All three power-five conference NCAA volleyball teams that played won in sweeps Sunday as No. 19 Iowa State beat Wichita State — winning the second set 37-35 by fighting off nine set points — No. 15 Purdue squashed Loyola and Louisville topped Kennesaw State.
The AVCA Division I Coaches Poll also came out Monday afternoon and not surprisingly the top seven teams — Minnesota (40 first-place votes), Penn State (13), Florida (10), Stanford (1), Wisconsin, Texas and Washington — all stayed the same.
Oregon jumped from No. 11 to No. 8 and BYU went up five spots to No. 9. Nebraska fell four spots to No. 14, while Creighton took the biggest fall, going from No. 8 to 15th. Northern Iowa moved in at No. 22, Wichita State made it back in at 24 and Colorado, which beat No. 23 Colorado State, is in at No. 25.
Michigan State, Ohio State and North Carolina dropped out. Click here for the entire AVCA Poll.
Just one Division I team plays Monday when the SWAC’s Alcorn State goes to Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge, Ark., for a doubleheader.
Tuesday’s schedule includes 34 matches, highlighted by the start of Pac-12 play when Oregon State opens at Oregon. There are two intriguing final preseason matches on the slate as No. 6 Texas goes to UTSA and No. 3 Florida finally gets to play host to No. 20 Florida State.
Click here for the complete NCAA schedule.
Iowa State finished its pre-conference season 9-1 after beating Wichita State on its homecourt 25-21, 37-35, 25-23. The Cyclones head to Oklahoma on Saturday to open Big 12 play, while Wichita State (8-3) opens its first season in the American Athletic Conference at Temple.
Jess Schaben led Iowa State with 16 kills, three blocks and nine digs. Samara West had 13 kills, four blocks and four digs and Grace Lazard had 10 kills and three blocks.
The Shockers got 19 kills from Mikaela Raudsepp. Tabitha Brown added 13 and 12 digs.
Wichita State has lost three of its last four, also falling to No. 14 Oregon and a tough Cal Poly team. But the Shockers upset Creighton on Friday.
Purdue beat visiting Loyola 25-13, 25-17, 25-11 to improve to 10-1. The Boilermakers, who open Big Ten play Wednesday when Northwestern visits, were led by Azaraiah Stahl’s 13 kills. She had no errors in 18 swings and hit .772. Purdue, which hit .443 overall, got nine kills from Danielle Cuttino, who hit .600.
Loyola dropped to 1-10 and opens Missouri Valley play against Drake on Friday.
Louisville (6-4) downed visiting Kennesaw State 25-21, 25-14, 25-20. Tess Clark had 12 killls and hit .385 to lead the Cardinals. Melanie McHenry had 11 kills and eight digs.
The Cardinals and first-year coach Dani Busboom Kelly open ACC play Friday when Notre Dame visits.
Kennesaw (6-3) got 10 kills from Anaiah Boyer, who had two blocks and eight digs. The Owls open Atlantic Sun play Friday when defending league-champion Lipscomb visits. The teams split their two regular-season meetings in 2016.
MAAC under way: There were four Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference matches on Sunday as defending-champion Fairfield beat Iona in five, Niagara swept Saint Peters, Quinnipiac swept Manhattan and Rider swept Canisius. In non-league matches, Siena was swept by Dartmouth and Siena was swept by Rhode Island.
Niagara (6-5) and Fairfield (7-6) are the only MAAC teams with overall winning records.
