Pacific upsets Pepperdine, Georgia thumps A&M, Weber State gets big win, busy Friday ahead in NCAA volleyball

Pacific hadn’t beaten a ranked team since 2014, but took care of that Thursday night with a five-set West Coast Conference victory over visiting No. 23 Pepperdine. 

The other two ranked WCC teams, No. 9 BYU and No. 25 San Diego won, but there were other surprises in NCAA Division I women’s volleyball, including Georgia sweeping its SEC match at Texas A&M and Weber State absolutely pounding Northern Colorado to take over sole possession of first place in the Big Sky.

Thursday’s highlight follow, but first a look at Friday’s busy schedule.

The Big Ten has the showcase match of the night when No. 10 Nebraska visits No. 13 Penn State. Also, No. 7 Ohio State is at Michigan Stae, No. 8 Minnesota is at Michigan, Indiana goes to Rutgers, and Northwestern is at Maryland.

In the Pac-12, No. 15 UCLA plays host to No. 24 Colorado, No. 11 Washington heads to Arizona, No. 14 Oregon is home for Cal, No. 15 Utah goes to USC, and No. 17 Stanford is at Oregon State.

The ACC’s unbeaten leaders are both home. Second-ranked Pittsburgh plays host to Clemson, while No. 3 Louisville entertains Boston College. Georgia Tech, ranked No. 18, is at Virginia. Wake Forest goes to North Carolina, Miami is at Duke, Virginia Tech is at NC State, and Syracuse is at Notre Dame.

There are two Big 12 matches as Iowa State, which won there Friday, returns to Texas Tech, and Oklahoma goes to TCU.

In the SEC, No. 22 Tennessee is at South Carolina and Georgia returns to Texas A&M.

Creighton, ranked 19th, plays host to DePaul in the Big East.

Western Kentucky, No. 20, is home for a Conference USA match with Middle Tennessee.

Want to watch a match? We have the links. Go to our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming listings to find any match that is being shown.

WEST COAST CONFERENCE — Pacific (7-10, 4-2) not only won its fourth match in a row, the Tigers upset Pepperdine (12-2, 4-1) 21-25, 25-20, 22-25, 25-23, 15-13.

Alexa Edward led with 17 kills, an ace, 11 digs, and five blocks, three solo. Ramonni Cook had 14 kills, hit .440, and had a block and two digs. Darina Kumanova had 12 kills, an ace, a block, and 13 digs. Jadyn Tubbs had 25 digs, eight assists, and an ace. Jenna Heller had three kills in as many tries, 25 assists, four aces, and 14 digs, and the other setter, Gabby Leo, had 24 assists an 12 digs.

Pepperdine, which had won its last five five-set matches, got 27 kills from Rachel Ahrens, who hit .328 and had three aces, three blocks, and 17 digs. Grace Chillingworth had 14 kills, a block, and a dig. Madison Shields had 24 digs … 

BYU (15-1, 5-0) hit .430 in its 25-16, 25-15, 25-10 sweep of visiting Portland (4-10, 1-4), which hit .027. Taylen Ballard-Nixon led with 13 kills as she hit .476 and had two aces, two digs and a block. Heather Gneiting had six kills with one error in seven attacks and thre blocks, one solo, and Gretchen Reinert had no kills but 10 blocks, two solo. Kenzie Koerber had nine kills in 15 errorless swings, two assists, two aces, a dig, and two blocks … San Diego (11-3, 5-0) swept visiting Gonzaga (5-11, 1-4) 25-23, 25-12, 25-18. Grace Frohling led with 10 kills, two aces, five digs, and three blocks, one solo. Gonzaga hit minus .018 … And Loyola Marymount (13-2, 4-1) went down 0-2 before rallying for a 19-25, 18-25, 25-21, 25-13, 15-10 victory at Saint Mary’s (8-7, 2-4). LMU, which hit .317, got 22 kills from Kari Geissberger, who hit .388 and had four aces, four blocks, and five digs. Jacquelyn Moore had six kills, an assist, an ace, a dig, and eight blocks.

BIG SKY — Weber State (11-5, 6-0) is alone at the top of the standings after sweeping Northern Colorado (12-4, 4-1) 25-16, 25-17, 25-6, and, no, that last set score is not a typo.

Weber State, which hit .321, had five players with five or more kills, 10 by Dani Nay, who hit .375 and had two blocks and eight digs. UNC hit .038 … 

Portland State (10-6, 4-1) stayed in second place with a sweep of Southern Utah … Northern Arizona (6-8, 41) is also in second and swept Sacramento State … Montana State won in four at Eastern Washington and Montana swept at Idaho. 

