Last Wednesday night, No. 13 Wisconsin lost the first set to visiting No. 5 Penn State.
And then a switch must have gone off for the Badgers, because they’ve been basically unstoppable since.
They went on to win the next three sets, the third and fourth by the same scores of 25-13, and then carried that into Saturday’s match at No. 2 Nebraska as they dealt the Huskers a 22, 25-21, 25-22 very rare home — and sweep — defeat.
It was the only major upset Saturday in NCAA Division I women’s volleyball, although No. 11 Hawai’i, barely recovered from losing the day before, went down 0-2 but got out of Cal State Fullerton with a five-set Big West victory.
Top-ranked Baylor remained the only unbeaten team as the Bears swept Kansas State.
And Sarah Davis had 31 kills for Sacramento State in its Big Sky victory over Northern Arizona.
The recaps and notes follow, but first a look at Sunday’s schedule.
The SEC’s three ranked teams are all in action and that includes one of the league’s two biggest matches, as No. 12 Florida goes to No. 15 Kentucky. They play again at Florida on November 17, and it’s a safe bet to say those two matches will decide the SEC title. The other ranked team, No. 22 Missouri, is home for Texas A&M. Also, Mississippi State goes to South Carolina, Alabama is at Georgia, Ole Miss goes to LSU, and Tennessee is at Auburn.
There are five matches in the Pac-12 and three of them involve ranked teams.
No. 8 Washington goes to UCLA, at 3-0 the only team unbeaten in league play. Oregon, ranked No. 25, plays host to No. 19 Cal, and No. 20 Utah goes to Arizona State. Also, Colorado plays at Arizona and Washington State is at USC.
The two Big Ten matches have No. 18 Illinois at No. 17 Purdue and Michigan at Ohio State.
The ACC match of the young season pits No. 4 Pittsburgh home for No. 23 Florida State. Also, Duke goes to Syracuse, Virginia Tech is at North Carolina, Clemson plays at Louisville, Virginia is at Miami, Wake Forest goes to Boston College, and Georgia Tech is at Notre Dame.
The only Big 12 match has TCU at Texas Tech. There are five matches in Conference USA, but No. 21 Rice is off. However, Marshall plays at WKU and both are also unbeaten in league play.
Click here for the complete NCAA.com scoreboard and to watch any match that is being broadcast, go to the VolleyballMag.com daily TV and streaming listings.
Big Ten: Wisconsin (8-4, 4-0) and Minnesota (10-2, 4-0) — which won in four at Rutgers — are now atop the league, while idle Michigan (10-3, 3-0) is a half game back. Everyone else has at least one conference loss.
The last time Nebraska was swept was in the 2016 NCAA national semifinals by Texas and the last time it was swept at home was by Stanford early in the 2014 season.
Wisconsin had four players with 10 or more kills at Nebraska (11-2, 3-1). Molly Haggerty led with 11 kills as she hit .391 and had an ace, a block and three digs. Dana Rettke had 10 kills with no errors in 20 swings and hit .500 and had an ace, two digs and three blocks, one solo. Danielle Hart had 10 kills and hit .643 as she had one error in 14 attacks, and Grace Loberg had 10 kills.
Lexi Sun had 15 kills and five digs for Nebraska, and Jazz Sweet had 13 kills, hit .524, and had three blocks and two digs.
“It blows my mind. I don’t know how I’m going to deal with it,” Nebraska coach John Cook said.
From the Nebraska notes: Nebraska fell for the first time in Cook’s tenure at Nebraska when hitting .300 or better in a match. The Badgers’ .376 hitting percentage was the best by a Husker opponent since 2011 (Purdue, .410). Offensively, Nebraska’s .336 performance was its third-best outing of the season and was also the second-best hitting percentage by a Wisconsin opponent this season.
“Nobody could’ve predicted two teams hitting at that percentage,” Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield said. “The hitting percentages were so high because both teams were hitting so well out of system. We didn’t give away too many points, we kept it pretty darn clean throughout the match. To come in here and play a pretty clean match with as few attacking errors as we had – that’s what it took.”
Penn State (10-3, 3-1) bounced back from losing to Wisconsin by sweeping Iowa (7-7, 1-3) 25-19, 25-17, 25-21 as the Nittany Lions hit .422. Kaitlyn Hord led with 11 kills and hit .688 with no errors in 16 attacks. She had five blocks, two solo. Serena Gray had nine kills and hit. 500 to go with two aces, three blocks, and a dig, and Jonni Parker had eight kills, hit .444, and had two aces, two blocks and six digs. Courtney Buzzerio led Iowa with 13 kills and hit .348, but her team hit .165 …
No. 7 Minnesota surprisingly lost a set to visiting Rutgers (6-9, 0-4) as Regan Pittman had 14 kills, Taylor Morgan 13 and Adanna Rollins 12 in a 25-17, 25-20, 19-25, 25-12 victory.
