The San Diego Smash — Geena Urango, Toni Rodriguez, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans — won the inaugural AVP League on Sunday.
There were no NCAA upsets as the top teams all won, including No. 1 Pittsburgh, No. 4 Louisville and No. 5 Creighton and No. 10 SMU defeated No. 25 North Carolina in the only match involving two ranked teams.
Reverse sweeps? Of course: Syracuse did it to visiting Notre Dame in the ACC and Binghamton did it to visiting New Hampshire in a battle for first place in the America East.
Lines of the day: Towson won in four at Stony Brook behind 27 kills from Victoria Barrett, who hit .380 and had two assists, an ace, 18 digs and four blocks, two solo. Texas A&M lost in four at Tennessee, but Logan Lednicky had 27 kills, hit .404 and added nine digs and a block.
San Diego Smash wins AVP League
The San Diego Smash earned the honor of being the first champions of the AVP League, defeating the Dallas Dream in a “Golden Set” tiebreaker on Sunday in Carson, California.
The Smash’s Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez opened the championship game with a 15-9, 15-9 mauling of Hailey Harward and Kylie Deberg. But the Dream’s Miles Partain and Andy Benesh bested Chase Budinger and Miles Evans 15-12, 15-11 in a battle of the pairs who represented the USA in the Paris Olympics. That meant a Golden Set would break the tie.
Urango-Rodriguez built an 8-5 lead and Budinger-Evans closed out a 15-13 victory, with Chase’s spike scoring the winning point. The Smash came into the playoffs as the No. 4 seed with an 8-8 record in the regular season.
The third-place match, won by the Miami Mayhem over the New York Nitro also was settled in a Golden Set. The Mayhem’s Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner topped Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander in three sets (29-27 in the third) and the Nitro’s Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes swept April Ross and Alix Klineman. Trevor and Theo handed the retiring 2021 Olympic gold medalists a 8-7 edge in the Golden Set, and April and Alix were up to the task in the final competition of their careers, winning 15-12.
Larry Hamel’s full report posts Tuesday along with photos by Jim Wolf.
Also, the team of Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft took home $20,000 after falling 21-17, 21-18 in the gold-medal match to Brazilians Carol Solberg and Barbara Seixas in the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Rio de Janeiro.
Earlier on Sunday, Kraft and Cannon blitzed the German pair of Sandra Ittlinger and Kim Van de Velde 21-14, 21-16 in the semifinals.
The USA pair, the only one left after the qualifier, captured their third consecutive Elite16 medal. They got silver in Gstaad silver and bronze in Vienna in July.
NCAA volleyball Monday
The highlight, of course, is “900 Square Feet,” the weekly video Zoom with Emily Ehman and yours truly. We are going at it a little later Monday evening and will post ASAP.
Also Monday is the VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll and this past week has given our dozen voters a lot to consider. That posts late morning.
And there are matches, too, five in all. There are two WAC matches, including one of the hottest teams in the nation, UT Arlington, going 82 miles to the southwest to Tarleton State. UTA (23-2, 13-0), which has clinched the top seed in the WAC Tournament, has 14 in a row. Also in the WAC, second-place Grand Canyon goes to California Baptist.
In the SWAC, Alcorn faces Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Southern plays Grambling and Alabama A&M faces Mississippi Valley.
NCAA volleyball Sunday
Fifth-ranked Creighton (23-2, 14-0) hit .356 and basically wrapped up the Big East regular-season title with a 21-25, 25-12, 25-18, 25-13 victory at Marquette (18-7, 12-2). Norah Sis led with 23 kills, hitting .429 after having two errors in 49 attacks to go with a dig and a block. Ava Martin had 16 kills, hit .424, and had two aces and 11 digs. Setter Kendra Wait had two kills, 44 assists, three aces, 13 digs and five blocks, one solo. Creighton held a 12-3 advantage in blocks as Marquette hit .146. The Golden Eagles, who had won 28 Big East matches in a row at home, got 13 kills from Aubrey Hamilton and 12 from Hattie Bray … Also in the Big East, UConn won in four at Georgetown as Hanna Tylska had 19 kills, hit .372, and had three assists, two aces, 12 digs and a block …
In the ACC, the two leaders, No. 1 PIttsburgh and No. 4 Louisville swept. Pitt crushed visiting Duke, which had 19 kills but 28 errors, 25-10, 25-11, 25-13. Torrey Stafford had 13 kills with one error in 25 attacks, four assists, an ace, five digs, and three blocks. Louisville did the same at Boston College, winning 25-21, 25-18, 25-8.