MOUNTAIN WEST — Three of the five matches Thursday went five, including first-place New Mexico holding off visiting Utah State to stay tied with Colorado State, which swept at Nevada, and ilde UNLV.

Kaitlynn Biassou had 26 kills and hit .417 as New Mexico (13-3, 4-1) beat visiting Utah State (11-6, 3-2) 22-25, 25-14, 25-21, 22-25, 15-10. Biassou had an assist, two aces, four blocks, and two digs. Uxue Guereca had 17 kills, five blocks, and 11 digs … 

Colorado State (8-6, 4-1) swept at Nevada (3-13, 0-5) despite hitting .198. Sasha Colombo led with nine kills in 13 errorless swings, five digs, and three blocks, one solo … Boise State hit .324 and swept at Air Force … KC McMahon had 22 kills and hit .419 to go with nine digs and three blocks as Wyoming won in five at San Jose State … Fresno State won in five at San Diego State.

SUMMIT LEAGUE –– Omaha (8-7, 5-0) remained alone atop the standings with a sweep at North Dakota, which dropped to 1-17 … Denver stayed a game back with a sweep at North Dakota State. The Pioneers hit .301 as six players had five or more kills … South Dakota swept St. Thomas … South Dakota State beat visiting Western Illinois in four as Chloe Stitt had 18 kills, an ace, nine digs, and two blocks, one solo.

WAC — Three of the five matches in this conference also went five, including West Division leader NM State rallying to win at Chicago State.

NM State (13-4, 4-1) won 20-25, 25-20, 14-25, 25-12, 15-11 at Chicago State (10-7, 2-3) despite 23 kills by CSU’s Yanlis Feliz, who had two assists, a block, an ace, and 19 digs. NM State’s Shaney Lipscomb had 15 kills, hit .3232, and had four digs and three blocks, one solo. Lia Mosher had 13 kills, hit .524, and had two aces, three digs, and four blocks, one solo. Darian Markham had 32 digs and six assists … 

Sarah Cruz had 23 kills for UTRGV in a five-set win at Abiliene Christian. Abilene’s Madison Lawler had 30 digs, five assists, and an ace … Utah Valley won in five at Seattle U and Kazna Tanuvasa had 20 kills, hit .368, and had eight digs and two blocks … Tarleton beat Lamar in four, and Dixie State won in four at California Baptist behind 19 kills by Katie Hardy, who had one error in 30 attacks, three ces, two digs, and six blocks.

AROUND THE NATION — Washington State (9-6, 3-2) swept its Pac-12 match at Arizona State (8-8, 1-4) as Kalyah Williams and Magda Jehlarova had 11 kills each in the 25-20, 25-18, 25-14 victory …

Georgia (5-10, 1-3) had lost five in a row. Texas A&M (10-5, 3-2) was coming off an upset victory at Tennessee. No matter, because visiting Georgia cruised to a 25-21, 25-20, 25-17 SE sweep despite hitting .153. Phoebe Awoleye led with 10 kills as she hit .571 and had a block and a dig. Kacie Evans had eight kills, an ace, two blocks, and 12 digs. A&M hit .044 …

In the Horizon, first-place Milwaukee (11-6, 5-0) got 16 kills from Carmen Heilemann in a sweep at Oakland. Heilemann had an ace, a block, and five digs. Rylee Vaughn had 44 assists, an ace, and 19 digs, and Jess Grabowski had 18 digs and five assists … Cleveland State dropped out of first place when it lost in five to visiting Green Bay, which got 22 kills from Alexandra Zakutney. She had an assist, an ace, 14 digs, and a block … 

There were two Big West matches as Cal Poly hit .413 to stay a game off the league lead as it swept at UC Riverside and CSU Bakersfield swept at UC Davis … In the lone SoCon match of the day, ETSU beat visiting Samford in four despite 22 kills from the Bulldogs’ Kenya McQuirter … 

In the Southland, Cicily Hidalgo continued her strong start as the freshman had 26 kills and hit .389 for Southeastern Louisiana in a five-set win over visiting McNeese. She also had nine digs and six blocks, one solo … Georgia Southern won its Sun Belt match at Georgia State in five and Grace Slader had four kills, 54 assists, an ace, six digs, and two blocks … Also in the Sun Belt, Texas State swept UT Arlington and Emily DeWalt had five kills in eight errorless tries, 41 assists, eiht digs, and three blocks.

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