All four ranked teams not in the power five were in action on Thursday, and No. 5 San Diego barely got away with a victory. No. 12 Hawai’i, No. 13 BYU and No. 25 Western Kentucky all won.
First the matches to watch on Friday and some info about how Hurricane Matthew has affected college volleyball.
Start with the Big Ten, where No. 14 Ohio State, playing for the first time since knocking off Nebraska, goes to No. 21 Michigan State. Maryland goes to No. 23 Michigan, No. 17 Purdue plays at Iowa and Indiana goes to No. 3 Nebraska, who, you would imagine, will take out a week’s worth of frustration on the Hoosiers.
In the Pac-12, six matches are on tap, starting with No. 8 Washington at No. 20 Oregon. No. 19 Colorado goes to No. 7 Stanford, which is in action for the first time that it was announced that injured sophomore All-American Hayley Hodson, who had missed six matches, has left school. No. 10 Washington State, the surprise story of the young season, goes to Oregon State. Arizona plays at No. 22 USC, Arizona State goes to No. 18 UCLA, and Utah goes to Cal.
The ACC doesn’t have many showcase matches, so No. 16 Florida State at No. 9 North Carolina is a big one. Also on the ACC slate, Virginia Tech goes to Wake Forest, Pitt plays at Duke, Georgia Tech travels to Virginia, Miami is at NC State and Notre Dame plays at Syracuse.
The SEC has three matches, including No. 25 Kentucky — which happens to be tied for 25th with Western Kentucky in the poll — at Mississippi State. South Carolina goes to Georgia and Missouri is at Auburn.
And in the Big 12, the only match of the day has Oklahoma at West Virginia.
Other matches of note on Friday include:
A big Sun Belt battle when Arkansas State goes to Texas State, Big South leader Radford ties to get to 6-0 in the league when it entertains Winthrop, Florida Gulf Coast puts the nation’s longest winning streak — 15 matches — on the line in an ASUN match at Kennesaw State, things heat up in the Big East when Creighton goes to Villanova, UConn plays a big American Athletic match at SMU, and the 16-1 Dayton Flyers go to Rhode Island, also unbeaten in the Atlantic 10.
Among the matches affected because of Hurricane Matthew:
South Carolina was supposed to be home for Georgia on Friday, but that match has been switched to Georgia.
Coastal Carolina at Georgia Southern, not makeup announced.
UCF has moved its matches from Orlando to Tampa and will play Houston at 2 p.m. Friday at USF, which plays host to Tulane later Friday. Then UCF and Tulane will stay in Tampa for their Sunday match.
FIU’s match with Marshall was postponed, but the Panthers will still play host to Rice on Sunday.
And Florida Atlantic’s home match with Rice was rescheduled for Tuesday. FAU is still planning to play host to Middle Tennessee on Sunday.
San Diego’s No. 5 ranking was surely in doubt for a awhile until the Toreros pulled out a 25-21, 18-25, 25-19, 22-25, 15-12 West Coast Conference victory over visiting Pacific.
San Diego, 14-2 overall and 4-0 in the WCC, got 14 kills apiece from Lisa Kramer and Lauren Fuller as it won for the 13th time in a row.
Fuller added six digs and hit .310. Kramer hit .258 with two blocks. Lauren Schad had 11 kills, hit .333 and had three blocks, one solo. Kristen Gengenbacher had 40 assists, and seven digs. Hunter Jennings added ieight digs, and Lizzy Tardieu seven.
Pacific is 10-8, 4-2. Ashlyn Fleming led the Tigers with 15 kills.
Also in the Big West, BYU rolled over visiting Saint Mary’s 25-20, 25-14, 25-10. The Cougars (15-2, 4-1) hit .412 against the Gaels (8-9, 3-3).
Lacy Haddock and McKenna Miller had 10 kills each and Amy Boswell seven.
Hawai’i routed Cal State Northridge 25-14, 25-15, 25-15 to improve to 12-4, 5-0 in the Big West.
Nikki Taylor had a match-high 13 kills and 11 digs, while Emily Maglio added eight kills and five blocks.
No. 25 Western Kentucky won its eighth in a row and improved to 17-2, 5-0 in Conference USA, by winning a tough one at Southern Miss 25-27, 28-26, 25-20, 25-20.
Alyssa Cavanaugh led with 21 kills and two solo blocks. Rachel Anderson added 15 kills.
Colorado State improved to 10-5 and 5-0 in the Mountain West by sweeping New Mexico 25-19, 25-21, 25-21.
Jasmine Hanna led the road victory with 12 kills and four of her teammates had seven or more kills each as their team hit .389.
Next up is a big one Saturday at UNLV. Speaking of which, UNLV is also 5-0 in the league after beating visiting Wyoming 25-19, 25-23, 25-27, 25-14.
UNLV, 16-1 overall, had four players with 10 or more kills, led by Bree Hammel, who had 13 kills and 11 digs. She also had a UNLV-record eight service aces.
And North Dakota had to go five to beat visiting Sacramento State 22-25, 25-21, 25-15, 20-25, 15-13 to improve to 12-8 overall and 4-1 in the Big Sky.
Chelsea Moser led UND with 18 kills. Julia Kaczorowska added 13 while Ashley Brueggeman added 12 and Faith Dooley 11 and nine blocks.Tamara Merseli had 10 kills and 28 digs.
“Tonight was just a flat out fun match,” UND coach Mark Pryor said. “Sacramento State is a great team, and even though we only see them once a year, that is a match I always look forward to. They are very well coached, and they have a really high IQ. I feel like we just made a couple plays at the right time.
“We had great balance on offense and defense tonight with five players in double digit kills. Sydney Griffin did a great job of finding the open hitter for us.”
