NCAA volleyball: Texas, Baylor, UK, Ball St. among the winners; conference play today

One and done has begun.

And it continues Thursday as single-elimination conference tournaments continue and get under way.

There are also key regular-season matches in a few conferences before things go into full swing on Friday.

Among the results Wednesday, top-ranked Texas swept Kansas, Ball State claimed the top spot in the MAC, Paola Santiago had 30 kills for UIC in a Missouri Valley win at Valparaiso and Gracie Johnson had 29 kills for Duke in a five-set ACC win over Wake Forest.

Bowling Green swept Toledo in the MAC and hit .540 with one error in 63 swings, but Ball State won, too, and took the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament. Also in the MAC, Maggie King had 30 kills for Western Illinois in its five-set win over NIU.

There was a firing and a Power 5 coach announced his retirement at season’s end.

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

There are two Pac-12 matches when No. 8 Stanford plays host to Arizona State and Arizona goes to Cal.

In the West Coast Conference, the race enters the home stretch as second-ranked San Diego goes to Loyola Marymount, No. 17 BYU goes to Pepperdione, Portland is at Pacific and Gonzaga is at Saint Mary’s.

The ASUN gets going at Lipscomb with four quarterfinals, FGCU vs. North Florida, Jacksonville State vs. Kennesaw State, Liberty vs. Stetson and Lipscomb vs. Central Arkansas. 

The CAA also has four quarterfinals in Towson, Maryland. Towson plays Stony Brook, Northeastern faces Elon, Hofstra plays William & Mary and Delaware plays Charleston.

In the MAAC after Niagara beat Saint Peter’s on Wednesday and Rider beat Manhattan, there are four quarterfinals in the tournament at ESPN in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Fairfield plays Niagara, Canisius plays Siena, Marist plays Rider and Iona plays Quinnipiac.

Ohio Valley Conference quarterfinals at UT Martin open with Morehead State vs. Tennessee State, followed Tennesse Tech vs. Lindenwood, Eastern Illinois vs. Southeast Missouri and UT Martin vs. SIUE.

The Southland has two matches in its tournament at Southeastern Louisian when Northwestern State plays UIW and New Orleans plays Texas A&M-Commerce.

The Sun Belt continues after Arkansas opened by sweeping Georgia State and Marshall got past Louisiana-Monroe in five in the tournament in Foley, Alabama. Action continues with four quarterfinals as Old Dominion plays Arkansas State, Southern Miss plays Georgia Southern, South Alabama plays Marshall and App State plays Louisiana.

The WAC quarterfinals at UTRGV (Texas Rio Grande Valley) in Edinburg, Texas, have Grand Canyon playing NM State, Stephen F. Austin vs. California Baptist, Utah Valley vs. UT Arlington and UTRGV vs. Southern Utah.

There are three matches in the Big Sky. First-place Northern Colorado is off, but Weber State, a  game back, is home for Montana State. Northern Arizona is at Idaho and Montana is at Idaho State.

In the Big West, first-place Hawai’i is off, but second-place UC Santa Barbara, a game back, is at UC Davis and CSUN is at UC Riverside.

The Mountain West has four five matches, including first-place UNLV home for Wyoming. UNLV has won 15 in a row and holds a two-game lead over San Jose State, which is home for Fresno State. Also, Boise State goes to Air Force, San Diego State is at Nevada and Utah State is at New Mexico.

The Summit League slate shows league-leading South Dakota home for North Dakota State, North Dakota at South Dakota State, Oral Roberts at Western Illinois and Kansas City at St. Thomas.

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

BIG 12: Texas (20-1,12-1), which lost the first two sets at Kansas (17-9,7-7) to open the conference season and won in five, took care of business at home 25-16, 25-18, 26-24 as the Longhorns hit .322. Madisen Skinner led with 16 kills, an assist, three aces and 10 digs. Logan Eggleston had 121 kills, two aces, three blocks and four digs. Molly Phillips had nine kills with one error in 14 attacks, Kayla Caffey had eight kills with two errors in 12 attacks and four blocks, and Asjia O’Neal had seven kills with one error in 18 swings. Kansas got 10 kills each from Ayah Elnady and Anezka Szabo, who had one error in 23 attacks … 

No. 15 Baylor (22-5, 11-3 ) won in four over visiting Iowa State  (18-10, 9-5) 25-20, 25-20, 19-25, 26-24 as Lauren Harrison had 14 kills, three blocks and eight digs. Kara McGhee had 11 kills, hit .429 and had an assist, two digs and seven blocks, one solo. Elise McGhee had 10 kills, a dig and six blocks, and Mallory Talbert had eight kills, an ace and five digs. Iowa State’s Maya Duckworth had 14 kills, an assit, two aces, a block and eight digs … 

TCU (14-10, 9-4) won in five at West Virginia (7-20, 0-14). Audrey Nalls had 16 kills, two blocks and eight digs in the 25-19, 19-25, 25-19, 21-25, 15-13 victory. The Horned Frogs hit .103 and WVU hit .117 …

Oklahoma (15-11, 5-9) won in four at Kansas State (14-12, 5-8) as Morgan Perkins had 15 kills, Alexis Shelton 14 and Megan Wilson 13 to go with 10 digs and a solo block.

