Wisconsin sweeps, Fighting Camels grind away, USD wins 18th in a row

Wisconsin swept at Illinois on Thursday night, the Fighting Camels of Campbell took over sole possession of first in the Big South, South Dakota and San Diego rolled on, and the races stayed tight in a handful of conferences, including the Big Sky, Mountain West, Southland and WAC.

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

There are no matches between ranked teams, but the Big Ten slate includes No. 6 Ohio State at rising Northwestern, No. 9 Minnesota home for Michigan, No. 14 Purdue at Michigan State and Iowa at Rutgers. Michigan State, Iowa and Rutgers are in a last-place tie for 12th. Look for our feature on Northwestern later Friday.

In the Big East, No. 13 Creighton is home for Providence and No. 17 Marquette (featured here Thursday) is home for Georgetown.

Catching Stanford in the Pac-12 will be nearly impossible but the battle for second place is on as No. 16 Oregon, two games back of the Cardinal, plays host to No. 19 Washington, which is tied for second with USC and Washington State. Stanford is home for Utah, USC is home for Arizona State and Washington State plays at Oregon State. Colorado is at Cal and Arizona is at UCLA.

There are seven ACC matches, including No. 5 Louisville home for NC State, No. 7 Pittsburgh at Syracuse and No. 10 Georgia Tech at Miami. Virginia is at Boston College, North Carolina is at Notre Dame, Duke is at Virginia Tech and Clemson is at Florida State.

The lone Big 12 match has Kansas State at Iowa State.

The only SEC match has No. 12 Florida home for Missouri.

In Conference USA, No. 21 Rice is home for North Texas and No. 22 Western Kentucky is at Florida Atlantic.

The American Athletic leaders are in action as No. 23 Houston goes to Cincinnati and No. 25 UCF, a game behind, is home for third-place SMU.

The big Big West match of the day has first-place Hawai’i playing host to third-place Long Beach State, which is two games back in the loss column and riding a nine-match winning streak. Second-place UC Santa Barbara, a game back, is at CSU Bakersfield.

Horizon League leader Wright State puts its unbeaten conference record on the line again when it plays host to IUPUI.

Western Carolina, two games behind SoCon leader ETSU, has a chance to close the gap when those teams play at ETSU.

The tie will be broken atop the Sun Belt West when Troy goes to Texas State.

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

AROUND THE NATION: Third-ranked Wisconsin (18-3, 12-1 Big Ten) won 25-22, 25-19, 25-22 at Illinois (11-12, 6-7). Sarah Franklin led with 14 kills, an assist, a block and a dig. Julia Orzol had nine kills, an assist, an ace, a block and six digs. Illinois hit .065 in the only B1G match of the day … 

Campbell regained sole possession of first in the Big South when the Fighting Camels battled past co-leader High Point 25-16, 25-22, 17-25, 15-25, 21-19. Chloe Cook led a balanced Campbell attack with 13 kills. Claranne Fecheter had 24 kills, nine assists and an ace. High Point’s Sydney Palazzola had a career match with 25 kills, an assist, 19 digs and a block … 

South Dakota maintained its two-game Summit League lead with a sweep of visiting Western Illinois as Elizabeth Juhnke had 14 kills, hit .414 and had 17 digs and a block. South Dakota hit 386. Also in the Summit, second-place Omaha beat visiting Kansas City in four as McKenna Ruch had 15 kills, hit .344 and had five blocks, one solo, Denver swept visiting Oral Roberts and South Dakota State hit .365 as it swept visiting St. Thomas. Crystal Burk had 18 kills, hit .571, and had an ace, nine digs and a block … 

The favorites all won in the West Coast Conference, although San Francisco took a set from No. 18 BYU to keep all four matches from being sweeps. Second-ranked San Diego swept at Santa Clara to improve to 21-1, 12-0 in the WCC, with its 18th win in a row. The Toreros hit .347. Katie Lukes led with 19 kills, hit .394, and had eight digs and two blocks … BYU won in four at San Francisco as Erin Livingston had 20 kills, an assist, eight digs and two solo blocks … Loyola Marymount swept at Pacific and Pepperdine swept at Saint Mary’s as Grace Chillingsworth had 20 kills with one error in 40 attacks, an assist, eight digs and five blocks, one solo … 

In the Big Sky, Portland State‘s lead was cut to one game when it lost in four at Montana. Idle Northern Colorado and Weber State are tied for second, a game back, after Weber State swept visiting Idaho … Also in the Big Sky, Montana State beat Sacramento State in four as Kira Thomsen had 22 kills, hit .354 and had an ace and nine digs, and Idaho State swept Eastern Washington … 

UNLV, San Jose State and Colorado State are 1-2-3 in the Mountain West. UNLV swept visiting Air Force as Isabel Martin had 14 kills, hit .367 and had 12 digs and three blocks. San Jose State stayed a game back and dropped Colorado State to third with a four-set home win. SJSU hit .336 and had four players with nine or more kills, 16 by Letizia Cammillucci, who hit .481 and had five digs and three blocks, one solo. Also in the MWC, Utah State swept at Fresno State, San Diego State beat visiting Boise State in four, and Nevada beat visiting Wyoming in five as Kayla Afoa had 17 kills, an assist, two aces, 13 digs and a block … 

OVC leader UT Martin built its lead over idle Tennessee Tech to two games, one in the loss column, with a sweep of Morehead State …

There’s a three-way tie at 11-4 atop the Southland Conference between HCU, McNeese and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi after TAMUCC knocked off visiting McNeese in five. The Islanders rallied for a  27-25, 20-25, 19-25, 25-21, 15-12 victory as Leah Stolfus had 23 kills an hit .360 and Kyndal Payne had 22 kills, 11 digs and three blocks, two solo. HCU beat visiting UIW in five behind 19 kills each from Anna Gadway, who hit .410 and had four blocks, and Jada Allen, who had one error in 33 attacks to hit .545 and had seven blocks, one solo. Also in the SLC, Northwestern State beat visiting New Orleans in five, Lamar beat visiting Southeastern Louisiana in four and Nicholls swept at Texas A&M-Commerce. SLU dropped a game back into fourth … 

Utah Valley and UTRGV both won to stayed tied atop the WAC, a game ahead of idle Stephen F. Austin. Utah Valley beat visiting NM State in fouras Caleigh Vagana had four kills in 11 errorless attempts and 10 blocks. UTRGV won in four at Seattle U as Sarah Cruz went off for 26 kills, hitting .373, to go with two assists, two aces and 17 digs. Also in the WAC, Sam Houston beat Tarleton State in five, California Baptist swept at Utah Tech and Grand Canyon swept at Southern Utah … 

In the only MAC match, Ball State swept visiting Kent State as the Cardinals hit .340. Cait Snyder had 14 kills and Maggie Huber had 24 digs and four assists … In the only SWAC match, Alcorn swept Southern as Makayla Wardlaw had 16 kills in 24 errorless attacks … Louisiana beat Southern Miss in four in the only Sun Belt match. 

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