Volleyball Today: Cincinnati upsets BYU; Penn State sweeps Purdue; tourney play continues

Cincinnati beat a ranked team for the first time since 2019 when the Bearcats won in five Thursday at No. 24 BYU in the Big 12.

Fifth-ranked Penn State had another statement victory, this time a sweep of visiting No. 10 Purdue.

Conference play continued and among the victors was UT Arlington, whose first-round WAC victory extended its winning streak to 18.

Northern Colorado won the Big Sky regular-season title and the races tightened in the Big West and West Coast Conference.

And there were two more coaching casualties.

It’s all in this NCAA edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA volleyball Friday

There are plenty of key regular-season matches, but we’ll start with postseason tournaments.

Action begins in the American Athletic, America East, Atlantic 10, Big South, Conference USA, Horizon, Ivy League, MAAC, MAC, MEAC, NEC, Southland Conference and SWAC. Included in that bit of alphabet soup is Southeastern Louisiana of the Southland, which goes for its 25th victory in a row; No. 15 Dayton, which goes for win No. 22 in a row in the A10; and Western Kentucky, which aims for its 22nd in a row in Conference USA.

Tournaments continue in the ASUN, Patriot League, SoCon, Sun Belt and WAC.

In the ACC, the match of the day has AVCA No. 15 Georgia Tech at No. 23 Florida State. Third-ranked Louisville is at Virginia, No. 7 Stanford is at Duke, No. 9 SMU goes to NC State, Clemson is at Miami and Cal is at North Carolina.

The SEC’s slate has No. 13 Texas at Oklahoma, No.. 25 Missouri at Ole Miss, South Carolina at Alabama, Arkansas at Tennessee and Georgia at Texas A&M.

The three Big Ten matches show Washington at Ohio State, UCLA at Indiana and Rutgers at Illinois.

The only Big 12 match has No. 22 TCU home for Texas Tech.

NCAA volleyball Thursday

BIG TEN: When it comes to big matches, Penn State goes feast or famine. To wit: Penn State swept Louisville but got swept at Pittsburgh. Earlier this season it swept Purdue, Oregon and Minnesota, but got swept by Wisconsin. Chalk up another sweep as the Nittany Lions overpowered visiting Purdue 25-20, 25-23, 25-16. Camryn Hannan led with 14 kills, two aces, a block and four digs. Gillian Grimes had 20 digs and five assists and Izzy Starck had three kills, 38 assists, five blocks and 10 digs. Eva Hudson led Purdue with 12 kills, nine digs and a block.

No. 14 Oregon swept at Michigan State as Mimi Colyer had 12 kills, two assists, an ace, six digs and seven blocks. No. 21 USC won in four at Northwestern as Ally Batenhorst had 22 kills, hit .370 and had an assist, an ace, seven digs and three blocks, and Adonia Faumuina had 20 kills, hit .471, and had five digs and three blocks. Michigan swept visiting Maryland as Valentina Vaulet had 14 kills, two assists, three aces, nine digs and two blocks.

BIG 12: Cincinnati, which had lost three in a row and four of five, stunned BYU on its home court 23-25, 25-19, 25-23, 17-25, 15-13. Sydney Nolan had a career-high 22 kills — eight in the fifth set — seven digs and three blocks, and Irbe Lazda had 15 kills, hit .370, and had a dig and four blocks. BYU’s Claire Little had 19 kills, an ace, 11 digs and two blocks. Brielle Kemavor had 14 kills, hit .480, and had a dig and 11 blocks, one solo. BYU fell to 2-7 in five-set matches this season.

Eighth-ranked Arizona State swept visiting Iowa State as Savannah Kjolhede had 10 kills, hit .471, and had three digs and eight blocks, one solo. No. 16 Utah swept West Virginia as Kamryn Gibadlo had 14 kills, hit .462, and had two aces, 11 digs and a block. And Arizona swept at Colorado. 

ASUN: The Friday semifinals are set with third-seeded Central Arkansas facing second-seeded Lipscomb and No. 1 FGCU vs. Eastern Kentucky. Central Arkansas got past sixth-seeded North Florida in five as Regan Harp had 15 kills, hit .310 and had an assist, an ace, 23 digs and two blocks. Lippy swept North Alabama as Courtney Jones had 18 kills, hit .382, and had four digs and a block, giving coach Brandon Rosenthal his 400th victory at the school. EKU beat Jacksonville in four as Carson Ledford had 12 kills, hit .429, and had an ace and nine blocks. And FGCU hit .532 as it swept Queens. Shelby Kent had 14 kills with no errors in 18 attacks to hit .778 and had an ace and 13 digs.

MAAC: There were two upsets as eighth-seeded Iona swept fifth-seeded Sacred Heart and seventh-seeded Merrimack defeated sixth-seeded Niagara in five. Iona’s Grace Ehler had 12 kills with one error in 26 attacks to hit .423 and added an assist and a dig. It was Iona’s first win over Sacred Heart since 2008. Merrimack’s Mckenna Shotwell (all-name team) had 14 kills, an assist, an ace, 22 digs and a block.

Friday, No. 4 Canisius plays Iona and No. 3 Rider gets Merrimack with top-seeded Fairfield and second-seeded Quinnipiac waiting for Saturday’s semifinals.

