Volleyball Today: OU upsets Texas; Abercrombie poised to win Athletes Unlimited
“You’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma, O.K.!”
Oklahoma, the SEC volleyball team, not the subject of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, is indeed doing fine.
The Sooners, who have been close so many times this season, came away with a 25-21, 25-27, 19-25, 25-17, 15-9 victory at No. 9 Texas on Sunday behind a monster effort by Alexis Shelton. Reeling Texas, meanwhile, lost for the third time in a row, each at home and each in five sets.
That was the only upset on a busy Sunday in which 14 ranked teams played. The only matches featuring two of them saw VolleyballMag Super 16 Media Poll No. 6 Stanford win in four at No. 23 Florida State and AVCA No. 16 Georgia Tech beat No. 25 North Carolina.
Both the VBM and AVCA polls come out later Monday with, as usual, a lot for the voters to consider.
This is, of course, the season of the reverse sweep, so there was one when Arkansas rallied from 0-2 at home against Auburn.
Lines of the day: In Quinnipiac’s big five-set win over MAAC-leading Fairfield, Italian opposite Elena Giacomini had 31 kills, two assists, two aces, 15 digs and three blocks, one solo.
Brown’s Mariia Sidorova had 26 kills but her team lost its Ivy League match in five to Princeton. The Russian junior outside hit .373 and had two aces and 11 digs.
There was also the aforementioned Alexis Shelton, who had 27 kills, hit .365, and had two assists, 15 digs and five blocks, two solo, against Texas.
Delaware State lost its MEAC match in five at Norfolk State, but Gerren Tomlin had 25 kills, hit .354 and had two assists, four aces, 11 digs and two blocks.
Aniya Madkin had 25 kills for Arkansas in that SEC win over Auburn to go with four digs and two blocks.
There are four matches Monday, including one of the hottest teams in the nation, UT Arlington, home for Abilene Christian. UTA, which has won 12 in a row, is 21-2, 11-0 in the WAC, and holds a two-game lead over Utah Tech and Grand Canyon.
Also Monday, Morgan State plays South Carolina in the MEAC and in the SWAC, Prairie View plays Alcorn and Texas Southern plays Southern.
Brittany Abercrombie in Athletes Unlimted driver’s seat
It’s Brittany Abercrombie’s to lose. The lefty opposite has 4,405 points as the five-week competition comes to a close in Mesa, Arizona, well ahead of second-place Dominican Republican veteran Bethania De La Cruz-Mejia (3,899). Morgan Hentz moved into third place (3,180) and Madi Kingdon Rishel is fourth (3,119).
At 7 p.m. Eastern Monday, Team (Dani) Drews plays Team Kingdon Rishel and then at 9:30 Team De La Cruz plays Team Abercrombie. Both matches can be seen on the FanDuel Sports Network and on Volleyball World TV.
In Sunday night’s second match, Team Abercrombie dismantled Team Kingdon Rishel 75-56 as Abercrombie led all scorers with 14 kills in the 25-16, 25-23, 25-17 victory. She had one error in 39 attacks to hit .333 and had 13 digs and three blocks to all but ice the title.
Read the recap here.
In the opener, Team De La Cruz-Mejía rolled to a 75-55 victory over Team Drews. De La Cruz had 10 kills with one error in 20 swings to hit .450 and had an assist and two digs in the 25-16, 25-23, 25-16 victory.
Read the first-match recap here.
The best of NCAA volleyball Sunday
SEC: Kantucky (14-7, 8-2) now has a half-game lead over Missouri (16-5, 7-2), which is a game up in the loss column on Florida (16-5, 7-3) and Texas (12-6, 7-3).
Oklahoma (10-8, 4-6), which was coming off a five-set loss to Missouri, and previously had lost in five to both Kentucky and Florida, beat Texas for the first time since 2014, also the last time the Sooners beat a top-10 team. Kamille Gibson had 14 kills, a dig and five blocks, three solo, and Kari Geissberger had 13 kills, hit .375, and had a dig and three blocks. Texas, which hit .187, got 17 kills from Madi Skinner, who had 11 errors, two aces, 11 digs and four blocks. Reagan Rutherford had 15 kills, hit .344, and added an assist and three blocks, one solo …
No. 16 Kentucky swept at Georgia as Brooklyn DeLeye had 16 kills, hit .464, and had an assist, two aces, six digs and a block. Georgia hit .088 … No. 24 Florida beat visiting Ole Miss in four as Kennedy Martin had 22 kills, an ace, three digs and two blocks … Mississippi State (10-8, 4-5) came away with a surprising dominating sweep at Texas A&M (15-5, 6-4) as the Bulldogs hit .361 … South Carolina swept visiting Tennessee, LSU beat visiting Alabama in four as Jurnee Robinson had 23 kills, an ace, 12 digs and three blocks, one solo… and Arkansas came back for a 23-25, 19-25, 25-23, 25-20, 15-11 reverse-sweep win over visiting Auburn in a battle of teams that have both ranked this season.
