC has five matches, San Diego at Gonzaga, Pacific at Loyola Marymount, Washington State at Santa Clara, Saint Mary’s at Portland and Pepperdine at Oregon State.
North Florida was to play host to Jacksonville, but because of the impending hurricane that match has been postponed to Sunday. UNF is also home Saturday for Central Arkansas.
Minnesota gets big win over Wisconsin
Minnesota (8-3) dealt visiting Wisconsin (6-4) a 19-25, 25-15, 25-27, 25-15, 18-16 Big Ten-opening defeat. The Gophers led 12-7 in the fifth before ultimately taking advantage of four match points. Lydia Grote led with 17 kills, three assists, three aces, four blocks and 16 digs as Minnesota won its seventh in a row. Julia Hanson had 15 kills, an ace, seven digs and three blocks, one solo. Calissa Minatee had 11 kills with two errors in 24 attacks, three blocks and two digs. Melani Shaffmaster had six kills, 47 assists, a block and 10 digs. Her team hit .250 and had seven aces and seven serving errors. Zeynep Palabiyik had 24 digs, six assists and two aces.
Wisconsin, which hit .188 and had 11 aces and 13 errors, got 21 kills from Sarah Franklin, who had four errors in 57 swings and hit .298. She had two aces, a block and 14 digs. Anna Smrek had 13 kills, a dig and six blocks, and Julia Orzoll had 13 kills but hit .109. She had four aces, three assists, three blocks and 16 digs. Gulce Guctekin had 17 digs, six assists and an ace and setter Charlie Feurbringer had four kills in five errorless tries, 43 assists, an ace and eight digs.
Around the nation
Visiting Penn State hit .369 and improved to 11-1 with its 25-14, 25-21, 25-20 victory at Purdue, which dropped to 9-3 as it lost for the third time in four matches. Camryn Hannah led with 14 kills, hitting .393, and Jess Mruzik had 13 kills, two assists, three solo blocks and nine digs. Izzy Starck had four kills in seven errorless tries, 38 assists, an ace and 13 digs. Purdue, which hit .176, got 10 kills each from Eva Hudson and Chloe Chicoine …
Tennessee beat Alabama in five behind those 31 kills from Nina Cajic, who hit .338 and had four aces, a block and 11 digs. She had half her team’s kills. Caroline Kerr had five kills with no errors in nine tries, 48 assists, an ace, 16 digs and three blocks, one solo. Alabama’s Sophie Agee had 18 kills, an ace, a block and 11 digs …
Arkansas beat Georgia in five and improved to 11-2 overall as it also won its SEC opener. Freshman outside Aniya Madkin had 27 kills, the most for that program in three years. Madkin had nine errors in an Arkansas-record 86 attacks. She also had four digs and five blocks. Romani Thurman added 20 kills, eight digs and four blocks and Zoi Evans had seven kills, three digs and a career-high 10 blocks. Erykah Lovett, who had 65 kills in her previous 10 Georgia matches, had 33 kills, hit .305, and had three assists, 21 digs and four blocks. Sophie Fisher had 21 kills, an ace, 10 digs and nine blocks, two solo …
No. 14 Arizona State improved to 12-1 as it swept at No. 22 TCU in its first Big 12 match as Geli Cyr had a career-high 18 kills, hitting .429 to go with three assists, an ace and nine digs. Argentina Ung had five kills with one error in eight tries, 29 assists, two aces, two blocks and five digs. TCU’s Melanie Parra had 14 kills, four assists, 11 digs and three blocks, two solo …
Florida State came away with a 22-25, 25-22, 24-26, 25-18, 15-10 victory over visiting Miami in the ACC. FSU’s Audrey Koenig had 23 kills, hit .339 and had two assists, two aces, three blocks and 14 digs. Khori Louis had 20 kills with two errors in 30 attacks to hit .600 and had an ace, five blocks and a dig. Taylor Head had eight kills, two assists, four blocks and 21 digs. It’s the second time Miami responded to getting ranked by losing. The last time, the Hurricanes dropped their next two after upsetting Texas. This week they got back in at No. 25. Flormarie Colon led Miami with 19 kills, an assist and 16 digs …
Western Carolina opened SoCon play with a 25-20, 17-25, 25-21, 41-43, 15-13 victory at The Citadel as Ali Morris had a career-high 25 kills. She had five errors in 70 swings, an assist, 25 digs and two blocks, one solo. Consider some of the team stats: The Citadel had 120 digs; WCU 112. The Citadel had 76 kills with 28 errors in 231 swings to hit .208, while WCU had 77 kills and 30 errors in 244 attacks. The Citadel had a 14-7 blocks advantage. But some of the individual lines were astounding: WCU’s Bailey Hartsough had 18 kills, five assists, two aces and 26 digs. Setter Sarah Janourova had two kills, 33 assists and 21 digs. Eda Yalcinkaya had 20 digs and three assists. The Citadel’s Ali Ruffin had 23 kills, three assists, an ace, three blocks and a career-high 33 digs. Sophie Childs had 21 kills, two assists, an ace, four blocks and five digs. Mackenzie Martin had 15 kills, an assist and 20 digs. Jaelynn Elgert had 34 digs and five assists and Belle Hogan had five kills in 11 errorless attempts, 62 assists, two blocks and 14 digs …
No. 1 Pittsburgh hit .487 and improved to 10-0, 30-0 in sets, with a sweep of visiting UMBC. Eight Panthers had four or more kills .. No. 9 Kansas swept visiting UCF as the Jayhawks hit .394 in the Big 12 opener. London Davis had 14 kills with no errors in 23 attacks in the 25-16, 31-29, 25-22 victory and Caroline Bien had 11 kills with one error in 25 swings. UCF lost despite hitting .331 … AVCA No. 19 Baylor (9-3) defeated previously unbeaten Arizona (11-1) in four as five players had eight or more kills, 14 by Alicia Andrew. She had one error in 22 attacks, an assist, two blocks and two digs. Jaelyn Hodge had 22 kills for Arizona, hitting .354 to go with an ace, a block and 10 digs …
In DePaul’s four-set Big East win over Xavier, Jill Pressly had 17 kills, hit .412 and had an ace, 12 digs and a block … Wichita beat Memphis in four as Emerson Wilford had 16 kills, nine digs and two blocks … Cincinnati improved to 10-2 with a sweep of West Virginia as Carly Glendinning had 15 kills with one error in 34 attacks to hit .412 to go with five digs and two blocks …
Among the results from Tuesday, San Jose State improved to 9-0 as it opened Mountain West play with a four-set victory at Fresno State. Blaire Fleming had 16 kills, hit .361, and had two aces, six digs and three solo blocks …
In FGCU’s sweep of Stetson, Shelby Kent had 17 kills, hit .412 and had an assist, an ace and nine digs … Texas A&M-Commerce opened Southland Conference play with a sweep of Northwestern State as Kitana Tuufuli had 18 kills, hit .485, and had three digs and a block … UC Irvine opened Big West play with a four-set win at Cal State Fullerton as five players had six or more kills. Ella Gardiner had eight kills, hit .375 and had eight blocks. The 6-foot graduate-student transfer from New Zealand via Fairfield averaged .75 blocks per set last season for UCI and is averaging 1.09/set this year …
And Binghamton beat Le Moyne in four as Tsvetelina Ilieva had 24 kills with two errors in 43 attacks to hit .512 to go with an ace, five digs and two blocks. Ilieva, a fifth-year outside from Bulgaria, is averaging 4.25 kills per set this season and already has 22 aces. She was a VolleyballMag honorable-mention All-American last season.