No. 10 SMU beat visiting No. 25 North Carolina in four, led by Jamison Wheeler, who had 16 kills, hit .420, and had eight digs and three blocks. No. 24 Florida State beat visiting NC State in four, Miami beat visiting Wake Forest in four, and Syracuse, as noted, came back for a 20-25, 21-25, 25-22, 25-22, 15-12 victory over visiting Notre Dame. Zharia Harris-Waddy had 17 kills, hit .400, and had an ace, three digs and 11 blocks, one solo …
The two ranked Big Ten teams in action won. No. 11 Purdue swept visiting Michigan and USC won in four at Indiana. Eva Hudson had 19 kills and hit .350 for Purdue with an ace, six digs and three blocks. Michigan’s Valentina Vaulet had 20 kills, hit .400, and had an assist, an ace and two blocks. USC got 20 kills from Ally Batenhorst, who hit .354 and had an assist, 18 digs and two blocks. Northwestern won in four at Iowa as Kennedy Hill had 11 kills, hit .389, and added an ace and 11 blocks …
Kentucky (16-7, 10-2) holds a half-game lead in the SEC over Missouri (18-5) and a full game over Florida (18-5, 9-3) after all three won Sunday. Kentucky swept visiting LSU for its seventh win in a row. Missouri swept visiting South Carolina for its ninth win in a row as Mychael Vernon had 14 kills, hit .324, and added an ace, eight digs and two blocks. Florida swept visiting Alabama as Kennedy Martin had 16 kills, hit .500 and had three aces, six digs and a block. Tennessee beat visiting Texas A&M in four despite 27 kills by Logan Lednicky, who hit .404 and had nine digs and a block. Tennessee’s Nina Cajic had 18 kills with one error in 49 attacks to hit .347 and had an assist, an ace, four digs and four blocks. Oklahoma won in four at Mississippi State as Alexis Shelton had 17 kills, 11 digs and five blocks …
Howard got pushed to the limit to improve to 20-5, 13-0 in the MEAC with a 25-19, 21-25, 25-21, 18-25, 15-7 victory at second-place Coppin State and now leads Eagles by three games. Rya McKinnon had 22 kills, hit .316, and had 10 digs and a block …
In the only Summit League match, second-place Omaha swept at Oral Roberts to pull to a game behind idle South Dakota State. Amanda Hardt had 17 kills in just those three sets, hitting .433. McKenna Ruch had 12 kills with one error in 20 attacks to hit .550 and had two aces, four digs and eight blocks, five solo …
Lipscomb (16-10, 13-2) won its sixth in a row to pull within a half game of idle FGCU (22-4, 13-1) in the ASUN with a four-set win at North Alabama as four players had 11 or more kills, 15 by Courtney Jones. She hit .343 and had nine digs. Karlie McNabb had 12 kills, hit .333 and had an assist, three aces and 12 digs. Central Arkansas (14-11, 11-3) kept pace with a sweep of Austin Peay as Mackenzie Vernon had 14 kills, hit .500, and had a dig and two blocks …
Binghamton (17-9, 7-2) opened a one-game America East lead on New Hampshire (15-9, 6-3) with a 19-25, 19-25, 25-18, 25-23, 15-2 victory. Tsvetelina Ilieva had 20 kills, 17 digs and three blocks, one solo. UNH’s Hannah Serbousek had 21 kills, two aces, 25 digs and three blocks. UMBC (8-14, 6-3) is tied with UNH after its five-set win over visiting Bryant, which got 23 kills from Arianna Ugolini, who had two aces and 10 digs. UMBC’s Mia Bilusic and Hannah Dobbs had 22 kills each. Bilusic had two assists, 26 digs and two blocks and Dobbs hit .327 and had an assist, an ace, 15 digs and two blocks. Aysia Miller had 28 digs and two assists …
Fairfield maintained its two-game lead on Quinnipiac as the Stags beat Niagara in four and Quinnipiac swept Marist. Also in the MAAC, Sacred Heart beat Canisius in four as Camryn Luginbuhl had 23 kills, hit .306, and had three assists, 13 dig and two blocks …
South Florida and Rice remained tied for the American Athletic lead, but while Rice swept UAB, USF had to go five at East Carolina. USF got 19 kills from Naiya Sawtelle, who had 14 digs and two blocks, Ally Cavanaugh had 18 kills, two digs and five digs, and Maria Clara Andrade had 17 kills, an assist, an ace, eight digs and three blocks, one solo. Also in the AAC, Morgan Stout had 15 kills and hit .500 in Wichita State’s sweep of Tulane to go with two aces, seven digs and a block …
All four of the teams tied for the top of the CAA at 13-3 won. Towson won in four at Stony Brook behind 27 kills from Victoria Barrett, who hit .380 and had two assists, an ace, 18 digs and four blocks, two solo. Hofstra swept visiting N.C. A&T as Constanza Perez Sain had 16 kills, hit .323 and had an assist, three aces, three digs and a block. College of Charleston swept at UNC Wilmington as Caitlyn Callahan had 12 kills with no errors in 17 swings, an assist, three digs and three blocks, one solo. And Delaware extended the misery of 0-27 Hampton by sweeping the Pirates as Kirah Johnson had 12 kills with no errors in 15 attacks to hit .800 and had an ace, four digs and three blocks.
