Fourth-ranked Texas trailed 12-10 in the fifth before getting out of Fort Worth with a Big 12 victory over TCU.
Sixth-ranked Wisconsin bounced back from losing the first set to win at No. 7 Illinois.
No. 3 Nebraska beat Iowa and No. 5 Minnesota swept Northwestern, setting up Saturday’s meeting between the league leaders, both 5-0 in conference play.
And Claire Archibald not only had 23 kills in Iona’s win, but also 35 digs.
The recaps from Wednesday follow, but first a look at Thursday NCAA Division I women’s volleyball schedule.
There is just one match involving power-five conference teams when Oregon State goes to No. 12 Southern Cal.
The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and the SEC are off.
There are four matches in the West Coast Conference, but none include top-ranked BYU as Santa Clara goes to Gonzaga, Pacific is at Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount is home for Saint Mary’s and San Francisco is at Portland.
There are two MAC matches as Buffalo goes to Akron and Toledo goes to Ball State, which is in a three-way tie at 3-1 atop the West.
There are four matches in the Big Sky, as Portland State goes to Eastern Washington, Montana is at Southern Utah, Montana State plays at Northern Arizona and Sacramento State plays at Idaho.
The Mountain West slate shows league leader Fresno State at Utah State, Air Force at Wyoming, San Jose State at UNLV, Nevada at New Mexico, and San Diego State at Boise State.
And the Western Athletic Conference schedule includes league-leader Kansas City (4-0) playing host to New Mexico State. Also UT Rio Grande Valley plays Chicago State, Utah Valley faces Seattle and Grand Canyon plays Cal Baptist.
Links for all NCAA Division I matches that are being televised or streamed can be found in our listings on VolleyballMag.com.
Wisconsin downs Illinois: The Illini (14-2, 3-2) were one of the last three unbeatens, but have now lost back-to-back matches after Wisconsin’s Dana Rettke had a career-high 23 kills in a 21-25, 25-21, 25-23, 25-18 victory.
Wisconsin is 11-2, 4-1 in the B1G.
“This is going to give us so much confidence going forward,” Rettke said.
Rettke, the 6-foot-8 middle, continually hurt the Illini with slides and/or one-foot takeoffs on quicks and also had four digs and three blocks.
“It started off really tough. It really did,” Rettke said. “But then we came together as a team … and our serve-receive numbers went way through the roof after the first set and we really came together. And Syd did a great job getting balls up there for me to hit.”
Madison Duello had a big night, with 12 kills and one error in 25 swings. She hit .440, had an ace, five digs and five blocks. Tionna Williams came on strong late and finished with eight kills and no errors in 12 attacks to hit .667 and had a dig and five blocks.
And setter Sydney Hilley had a career-high seven kills in nine attempts with one error, hit .667, had 49 assists, four digs and a block.
“I thought she did a really good job tonight in all aspects of our game,” Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield said. “She did a good job of commanding the court.”
Both teams were hot offensively from the start. Illinois, which finished at .226, hit .375 in the first set, and Wisconsin, which hit .326, was at .367 after the first.
“And there at the end, their side-out percentage came down a bit, but for most of that fourth set neither team could stop the other team,” Sheffield said. “It was an awesome performance. Both teams were passing well and we kind of broke them down a little at the end.”
Illinois was led by Jacqueline Quade, who had 18 kills, two aces and nine digs. Beth Prince had 12 kills and Ali Bastianelli had nine, hit .316 and had two digs and two blocks.
“We’re close,” Illinois coach Chris Tamas said. “It’s a matter of the one or two points that we’re not converting. I thought we took some really nice swings. We missed by an inch or two on a couple and that’s the way it goes. But we’ve got to do better than that and make sure we’re handling the easy ones and take care of the points we can.
“There were a lot of in between touches we could have improved on and been better with and that’s the difference between beating good teams and not.”
Nebraska, Minnesota win: Nebraska beat Iowa 25-10, 23-25, 25-15, 25-11 for its 14th win in a row as the third-ranked Huskers improved to 14-1. Mikaela Foecke led with 20 kills and hit .459 and had nine digs and two blocks. Jazz Sweet had 15 kills, hit .300 and had two blocks, and Lexi Sun added 13 kills while hitting .385 and had two assists, three aces, two blocks and 13 digs. Setter Nicklin Hames had three kills, 47 assists, an ace, 11 digs and two blocks, and Callie Schwarzenbach had four kills with no errors in eight swings and five blocks.
Iowa (10-6, 2-3) hit .071. Taylor Louis led with 12 kills, a dig and a block and Cali Hoye had 11 kills, an assist, an ace, nine digs and a solo block.