“We were grinding for a while there and a lot of that had to do with Rutgers’ nice play,” head coach Hugh McCutcheon said. “They had a good performance tonight and I liked how we responded in the fourth set. It seemed appropriate and certainly the execution was a little cleaner there. Happy to get the win.”
Pittman had no errors in 24 attacks and hit .583 and added an assist, four blocks and three digs. Morgan hit .400 and had four blocks, and Rollins had four blocks and 12 digs. Bayley McMenimen is still setting and had 48 assists and 15 digs.
Jasmine Stackhouse led Rutgers with 13 kills and hit .478 to go with three blocks and two digs. Beka Kojadinovic had 12 kills, hit .385 and had a block and 11 digs. Merle Weidt had 11 kills, hit .381, and had four digs and eight blocks, two solo …
Maryland (9-7, 1-3) beat Michigan State (11-3, 2-2) for the first time after losing to the Spartans 11 times in a row since joining the Big Ten. Katie Myers had 14 kills and Erika Pritchard 13 in the 25-22, 21-25, 14-25, 25-19, 15-12 victory.
“I don’t remember what we had but I think we had 14 kills or something like that in the first set, that was probably the highest we’ve had in a long time so it kind of set the tone there,” Maryland coach Adam Hughes said. “It gave us some life and having a huge crowd again also played a huge factor in getting us into it and helping us get the fifth set win.”
It was not pretty match offensively. Maryland won despite hitting .192 and Michigan State hit .158.
Myers, however, hit .542 and had an ace and three blocks. Pritchard added two aces, two blocks and 14 digs. Meredith Norris led Michigan State with 17 kills, two blocks and 12 digs, and Naya Gros had 13 kills, hit .417, and had six blocks and six digs …
And Indiana (12-5, 1-3) beat visiting Northwestern (9-7, 0-4) 26-24, 25-22, 21-25, 27-25 as Breana Edwards had 16 kills and Deyshia Lofton 14 to to go with six digs, three aces, and nine blocks, one solo. Temi Thomas-Ailara had 20 kills, a solo block and 10 digs for Northwestern.
Pac-12: In the only league match of the day, No. 3 Stanford (9-3, 3-1) won at Oregon State (8-7, 2-2) 25-12, 25-21, 27-25. Audrianna Fitzmorris and Kendall Kipp both had 12 kills, two blocks and two digs as Stanford played again without injured Kathryn Plummer. Megan McClure had 10 kills, three blocks and eight digs, and Madeleine Gates had nine kills, hit .450 after having no errors in 20 attacks, and had the team’s only ace, seven blocks and three digs.
Amy Underdown led Oregon State with 10 kills, six digs and three blocks, one solo. The Beavers hit .117.
Big 12: Baylor (13-0, 3-0) had to go overtime in the third set but still swept visiting Kansas State (6-9, 1-2) 25-19, 25-15, 29-27. Baylor has won 22 sets in a row. Yossiana Pressley led with 20 kills and had two blocks and seven digs. Setter Hannah Lockin had two kills in five errorless attempts, 35 assists, three aces, 10 digs and six blocks, one solo. Anna Dixon had 10 kills and four blocks for K-State …
Oklahoma (11-4, 3-1) beat visiting Kansas (4-9, 0-3) 23-25, 25-21, 25-16, 25-17. Ashlynn Dunbar had 18 kills, two assists, an ace, 11 digs and three blocks, one solo. Paige Anderson had 10 kills, four block and two digs. Kylee McLaughlin had seven kills and hit .500, 37 assists, three aces, a block and 12 digs. Zoe Hill, who hit .471 and had three blocks, and Camryn Ennis had nine kills each for Kansas. Ennis added an ace, three blocks and nine digs …
And visiting Iowa State (11-4, 2-1) came away with a 25-18, 25-22, 25-6 win at West Virginia (8-7, 0-3) as Christy Johnson-Lynch earned her 300th career victory, all in her 15 years at Iowa State. Annie Hatch led with 12 kills and hit .370 to go with two blocks and a dig.
West Coast Conference: The four winners Saturday have made for a clear separation in the league standings.