ACC: Georgia Tech (17-4, 9-3) won in five at North Carolina (18-3, 10-2). The Yellow Jackets had 13 aces, six by Bianca Bertolino, who led with 17 kills, three assists and 13 digs. Logan Wiley had nine kills, hit .368, and had four aces, four digs and three blocks, one solo …
Top-ranked Pittsburgh (21-1, 11-1) pulled back into a first-place tie with idle Louisville by sweeping Virginia Tech. North Carolina is alone in third, a game up on Georgia Tech, Stanford (17-4, 9-3) and SMU (17-6, 9-3). Stanford won in four at Florida State (16-6, 8-4) as both outside hitters, Ipar Kurt and Elia Rubin, had 17 kills and hit over .400 … SMU swept at Virginia as the Mustangs hit .390 … Boston College swept at NC State as Julia Haggerty had 10 kills with no errors in 14 attacks, a dig and 11 blocks, one solo. Haggerty is the NCAA leader in blocks per set (1.99) and total blocks (189, 37 solo) … Miami swept visiting Cal … Duke beat visiting Clemson in four as Kerry Keefe had 17 kills, hit .484, and had an ace, two digs and two blocks … Wake Forest beat visiting Syracuse in four.
BIG TEN: Nebraska (22-1, 12-0) had no letdown after its sweep at Wisconsin and swept at Northwestern. The Huskers, who have won 19 in a row, got kills from eight players as Nebraska pulled back into a first-place tie with idle Penn State… No. 7 Wisconsin bounced back with a sweep at Illinois (15-7, 7-5) and remained alone in third place at 16-5, 10-2. The Badgers, who hit .364, got 13 kills each from Sarah Franklin and Anna Smrek … No. 14 Minnesota (16-6, 9-3) swept at Michigan (6-7, 6-6) … No. 21 USC (16-6, 8-4) beat visiting Washington (17-5, 7-5) in four as four players had 10 or more kills. The Huskies hit .061 … Ohio State (10-12, 3-8) won in four at Michigan State (8-15, 1-11) as Emily Londot had 17 kills, two assists, 14 digs and four blocks.
AROUND THE NATION: Fifth-ranked Creighton hit .400 and improved to 21-2, 12-0 in the Big East with a sweep of visiting Villanova. Ava Martin had 13 kills, hit .478, and had an assist, an ace, two digs and two blocks, and Norah Sis had 11 kills, hit .381, and had three aces, six digs and four blocks as the Bluejays won their 14th in a row. Marquette (17-6, 11-1) kept pace with a sweep of visiting St. John’s as Aubrey Hamilton had 14 kills, hit .423 and had two assists and 10 digs …
There’s no stopping Dayton in the Atlantic 10, where the No. 15 Flyers (24-1, 14-0) swept at George Mason again. Lexie Almodovar had 17 kills, hit .385, and had an ace, 10 digs and six blocks, two solo as Dayton won its 17th in a row …
Rice and idle South Florida are tied atop the American Athletic standings, a game up on East Carolina and Wichita State. Rice swept at UTSA as Kaitlyn Knobbe had 16 kills, hitting .481. ECU swept at UAB and Wichita State beat Tulsa in four as Brooklyn Leggett had 22 kills …
ASUN-leading FGCU (20-4, 10-1) won in four at Queens as Shelby Kent had 19 kills, 17 digs and two blocks …
Four teams — Towson, Delaware, Charleston and Hofstra — are tied atop the CAA at 11-3. Towson, which got 18 kills from Zyare Abdul-Rahim, who hit .485, swept Northeastern and Delaware did the same to Stony Brook. N.C. A&T stayed a game back by beating visiting Elon in five behind 22 kills from Hannah Howell, who had four aces and nine digs …
MEAC-leading Howard improved to 18-5, 11-0 with a sweep of UMES as Dami Awojobi had 12 kills, hit .476, and added 11 digs and four blocks … In Colgate’s Patriot League sweep at Holy Cross, Taylor Cigna had 22 digs, four assists and an ace … Florida A&M improved to 21-6, 13-0 in the SWAC with a sweep at Alabama A&M … In Rider’s MAAC sweep at Marist, Kiannisha Santiago had 15 kills with one error in 22 attacks to hit .636 and added three aces, a dig and four blocks.
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