SEC: No. 18 Kentucky (17-6, 12-2) battled to a 25-18, 21-25, 25-19, 26-24 win over visiting Tennessee (14-12, 8-6) to pull back into a first-place tie with idle Florida. Reagan Rutherford led with 16 kills as she hit .406 and had an ace, nine digs and two blocks. Adanna Rollins had 15 kills, an ace, six digs and two blocks, one solo. Morgahn Fingall had 20 kills for Tennessee and hit .360 to go with an assist, six aces and four blocks … 

Arkansas (16-8, 7-7) swept at Missouri (8-16, 1-13) despite hitting .152 in the 25-14, 25-22, 25-16. Mizzou hit .017. Taylor Head had 10 kills for Arkansas … 

LSU (15-11, 9-7) won 16-25, 25-16, 26-24, 26-24 at Texas A&M (12-15, 4-12). The Tigers, who hit .3-1, got 13 kills from Paige Flickinger and 12 each from Sanaa Dotson and Anita Anwusi, who had two errors in 20 swings anfour blocks … 

MAC: Ball State (23-7, 15-3) tied for the overall regular-season title with a 25-18, 25-21, 25-16 sweep of visiting Toledo (18-11, 11-7). Ball State gets the top seed and will be the host for the MAC tournament. The Cardinals hit .313 and 12 kills from Cait Snyder, who hit .321, and 10 kills from Marie Plitt, who had one error in 16 attacks and four blocks, two solo … 

While Ball State won the East, Bowling Green (23-7, 15-3) won the West and is a co-champion but lost the top seed through a tiebreaker. The Falcons swept at Miami (7-22, 2-16) by hitting an incredible .540 with 35 kills and only one error in 63 attacks.

Buffalo swept visiting Akron, Central Michigan swept at Eastern Michigan, Ohio swept visiting Kent State, and Western Michigan beat visiting NIU in five as Maggie King had 30 kills with only four errors in 78 attacks to hit .333 to go with seven digs.

MISSOURI VALLEY: UNI (24-7, 17-1) already had the No. 1 seed in the tournament and Drake the second, but Wednesday Drake (25-6, 16-2) put a punctuation mark at the end of the regular season by dealing the Panthers’ their first conferece loss. Haley Bush had 21 kills and hit .360 in the 25-27, 25-18, 25-21, 25-18 victory to go with 11 digs and two blocks, one solo. Those teams are off until the semifinals. Southern Illinois won in five at Missouri State to claim one quarterfinal spot and UIC won in four at Valparaiso to get the other. The tournament begins Sunday.

SIU’s Nataly Garcia had 25 kills, an assist, nine digs and a block. In UIC’s win, Paola Santiago had 30 kills while hitting .500 to go with an assist, an ace, 14 digs and three blocks, and Martina Delucchi had 24 kills, hit .321 and had two assists, an ace, 16 digs and four blocks, one solo. Murray State won in four at Belmont and Bradley won in four at Illinois State. 

AROUND THE NATION: In the Sun Belt tournament, Arkansas State swept Georgia State as Bailey Helzer had 19 kills with two errors in 33 attacks to hit .515 to go with an ace and five digs. In the other match, Marshall eliminated Louisiana-Monroe in five behind 18 kills from Macy McElhaney, who had four assists, two aces and four digs. Lydia Montague had 13 kills with one error in 25 attacks and six blocks … 

In the MAAC tournament, Niagara eliminated Saint Peter’s in four putting an end to a tough 1-31 season for the Peacocks. In the other play-in match, Rider also ended things for Manhattan, which went 1-28 and, like Saint Peter’s, 1-17 in conference play. Tori Schrader had 16 kills and Morgan Romano 15 in the four-set win. Saint Peter’s and Manhattan split their meetings this season and both matches went five … 

Duke battled back to beat visiting Wake Forest in five as Gracie Johnson had a career-high 29 kills in the 22-25, 26-24, 23-25, 31-29, 15-11. Johnson had six errors in 68 attacks and hit .338 and added an assist, an ace, a solo block and 11 digs. Devon Chang had two kills in four errorless tries, 57 assists, three aces, three blocks and 16 digs. Peyton Suess and Paige Crawford had 21 kills apiece for Wake Forest and Emma Farrell had 21 digs and 10 assists … 

Wichita State won its American Athletic match in four at Tulsa as Natalie Foster had 16 kills with one error in 28 attacks to go with six blocks and three digs. Tulsa’s Kayley Cassaday had 20 kills, a block and 12 digs … 

In the Big East, UConn hit .314 and swept at Providence. Caylee Parker had 14 kills with one error in 28 attacks to hit .464 and added 11 digs and two blocks, one solo.

OSU’S BARNARD TO RETIRE: Oregon State announced that “coach Mark Barnard will retire at the end of the 2022 season to pursue other opportunities and explore his many interests outside of collegiate athletics.”

Barnard joined Oregon State in 2005 as an assistant and was promoted to associate head coach in 2008. He took over as head coach in 2016.

This season Oregon State is 7-19 overall, 2-14 in the Pac-12. The Beavers play host to USC on Friday.

UNCG’S CARLIN OUT: UNC Greensboro coach Cory Carlin is gone after nine seasons and a record of 138-125, 74-60 in the Southern Conference. This season the Spartans finished 10-20,  4-12, after losing their last six matches. Associate head coach Nicole Cirillo will serve as interim until a new coach is hired.

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