No one has stopped the Cardinal in the Pac-12.
The No. 2 Cardinal went five with visiting No. 14 Washington on Thursday but when it was over stood 16-2 overall — the only losses were to top-ranked Penn State — and 9-0 in the Pac-12.
The other three ranked teams in action Thursday — No. 8 BYU, No. 18 San Diego and No. 20 Colorado State — all won in sweeps.
Sacramento State is all alone atop the Big Sky after sweeping Idaho in a matchup of the division leaders, and Austin Peay won again as the Govs maintained their hold on first in the Ohio Valley with a four-set win over Belmont.
The recaps follow, but first a look at a big Friday in NCAA women’s college volleyball.
Start with aforementioned Pac-12, where everyone is trying to keep pace with Stanford as the schedule gets to the halfway point of their 20-match season on Friday.
Utah, ranked No. 12 and standing 16-3, 7-1, plays host to No. 13 UCLA (12-5, 5-3), which can’t afford to fall four games back of Stanford. No. 15 Oregon (11-5, 4-4) gets Arizona (8-10, 2-7) at home, while No. 19 USC (14-5, 6-2) goes to Colorado 14-5, 4-4). Oregon State (14-7, 4-5) tries to keep its win streak alive when Arizona State (10-10, 0-8) visits and Washington State (13-7, 2-6) goes to Cal (11-8, 2-6).
There are four matches in the Big Ten, where five teams have either one or two losses. Penn State (17-1, 7-1) is at No. 17 Purdue (15-4, 5-3), while No. 7 Nebraska (14-4, 7-1) plays host to Northwestern (12-8, 2-6). Illinois (15-4, 6-2) tries to keep pace at Iowa (14-7, 3-5), and Rutgers (5-15, 0-8) goes to Indiana (11-9, 0-8) with the loser claiming sole possession of last place.
There are three matches in the SEC, including No. 4 Florida trying to bounce back from its first defeat. The Gators play at Alabama. Arkansas goes to Texas A&M and Georgia is at Missouri.
There’s a busy slate in the ACC, where Pittsburgh stands alone atop the league and plays host to surging North Carolina. Also, Notre Dame is at Florida State, Wake Forest goes to Virginia Tech, Syracuse plays at Georgia Tech, Boston College is at Clemson, Louisville plays at Miami and Duke is at Virginia.
The Big 12 is idle.
No. 16 Creighton has a Big East match at St. John’s. No. 21 Wichita State has an American Athletic Conference match at Cincinnati. Cal Poly, ranked No. 23 and featured here this week, play host to CSUN in the Big West, and No. 25 Northern Iowa is back in Missouri Valley action when Loyola visits.
Remember that VolleyballMag.com has all the TV and streaming listings every day for every match that is being shown.
Stanford holds on in five: Kathryn Plummer had 20 kills and 10 digs as the Cardinal won 25-16, 18-25, 21-25, 25-20, 15-10.
Stanford led 11-10 in the fifth before closing out. Plummer also had two aces and five blocks. Tami Alade had 14 kills, hit .632 and had six blocks. Merete Lutz had 13 kills and four blocks and Audriana Fitzmorris, who hit .409, had 11 kills and eight blocks.
Washington’s Carly DeHoog had 15 kills and seven blocks. Courtney Schwan had 10 kills, two blocks and 10 digs and Tia Scambray had eight kills, three blocks — one solo — and 10 digs. Lauren Sanders added six kills and eight blocks, one solo. And Marion Hazelwood had nine kills in 11 errorless swings to hit .818 and had seven blocks, one solo.
This was the fifth time in nine conference matches that Washington has played five sets.
BYU, USD rule again in WCC: BYU had a balanced attack as it cruised at Pepperdine 25-20, 25-21, 25-15 to improve to 20-1, 9-0 in the West Coast Conference.
Veronica Jones-Perry led with 12 kills and nine digs, but hit an uncharacteristically low .079 as her team hit .193. McKenna Miller had 11 kills and three blocks.
Pepperdine (12-10, 4-5) got seven kills each from Hannah Frohling and Heidi Dyer.
San Diego stayed a game behind with its sweep at Loyola Marymount 25-23, 25-22, 26-24. USD (15-4, 8-1) hit .311, led by 13 kills each by Jayden Kennedy and Addie Picha, who hit .524. Kaity Edwards added 12 kills, hit .526 and had three blocks.
LMU (12-8, 5-4) got seven kills each from Savannah Slattery, Sierra Bartley and Meredith Teague, who hit .462 and had four blocks.
Rams roll: Colorado State not only registered its 14th sweep of the season but its eighth in a row in the Mountain West with its 25-14, 25-18, 25-19 win at UNLV. It left the Rams 19-2 overall, 9-0 in the MW.
Colorado State, which hit .385, got 11 kills from Breanna Runnels, who hit .320, and 10 kills from Paula Hougaard-Jensen, who hit .562 and had four blocks, two solo.
UNLV (7-15, 3-6) hit .093. Mariena Hayden had 13 of her team’s 26 kills and hit .400 to go with seven digs and two blocks.
Second-place Wyoming (12-9, 7-2), won its sixth conference match in a row and stayed two games back with a 25-17, 25-27, 25-23, 25-18 victory at New Mexico (11-11, 3-6).
Tara Traphagan led Wyoming with a career-high 21 kills while hitting .400 to go with three blocks. Halie McArdle had 15 kills, hit .378 and had three blocks and four digs.
Hornets alone atop Big Sky: There are two divisions in the conference and now Idaho is tied for first in the North. That’s because the Vandals lost to Sacramento State, which won its ninth in a row and stands alone atop the South Division and the league overall.
Sacramento State (18-7, 9-0) won at Idaho (12-8, 7-2) 25-23, 25-20, 25-23.
Also Thursday, North Dakota (22-4, 7-2) pulled into a tie in the North with its sweep of Idaho State. Portland State (16-5, 7-2) stayed two games back in the South with a sweep of Eastern Washington.
Sacramento State, which has won 15 of its last 17 matches, is off to its best Big Sky start since it joined the league in 1996. Its 2007 team started 8-0.
The Hornets, who hit .364, got 12 kills from Lana Brown, who hit .632, and 11 from Shannon Boyle, who had 18 digs. Mikaela Nocetti had 11 kills and five digs.
Govs build on OVC lead: Austin Peay (20-4, 8-1 Ohio Valley) beat visiting Belmont (11-10, 6-3) 25-15, 25-14, 13-25, 25-19 to go up by two games in the win column and one in the loss over idle SIUE (16-4, 8-2).
Ashley Slay led the Govs with 11 kills, four digs and six blocks, one solo. Christina White had eight kills, five digs and two blocks and Cecily Gable had eight kills and three blocks, one solo.
Arianna Person led Belmont with 17 kills, an ace, two digs and two blocks, one solo. Her team hit .097.