Minnesota (11-2) cruised at Northwestern (10-7, 0-5) 25-19, 25-17, 25-15 behind 11 kills from Morgan Taylor, who hit .563 and had three blocks. Regan Pittman had eight kills with no errors in 16 attacks, had two assists, two digs and four blocks, two solo. And Stephanie Samedy and Adanna Rollins had seven kills each. The Gophers hit .390.
Nia Robinson had 10 kills and six digs to lead Northwestern, which got seven kills from Abryanna Cannon.
Texas wins in five at TCU: The Longhorns (9-3, 4-0 Big 12) had to go the distance to beat TCU 25-23, 25-22, 20-25, 18-25, 15-12, regrouping not only after seeing a 2-0 lead evaporate but battling back in the fifth.
Micaya White led with 19 kills, three assists, an ace, 12 digs and a solo block. Logan Eggleston had 17 kills, an ace, a dig and five blocks, two solo. Morgan Johnson had nine kills, two digs and three blocks, one solo. Brionne Butler had seven kills, two digs and five blocks, one solo.
TCU (10-5, 2-2), which dropped to 1-14 all time against UT, got another big performance from élan McCall, who led with 24 kills and 17 digs. McCall had an assist, an ace, and a block. Katie Clark had 17 kills, hit .424, and had three digs and a block. Anna Walsh had 19 kills, an assist, two aces, three digs and two blocks.
“I think our team fought really hard tonight especially after being down 0-2 and coming back,” TCU coach Jill Kramer said. “We had to get back to ourselves because we missed a ton of serves the first couple of sets and that is a big part of our game.
“In the first set especially, I kept telling them that the tough things and the hard rallies we are doing really well and we kind of dropped the ball on some easy stuff. We cleaned that up a little bit and started serving a lot tougher and looking like ourselves.
“We had a lot of great performances out of a lot of people and I like how we stuck with it and kept fighting. We had a really good time and a lot of fun playing together and getting the most out of each other.”
Texas Tech, Oklahoma, KU win: Texas Tech (15-3, 4-0) kept pace with the Longhorns by holding off visiting Kansas State (10-6 ,0-5) 25-27, 25-20, 19-25, 25-21, 15-11.
The Red Raiders won their ninth in a row as Brooke Kanas had a career-high 23 kills and hit .452. She added a dig and a block. Katy Keenan had 14 kills, hit .393 and four blocks, one solo. Emily Hill had 11 kills, three assists, two aces and 14 digs.
“It was a huge win,” Tech coach Tony Graystone said. “I think you saw the team grow and figure things out. From my point of view, they didn’t change anything about themselves or their demeanor when they got down 2-1. I think we were frustrated that we weren’t playing better, and K-State obviously had a lot to do with that.”
K-State’s Kylee Zumach had 16 kills, an assist, 19 digs and five blocks. Gloria Mutiri had 12 kills, an ace, 11 digs and six digs. Peyton Williams had 11 kills, a dig and five blocks and Alyssa Schultejans had 10 kills, an assist, three digs and a two blocks.
Oklahoma (10-7, 2-3) won at Iowa State (8-9, 1-3) 16-25, 26-24, 25-19, 25-20 despite hitting .146. Alyssa Enneking led with 10 kills. She had an assist, two aces, and 13 digs. Brianna Kadiku had nine kills and seven blocks and Paige Anderson, who had eight blocks, and Sarah Maras had eight kills each. Maras had five blocks, one solo. Sarah Sanders had seven kills and seven blocks, one solo.
Iowa State hit .136. Eleanor Holthaus led with 17 kills while hitting .464 and had three digs and four blocks. Candelaria Herrara had 10 kills, hit .400, and had two assists, three digs and three blocks.
Kansas (10-4, 3-0) rallied from 0-2 at West Virginia to win 22-25, 22-25, 25-23, 25-9, 15-7. Jada Burse had 17 kills, three digs and four blocks, while Ashley Smith had 16 kills, hit .300, and had a dig and three blocks. Zoe Hill had nine kills and 11 blocks, four in the fifth set.
West Virginia (8-9, 1-4) hit .126. Katelyn McElhaney led with 20 kills, two digs and a block.
Vols, Georgia, Georgia Tech get victories: Tennessee is 13-4 overall and 4-1 in the SEC after beating visiting Alabama 25-21, 25-14, 21-25, 25-20 behind 16 kills each by Erica Treiber and Lily Felts and 14 from Raquel Perinar.
Treiber had five digs and six blocks and hit .350. Felts had 12 digs and Perinar had five digs and five blocks, one solo. Alyssa Andreno had nine kills, hit .368, and had three digs and four blocks.
