Tennessee, Florida, Ohio St., Illinois, Cincy among Wednesday winners
Tennessee and Florida won in the SEC, Ohio State and Illinois got Big Ten victories, and Cincinnati won in the Big 12 on a relatively quiet Wednesday in NCAA Division I women’s volleyball.
The recaps and top performances follow, but first a look at Thursday’s schedule and that includes Baylor-Texas.
Always the benchmark in the Big 12, the battles between the Bears and Longhorns almost always decide the league. In this case, VBM No. 5 Texas (14-3, 9-0) is the host for back-to-back matches with AVCA No. 20 Baylor (12-7, 6-3) in Austin’s Gregory Gym.
However, in this one year where VBM No. 9 BYU joined the league and before Texas and Oklahoma go to the SEC next year, Baylor has to win both to stay in the race. BYU (18-3) is tied for second with UCF (16-4, 7-2), which lost twice at Baylor last week. BYU goes to Kansas State (11-8, 5-5) and UCF is home for TCU (12-9, 5-5). Also, VBM No. 16 Kansas (14-4, 5-3) is home for West Virginia (9-13, 2-7). The Big 12 has seven teams in the NCAA RPI top 40, including Iowa State at 36 and Houston at 40. TCU, at 54, is up against it.
The lone Big Ten match has AVCA No. 16 Purdue home for Minnesota, which at RPI 48, needs some wins.
The ACC, Pac-12 and SEC are idle and so are the Big East, Conference USA and Atlantic 10, the other conferences with ranked teams in either poll.
In the Big Sky, Sacramento holds a one-game lead over Weber State. Sac State is at Northern Colorado and Weber State is at Eastern Washington.
Utah State puts its two-game Mountain West on the line at Colorado State.
Southland-leading Southeastern Louisiana, a game up in the win column on Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, is home for Nicholls, while TAMUCC is home for Houston Christian.
Stephen F. Austin leads Grand Canyon by a game in the WAC. SFA goes to UTRGV, which is two games off the lead, and GCU is home for Utah Tech.
Pepperdine leads the West Coast Conference by two games over Loyola Marymount and San Diego. Pepperdine is home for Saint Mary’s and LMU is at San Diego. San Diego, which won the WCC last year and went to the national semifinals, has an RPI of 67, so the Toreros need a win.
Want to watch? We have the conference-by-conference schedule with viewing links for any match that is being shown in our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.
Both ranked SEC teams in action won. No. 12 Tennessee (17-3, 8-2) stayed a half game off the lead as it won in four at Missouri (13-8, 5-5). Morgahn Fingall had 17 kills, an assist, an ace, three blocks and seven digs. Jenaisya Moore added 11 kills, three blocks and five digs. Mizzou got 13 kills each from Jordan Iliff and Janet DeMarrais … No. 15 Florida (14-4, 6-3) swept at Ole Miss (8-14, 2-9). Kennedy Martin had 19 kills with two errors in 29 attacks to hit .586 in the 26-24, 25-23, 25-19 victory. She added a block and eight digs …
There were two Big Ten matches. Ohio State (8-12, 5-6), thrust into a must-win situation the rest of the way in an effort to get to .500 in order to be eligible for the NCAA Tournament, hit .500 and swept visiting Northwestern (10-11, 4-7). Emily Londot had 22 kills with one error in 36 attacks to hit .636 and added an assist and three digs in the 25-13, 25-12, 25-13 victory. Ohio State had 49 kills with only five errors in 88 attacks. Northwestern hit .091 … Illinois (11-0, 6-5) came away with a 26-24, 18-25, 25-23, 10-25, 15-10 win over visiting Indiana (16-8, 6-5). Raina Terry led with 16 kills, two aces, eight digs and two blocks, one solo. Kennedy Collins had 12 kills, five aces, four blocks and three digs. Indiana had more kills (71-55) and digs (78-68), each team had eight blocks, and Illinois had a 10-3 aces advantage.
Indiana, 50 in the RPI with little margin for error in matches like this, got 15 kills from Morgan Geddes, 14 from Candela Alonso-Corcellas and 13 each from Camryn Haworth, who had one error in 22 swings, and Kaley Rammelsberg, who had one error in 23 attacks …
In the only ACC match, Duke (14-8, 5-6) beat visiting North Carolina (10-10, 4-7) in four. Gracie Johnson had 16 kills and hit .361 to go with four blocks and nine digs. Kerry Keefe had 15 kills, hit .406 and had an assist, an ace, three blocks and seven digs. UNC’s Emani’ Foster had 15 kills, two assists, three blocks and three digs, and Mabrey Shaffmaster had 13 kills, an ace and 12 digs …
The lone Big 12 match saw Cincinnati (11-9, 4-6) sweep visiting Texas Tech (8-15, 1-10). Elissa Alacantara, who had no errors in 25 attacks, and Abby Walker, who had two errors in 19 swings, had 11 kills each for Cincinnati …
The only Big East match was a Villanova sweep of Georgetown as Abby Harrell had 16 kills, hit .371 and had a block and four digs …
Quinnipiac swept Iona to get to a half-game and idle Fairfield atop the MAAC. Aryanah Diaz had 17 kills with two errors in 34 attacks, two aces, 17 digs and a block.
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