Ninth-ranked BYU (14-2, 5-0) won for the third time this week, beating Saint Mary’s (4-11, 0-5) 25-12, 25-22, 29-27. Madelyn Robinson led a balanced attack for the visiting Cougars with 10 kills and hit .409. She had an ace, six digs and a block. Heather Gneiting had nine kills and hit .467 to go with two assists, an ace, two digs and four blocks, one solo. McKenna Miller had nine kills and Taylen Ballard-Nixon had five kills, three aces, a dig and two blocks. Sienna Young had 13 kills and hit .357 for Saint Mary’s and had two blocks …
San Diego (12-4, 5-0) remained tied for the league lead with a 25-17, 25-27, 26-24, 25-16 win at Pacific (10-6, 2-2). Megan Jacobsen led the Toreros with 14 kills and hit .438 and had an ace, three blocks and four digs. Lauren Turner had 11 kills and hit .556 to go with seven blocks, two solo, and Grace Frohling had 10 kills and hit .409. She had four blocks and a dig. Riley Patterson and Carissa Bradford had 12 kills each for Pacific …
Pepperdine (8-8, 4-1) swept Gonzaga (6-10, 0-4) as Hannah Frohling had 16 kills and hit .438. She had two aces, seven digs and two blocks. Tarah Wylie had 10 kills and five blocks, one solo. Gonzaga hit .065 …
And Loyola Marymount (10-7, 4-1) dispatched visiting Portland (8-7, 0-4) 25-21, 25-20, 25-21 behind 19 kills by Megan Rice, who hit .432 and had an ace, two digs and two blocks, one solo. Portland hit .115.
Big East: Creighton (11-3, 4-0) keeps rolling, winning its sixth in a row, 25-19, 25-16, 25-12 at Seton Hall (6-12, 1-3). The Bluejays hit .305 and had five players with six or more kills, as Keeley Davis and Jaela Zimmerman had nine each … Also in the league, Georgetown beat Xavier in five as Iva Vujosevic had 23 kills, an assist, two aces, 15 digs and two blocks; Villanova swept Butler as Claire Delaplane had 13 kills, hit .375, and had an assist, 15 digs and a block as the Wildcats stayed a game back of Creighton and idle No. 10 Marquette; and St. John’s swept Providence as Efrosini Alexakou had 14 kills and hit .571.
Big West: Hawai’i (13-2, 3-1) won at Cal State Fullerton (8-7, 0-4) 22-25, 20-25, 25-23, 25-15, 15-13. Hanna Hellvig led with 16 kills and had 20 digs. Amber Igiede had 10 kills, an assist, six digs and 10 blocks, two solo, and Norene Iosia had nine kills, hit .300, and had 26 assists, two aces, a block and 17 digs. Julia Crawford led Fullerton with 20 kills, three blocks and 15 digs …
UC Santa Barbara (15-1, 5-0) and Cal Poly (12-5, 5-0) remained atop the conference and they meet next Saturday at UCSB.
UCSB swept Riverside (5-10, 1-3) 25-8, 25-5, 25-15, which hit minus .036. Talullah Froley led the Gauchos with 15 kills and hit .737 after having one error in 19 attacks. She had two digs and five blocks. Lindsey Ruddins had 12 kills with one error in 26 swings to hit .423 and had five digs and two blocks. And Rowan Ennis had five kills, hit .500 and had five blocks, one solo …
Cal Poly beat visiting UC Davis (10-7, 2-2) 25-21, 25-21, 15-25, 18-25, 15-10 to go 5-1 in five-set matches. Maia Dvoracek led with 21 kills and added an ace, five digs and four blocks. Jessica McRoskey had 13 kills and Meredith Phillips 10 kills and hit .389 to go with two digs and four blocks. The Mustangs won despite hitting .190, as UC Davis hit .271. Mahalia White and Lauren Matias had 13 kills each for UC Davis … Also in the Big West Long Beach won in four at CSUN. Avery Nelson had 18 kills for the Beach.
Mountain West: No. 16 Colorado State (14-1, 4-0) won 26-28, 25-8, 25-13, 25-21 at Air Force (4-12, 1-3) as Breana Runnels had 14 kills, Kirstie Hillyer 13 and four blocks, and Paulina Hougaard-Jensen 10 kills and eight blocks, one solo. Hougaard-Jensen had no errors in 17 swings and hit .588. Sasha Colombo had six kills and five aces. Air Force hit .056 …
Also in the MW, Fresno dropped out of the lead with CSU and is now one of four teams tied at 3-1 after losing in five to UNLV. UNLV’s Mariena Hayden had 26 kills, two assists, two aces, 17 digs and three blocks, one solo. Desiree Sukhov had 22 kills for Fresno State … Brianna Souza had 18 kills for Nevada in its sweep of Utah State … Boise State beat San Jose State in four as Janell Walley led a balanced attack with 12 kills, an ace, 15 digs and three blocks … and San Diego State beat New Mexico in four as four players had 10 or more kills.