Alabama (13-5, 1-4), which hit .105, got 16 kills from Perinar’s sister, Ginger, who added an assist, three digs and three blocks, one solo. Doris Carter had 11 kills and 11 digs and Hayley McSpann had 10 kills, hit .318, three digs and three blocks, one solo.
Georgia (12-4, 3-2) played its third five-set match in its last four outings and finally won one, beating Auburn 24-26, 25-12, 22-25, 25-21, 20-18.
Rachel Ritchie led with 25 kills and T’ara Ceasar had 23 and their back-to-back kills ended the match Ritchie had an ace and six digs and Ceasar had two assists, 14 digs and two blocks. Mallory Hernandez had 10 kills, hit .529, and had a dig and two blocks.
“I thought the ladies showed a lot of growth,” Georgia coach Tom Black said. “I think it’s the most composure we’ve shown in such a hard-fought match. It was great to see that grit and something we can really grow from.”
Reeling Auburn (8-7, 1-4) got 19 kills from Brenna McIlroy, who had three aces, eight digs and two blocks, one solo.
Georgia Tech, 12-6 overall, broke through in the ACC with its first win after four defeats. The Yellow Jackets were led by Mariana Brambilia, who had 20 kills, hitting .327. She had two assists, an ace and 12 digs. Mikalia Down had 16 kills, two assists and 14 digs, and Kodie Comby had 13 kills, hit. 433, and had an assist, four digs and two blocks.
Clemson (9-9, 0-5) got 16 kills from Brooke Bailey, who hit .357, and 14 from Ashtynne Alberts, who had 10 digs and two blocks.
No. 19 Marquette sweeps Xavier: The Golden Eagles are 13-4 overall, 4-1 in the Big East, after beating Xavier 25-19, 25-14, 25-20 behind 14 kills from Allie Barber. She hit .591. Jenna Rosenthal had 12 kills with no errors in 17 swings and hit .706 and Anna Haak had 10 kills and hit .381. Marquette hit .441.
Xavier (4-12, 2-3) got nine kills from Laura Grossman and eight from Morgan Finn.
Also in the Big East, DePaul (4-12, 2-3) beat Butler (5-12, 2-3) 25-22, 12-25, 23-25, 25-21, 15-11. Emma Price led with 178 kills and two blocks and Claire Anderson had 15 kills and 12 digs. Brooke Gregory had 15 kills and three blocks, one solo, for Butler.
Around the nation: Stetson (10-6, 2-2 ASUN) swept North Florida (6-16, 1-5). Hao Jin had 12 kills, five digs and five blocks, one solo, and Anna Bezhan and Julie Varga had 10 kills each. Varga had 24 digs …
American (8-9, 3-0 Patriot League) beat Loyola Maryland (6-10, 1-2) in four behind Aleksandra Kazala, who had 18 kills, 12 digs and a block, and 16 kills from Helena Elbaek, who hit .325 and had a dig and three blocks. Ann Ernst had 22 kills and hit .333 and had nine digs for Loyola …
Fairfield (8-8) is 7-0 in the Metro Atlantic after sweeping Siena (1-16, 0-6). Luci Alberton and Julie Kallen led with nine kills each … Also in the MAAC, Iona (7-5, 5-1) beat Rider (7-7, 3-4) in five. Claire Archibald had 23 kills, hit .316, and had 35 digs and a block for Iona. Teammate Jamie Smith had 19 kills and 16 digs. Hailey Riede and Savannah Logan had 15 kills each for Rider …
ETSU (14-4, 3-1) swept UNCG (9-9, 3-3) in a SoCon match. Leah Clayton led with 10 kills …
Charleston is 13-5 overall, 4-0 in the Colonial after beating UNCW (8-4, 1-1) in four. Madison Kennedy, Rachel Devon and Lauren Freed had 12 kills each for Charleston. Maddy Kline led UNCW with 13 kills …
Northern Kentucky (12-4, 4-1 Horizon League) swept Youngstown State (7-11, 1-4) as Haley Libs had 13 kills, an assist, two aces and 11 digs. Also in the Horizon, Milwaukee (3-15, 2-3) swept IUPUI (5-14, 2-3) and Oakland (6-10, 2-3) beat Wright State (9-8, 1-4) in five as Jamie Walling had 15 kills, hit .414 and had two aces, four digs and two blocks and Krysteena Davis had 11 kills, three digs and 10 blocks, one solo …
And St. Peters of the Metro Atlantic (5-16) beat Fairleigh Dickinson of the Northeast (2-15) in five behind 20 kills from Karen Ramiu, who had 19 digs and two aces.
