NCAA volleyball: Utah, USC get Pac-12 upsets; Purdue, Creighton win in five

Different week, same lead: Another Freaky Friday in NCAA Division I women’s volleyball.

Upsets and unpredictable results were the rule of the day, especially in the Pac-12, where unranked Utah swept visiting No. 15 Washington, winning the second set 30-28, and unranked USC got 27 kills from Skylar Fields (featured here Thursday) and knocked off visiting No. 17 Oregon.

Loyola Marymount upset visiting No. 20 Pepperdine in four in the only West Coast Conference match of the night.

In the only match between ranked teams in the Big Ten, No, 2 Nebraska destroyed No. 14 Penn State and No. 9 Purdue went down 2-1 before winning in five at Indiana. No. 5 Wisconsin swept at Iowa and No. 24 Michigan did the same at Michigan State.

In the Big East, No 21 Creighton had to pull a reverse sweep to be beat visiting No. 16 Marquette, dominating the last three sets.

The ACC all three ranked teams won as No. 2 Louisville beat Virginia Tech in four, No, 8 Pittsburgh swept Miami and No. 11 Georgia Tech won at Duke. Virginia scored its first win over the Seminoles since 2010 as it knocked off Florida State in five, and Notre Dame did the same to Wake Forest. ND’s Phyona Schrader had eight kills, 41 assists, 29 digs and a block.

No. 13 Florida swept its SEC match at Mississippi State and Arkansas swept visiting Tennessee.

Both ranked Conference USA teams won in four, No. 22 Rice at UAB and No. 23 Western Kentucky at North Texas.

Also in the Pac-12, No. 7 Stanford swept at Arizona, Colorado beat Washington State, UCLA swept Oregon State and Arizona State swept Cal. 

No. 24 UCF swept its American Athletic match over Temple as McKenna Melville had 18 kills with one error in 30 attacks. AAC leader Houston swept SMU to improve to 16-2.

Wright State won again, sweeping Youngstown State to improve to 9-0 in the Horizon League. Emani Foster had 28 kills and six blocks for Charlotte in its Conference USA win over UTSA. Long Beach State won its Big West match in five at UC San Diego but UCSD’s Ava McInness had a career-high 31 kills.

Here’s a look at what’s ahead Saturday:

THE big Big 12 match is upon us when No. 18 goes to Texas. Also in the Big 12, Texas Texas goes to Kansas, Iowa State is at Oklahoma, TCU goes to Kansas State, and West Virginia plays independent Chicago State.

In the SEC No. 13 Florida is back at Mississippi State, Auburn is at Missouri and Tennessee is at Arkansas.

The WCC slate includes No. 4 San Diego at Saint Mary’s and No. 12 BYU at Pacific.

There are three Big Ten matches, none pitting ranked teams, as No. 6 Ohio State is home for Rutgers, No. 10 Minnesota is home for Illinois and No. 14 Penn State is at Iowa.

Towson of the CAA puts its unbeaten record on the line at Elon. There’s a big Summit League battle when North Dakota State goes to Omaha.

The ACC and Pac-12 are idle.

Want to watch a match? We have the viewing links on the VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings page.

We are in a remote area with limited internet access, so there are no recaps today. Just getting this together was a miracle of modern technology. For more, please go to our Twitter account: @VBmagazine where our Ed Strong prolifically Tweets throughout the day and has information about many of Friday’s matches.

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Lee Feinswog

Lee Feinswog is the publisher and editor of VolleyballMag.com
Contact him at [email protected]