USD, BYU, Pepperdine win in WCC; Huskers sweep; big NCAA volleyball Friday on tap

All three ranked West Conference teams won, Nebraska swept Michigan State on Thursday and Cal Baptist ended UT Arlington’s nine-match winning streak,.

The recaps and top performances follow, but first a look at Friday’s massive NCAA Division I volleyball schedule.

One of the best matches of the day is in the American Athletic Conference when No. 23 UCF (12-0) goes to Houston (13-2, 4-0). UCF, with Texas and Towson, is one of the three unbeatens in the NCAA Division I volleyball. Houston has won five in a row.

The Big Ten has four matches, including No. 6 Ohio State playing host to No. 13 Penn State and No 11 Minnesota at No. 24 Michigan. Illinois is at Maryland and Rutgers goes to Northwestern. 

There are seven ACC matches, including No. 2 Louisville at Boston College, No. 9 Pittsburgh at Clemson. and No. 10 Georgia Tech is home for Virginia.

In the Pac-12, No. 8 Stanford is at Colorado, No. 12 Oregon is at Washington State and No. 16 Washington is home for Oregon State. Cal goes to Utah, USC is at Arizona and UCLA is at Arizona State.

No. 19 Kentucky has an SEC match at Arkansas, while Mississippi State is at Texas A&M and Alabama is at Ole Miss.

Both ranked Big East teams are in action when No. 18 Marquette goes to St. John’s and No. 21 Creighton goes to Connecticut

The only Big 12 match has Kansas at Iowa State. 

Want to watch a match? We have the viewing links on the VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings page. The listings are updated through Sunday.

Nebraska (13-1, 5-0 Big Ten) hit .358 and won 25-18, 25-23, 25-9 at Michigan State (10-6, 1-4) as Madi Kubik, Bekka Allick and Whitney Lauenstein had eight kills each. Kaitlyn Hord had six kills and six blocks. Michigan State hit .031 in the only B1G match of the day … 

It was sweeps night in the West Coast Conference as No. 4 San Diego beat visiting San Francisco, No. 14 BYU beat visiting Santa Clara, No. 20 Pepperdine beat visiting Pacific and Loyola Marymount beat Saint Mary’s. BYU’s Erin Livingston had 16 kills, hit .520, and had an ace and four digs, Pepperdine’s Meg Brown had 12 kills in 18 errorless attacks, two assists, five digs and four blocks; and Kari Geissberger had 14 kills for LMU while hitting .423 to go with an assist, an ace, six digs and five blocks … 

Colorado State (12-4, 5-0) and San Jose State (11-4, 5-0) are atop the Mountain West standings, a game ahead of Boise State (12-4, 4-1) and UNLV (13-3, 4-1) after Colorado State swept visiting Nevada, San Jose State won in four at Wyoming, Boise State swept visiting Fresno State and UNLV swept New Mexico. UNLV’s Gabrielle Arretche-Ramos had 22 kills … Also, Utah State swept San Diego State … 

In the Big Sky, Idaho State won in four at Idaho, Portland State beat visiting Montana State in four, Sacramento State beat visiting Montana in four, and Weber State swept at Eastern Washington. Idaho State’s Taylor Burnham had 19 kills, hit .400 and had three aces, six digs and three blocks; Portland State’s Makayla Lewis had 16 kills, hit .452 and had an assist, an ace, 10 digs and two blocks; and Weber State’s Dani Richina had 15 kills, hit .407 and had an assist, an ace and nine digs … 

In the Southland, Houston Christian (13-6, 5-1) took its first conference loss but still is a game ahead of Southeastern Louisiana (15-4, 5-2) in the loss column. HCU lost in four at Incarnate Word, while SLU beat visiting Lamar in four. UIW’s Kyla Malone had 17 kills, three assists, two aces, nine digs and four blocks, one solo. Also in the SLC, New Orleans beat Texas A&M-Commerce in four, Northwestern State won in four at Nicholls and McNeese beat visiting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in five …

In the Summit League, South Dakota got 19 kills from Elizabeth Juhnke and stayed a game back of idle first-place North Dakota State with a four-set win at St. Thomas More. South Dakota State hit .346 and swept at Western Illinois, Denver did the same at Kansas City and Omaha swept at Oral Roberts …

UTRGV improved to 16-4 and remained the only unbeaten team in WAC play at 5-0 with a four-set win over Sam Houston. UT Arlington, which had won nine in a row, dropped to 11-5, 3-1, as the Mavs lost to visiting California Baptist in four. Christine Graf had 16 kills for CBU, hit .464, and had four digs and two blocks. SFA kept pace with a four-set win over visiting Grand Canyon, Southern Utah swept visiting Abilene Christian, Tarleton State won in four at Utah Tech and Utah Valley beat Chicago State in four. Utah Tech’s Kate Hardy had 16 kills with two errors in 23 swings and hit .609 to go with an assist, an ace, two digs and two blocks …

In the Sun Belt, Southern Miss swept at Louisiana-Monroe, South Alabama did the same at Arkansas State, Troy beat visiting Marshall in four, and App State won in five at Georgia State …

Lailah Green had 13 kills as the Fighting Camels of Campbell won their Big South match in four at Radford … Ohio swept Central Michigan in the only MAC match of the day as Olivia Margolies had 14 kills in 29 errorless attacks … In the only Ohio Valley match, Morehead State had four players with 13 or more kills as it beat visiting Tennessee State in four. Bridget Bessler came up empty in 10 attacks but had 52 assists, two aces, 21 digs and a block …  In the SWAC, Southern University beat visiting Alcorn State in four. Xaria Taylor had 13 kills, hit .345 and had three aces, a dig and two blocks.

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Lee Feinswog

Lee Feinswog is the publisher and editor of VolleyballMag.com
Contact him at Lee@VolleyballMag.com