Horizon League: There’s quite a two-team race going on in the Horizon League.
Wright State (15-1, 4-0 Horizon) has won 15 matches in a row after sweeping visiting IUPUI (6-10, 1-2) 25-20, 25-21, 25-15. Four players had six or more kills for Wright State, including nine by Teddie Sauer, who hit .304 and had two aces, a block and two digs … Milwaukee (17-1, 4-0) has won 14 in a row after sweeping Youngstown State (6-11, 0-4) 25-14, 25-13, 25-12 as Ari Miller had 12 kills with one error in 18 attacks and hit .611 to go with two blocks, one solo, and two digs. The league leaders play at Wright State on October 19 … Also in the Horizon, Cleveland State beat Green Bay in five behind 20 kills by Emily DeGeorge, who had four blocks and 13 digs. Green Bay’s Taylor Wolf had 27 kills, an assist, three blocks and 14 digs, and teammate Shannon Coughlin had 22 kills and hit .388.
ASUN: Lipscomb (6-9, 2-2) got a big ASUN sweep over visiting Liberty (11-6, 4-1), which had won six in a row and dropped a game behind idle Kennesaw State in the standings. Lipscomb trailed 19-11 in the second set. Megan Kuper and Garrett Joiner had 10 kills each for Lipscomb, which won 25-22, 25-23, 25-17 despite hitting .190.
“Volleyball can be a funky game if you just look at the stats, because that effort on that comeback doesn’t get seen,” Lipscomb coach Brandon Rosenthal said. “Our girls should get all the credit in the world for that.”
FGCU (14-3, 4-1) won in four at Stetson (2-11, 0-4) behind 17 kills by Snowy Burnam, who had two aces, two assists, four blocks and nine digs, and 14 kills by Cortney VanLiew … And North Florida swept NJIT as Solimar Cestero had 15 kills and hit .464.
Around the nation: Sacramento State beat Northern Arizona in five as Sarah Davis had 31 kills in 90 swings to go with an assist, four aces, 12 digs and two blocks. Teammate Cianna Andrews had 21 kills, hit .444, and had seven blocks, two solo … Also in the Big Sky, Portland State beat Southern Utah in five as Toni McDougald had 23 kills, 10 digs and a block …
Break up the Zips! Akron is 11-4 overall, 4-0 in the Mid-American Conference after sweeping Miami 25-22, 25-21, 25-18. Coach Tom Hanna’s team not only won its ninth in a row, the Zips beat Miami for the first time in seven years and the program is 4-0 in the MAC for the first time since 2010. Shelby Fulmer had 11 kills in the road victory …
Kazna Tarawhiti had 19 kills, 21 digs and a block as Utah Valley put an end to Grand Canyon’s WAC run. The Lopes dropped to 13-3, 3-1, leaving idle NM State alone atop the league at 12-3, 3-0 …
Stephen F. Austin won its ninth in a row and is 16-1 overall, 4-0 in the Southland after its sweep at McNeese. Corin Evans led with 11 kills as she hit .346 and had an assist, two blocks and 13 digs … Sam Houston State (8-8, 4-0) kept pace with a sweep of Southeastern Louisiana as Breanne Chausse led the Bearkats with 15 kills … Alexis Warren and Hannah Brister had 18 kills apiece for Northwestern State in its SLC win at Incarnate Word … Lamar beat Abilene Christian and Kayla Neumann had 22 kills …
Morehead State (12-3, 3-0) is the only unbeaten team in Ohio Valley Conference play after its four-set win at Tennessee Tech. Olivia Lohmeier had 24 kills, an assist, and 10 digs …
Leah Simmons had 18 kills and hit .727 for Canisius in its Metro Atlantic sweep of Saint Peters. She had four digs and two blocks … Liisel Nelis had 22 kills in Sacred Heart’s Northeast Conference loss to Robert Morris, which improved to 12-3, 3-0. Nelis hit .309, had two assists, an ace, and 16 digs. Lauren Kolenick had 15 kills and 18 digs to go with an ace and two blocks for Robert Morris …
Ann Ernst had 19 kills and hit .485 and had an assist, an ace, a block and six digs for Loyola Maryland in its Patriot League sweep of Lafayette.