SOCON: The only match saw ninth-seeded UNC Greensboro sweep Western Carolina as Allie Sweet had 12 kills, two assists, an ace, 12 digs and four blocks, two solo. UNCG plays top-seeded Mercer, The Citadel plays Samford, Chattanooga plays Wofford and Furman plays ETSU.

SUN BELT: Georgia State beat Troy in five and Coastal Carolina beat Southern Miss in four.

It marked the end of the line for SBC player of the year Tori Hester, who had 28 kills in the loss for Troy to go with an ace, 17 digs and two blocks. She had 151 kills in her final five matches.

The incomparable Jalyn Stout of Coastal Carolina had 20 kills, hitting .444, 22 assists, two aces, 14 digs and two blocks.

Friday, Texas State plays James Madison, which it beat twice last week. App State plays Georgia State, Arkansas State plays Coastal and Georgia Southern plays South Alabama. 

WAC: Top-seeded UT Arlington won its 18th in a row, sweeping Abilene Christian in the first round of the league tournament. The Mavs (27-2, 17-0) got 12 kills from Brianna Ford, who hit .417 and had four aces, six digs and three blocks. UTA plays fifth-seeded California Baptist in one semifinal and second-seeded Grand Canyon plays third-seeded Utah Valley in the other.

CBU swept Utah Tech as Kali Wolf had 13 kills with one error in 38 swings, an assist, an ace, five digs and a block.

GCU swept Seattle U as Tatum Parrott had 13 kills, hit .393, and had an assist, an ace, 11 digs and a block. Utah Valley ousted Southern Utah in four as Avery Shewell had 20 kills, hit .308, and added seven digs and three blocks.

BIG SKY: Northern Colorado (22-6, 13-2) swept Idaho to win the regular-season title with one match left. Since joining the conference in 2006, the Bears have won seven regular-season titles and eight tournaments. Idaho State, Sacramento State and Weber State are tied for second, three games back. Idaho State won in four at Sacramento State and Weber State lost in four at Portland State, which got 23 kills and four aces from Makayla Lewis, who hit .340 and had an assist, 14 digs and a block. 

BIG WEST: Cal Poly and UC Davis both won in five to get to 13-4 and move a half game up on idle Hawai’i (12-4). Cal Poly won at UC Riverside as Tommi Stockham had 17 kills, an ace, 12 digs and three blocks. UC Davis beat visiting UC Santa Barbara as Olivia Utterback had 19 kills, three assists, four aces and 12 digs. In the other league match, UC Irvine swept visiting Cal State Fullerton as Katie Smith had 15 kills, hit .433, and had three aces, nine digs and two blocks.

MOUNTAIN WEST: The six teams are set for the tournament, but with one match left in the regular season a lot could shake out. Colorado State leads at 13-4, Fresno State and Utah State are 12-5, San Jose State is 12-6, San Diego State is 10-7 and Boise State is 9-8. In the tournament, the third seed plays No. 6 and the fourth seed plays No. 5 with the top two teams waiting in the semifinals. Utah State and Boise State are two of the teams that have forfeited to San Jose State in the regular season, including Boise’s match on Thursday. Colorado State swept visiting Nevada as Malaya Jones had 18 kills, hit .485, and had two assists, three aces, five digs and a block. Utah State swept at Wyoming and San Diego State swept visiting New Mexico as Jasmine Davis had 13 kills, hit .400 and had two aces, 16 digs and a block. 

WCC: Loyola Marymount is a game up at the top ahead of Pepperdine and San Diego as the former lost and the latter two won. LMU (21-5, 13-2) lost in five at Pacific. Pepperdine (15-10, 12-3) swept at  Saint Mary’s as Ella Piskorz had 15 kills with one error in 25 attacks and added three ace, seven digs and five blocks, two solo. San Diego (17-8, 12-3) swept visiting Gonzaga as Kristen Erland had 14 kills with one error in 23 swings and five blocks.

You can go home again

Lindsey Devine, who coached at East Tennessee State University from 2003 to 2018, returned to the program last December after three years as the coach at Alabama and season as a volunteer at Mississippi State. She took over a team that finished 6-23, 5-11 in the Southern Conference. This season, the Pirates, who open the SoCon Championship against Furman on Friday night, went 18-10 and finished third in the league at 10-6. 

Accordingly, Devine, one of our favorite Canadians, was named the SoCon coach of the year on Thursday. She previously won the honor in 2016 and 2018. 

Take that, Thomas Wolfe.

Mercer’s Sky Ekes (all-name team), a senior transfer Florida State, was named the SoCon player of the year year. Teammates Skylar Bumpers (all-name team) and Brooke Phillips, a grad transfer from the artist formerly known as IUPUI, also made the first team. Worth noting is that ETSU had no players on the SoCon first team and that Wofford libero Laney Klika made the second team. Her sister, Emmy Klika, is the libero for No. 1 Pittsburgh. 

Coaching carousel spins at Oral Robers, Siena

Luke Ward is out at Oral Roberts after two seasons. His team finished 4-25, 2-14 in The Summit League. In his first year, the Golden Eagles went 3-25, 1-15. ORU has been to the NCAA Tournament nine times, the last in 2006.

Siena fired Simone Asque-Favia after three seasons. The Saints went 6-24 this season, 5-13 in the MAAC.

Siena has been to the Division I NCAA Tournament six times, the last in 2014.

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