Volleyball Today: UNC, Sacramento St. into Big Sky final; Nebraska goes to Penn St.; tourneys resume

Northern Colorado, which won the Big Sky regular-season by three games, has had a tough go of it in the conference tournament.

A day after pulling off a reverse sweep over eighth-seeded Montana State, the Bears had to go five again on Thanksgiving to beat fourth-seeded Weber State. Northern Colorado, with an RPI of 66, plays third-seeded Sacramento State (RPI 112) on Friday for the Big Sky’s automatic NCAA bid. Sacramento State knocked out second-seeded Idaho State.

Those were the only two matches Thursday as we head into a busy Friday with a lot on the line for a lot of teams, not the least of which is in the Big Ten where No. 1 Nebraska goes to No. 4 Penn State.

There’s another Beach Pro Tour Challenge going on, this one in Nuvali, Philippines, and a handful of American pairs are in the mix.

It’s all in this edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA volleyball Friday

The match of the day has No. 1 Nebraska (28-1, 18-0) at No. 4 Penn State (28-2, 18-1) at 5 p.m. Eastern on the Big Ten Network. It will decide the Big Ten title since it’s the only time these powers play this regular season. Even with a loss, Nebraska is all but assured of being the No. 1 or 2 team in the NCAA Tournament. Penn State likely needs a victory to become a top-four seed.

Also in the Big Ten, Purdue is at Washington, Oregon is at UCLA, Ohio State is at AVCA No. 15 Minnesota, No. 20 USC is home for Iowa, Illinois is at Indiana, Northwestern is at Michigan and Maryland is at Rutgers. There are two Big Ten matches Saturday when Nebraska goes to Maryland and Michigan State is at Wisconsin.

The ACC wraps up its regular season with a flourish as Louisville tries to bounce back at Stanford, which has positioned itself to claim a top-four seed with a victory. Pittsburgh, also all but assured a top-four seed, is home for Georgia Tech, No. 9 SMU is home for NC State, Boston College goes to Virginia and Notre Dame is at Cal.

The Big 12 has six matches, including No. 8 Arizona State home for UCF, Kansas trying to bounce back at Iowa State, Baylor at West Virginia, No. 22 TCU at Cincinnati, BYU at Kansas State and Arizona at Texas Tech. The only Saturday match has Colorado at Houston.

The only SEC match Friday has LSU at Alabama. There are four matches Saturday, No. 12 Texas home for Ole Miss, No. 16 Florida at Georgia, No. 24 Missouri home for Auburn and Texas A&M at South Carolina.

The Big East Championship continues at Creighton with the fifth-ranked Bluejays vs. fourth-seeded DePaul and second-seeded Marquette vs. No. 6 Villanova. Creighton, No. 5 in the RPI, will be rooting for Nebraska and Stanford as it holds out hope for a top-four seed.

The Big West semifinals have No. 1 Cal Poly vs. fourth-seeded Long Beach State and No. 2 Hawai’i vs. No. 3 UC Davis.

The Mountain West will have just one match, when top-seeded Colorado State plays fifth-seeded San Diego State. The winner plays San Jose State on Saturday. SJSU advanced when Boise State forfeited.

The NCAA selection show is at 6 p.m. Eastern Sunday on ESPN when the 64-team bracket is announced. We’ll have a story shortly after and later Sunday we’ll post our annual Zoom with Big Ten Network and ESPN analyst Emily Ehman and tourney participants from around the country, including NCAA Division I volleyball committee chair Danielle Josetti of Marquette.

Big Sky surprises

Top-seeded Northern Colorado (25-6) has won seven matches in a row. Barely.

The Bears came away with a 25-19, 25-17, 11-25, 20-25, 17-15 victory Thursday over fourth-seeded Weber State. UNC, which swept Weber State in their only regular-season meeting, got another career-high from Gabi Placide. She had 21 kills in the reverse sweep of Montana State on Wedneday and then added 23 against Weber State. Placide, a 6-foot sophomore outside, hit .362 and had two assists, three blocks and 11 digs. Brynn Reines had 12 kills and four digs, and Alayne Tessena had 11 kills, hit .333, and had two blocks. Sam Steele had 20 digs, eight assists and six of her team’s 12 aces. Rose Moore led Weber State, which ended its sesaon 14-15, with 19 kills. She hit .410 and had an ace, two blocks and five digs.

In the other semifinal, Sacramento State, playing on its home floor, swept Idaho State, a team it lost to twice in the regular season, both times in four sets.  25-19, 25-15, 25-23. Sacramento State (20-11), got 17 kills from Bridgette Smith, who hit .417 and had two of the Hornets’ 13 aces and 10 digs. Smith, a 5-10 senior outside, is 24th in the NCAA in total kills with 470. Ashlynn Archer had nine kills with one error in 18 attacks to hit .444 and had four blocks. Kate Doorn had five aces, six digs and 23 assists. Idaho State ended its season 21-9.

In the regular season, Northern Colorado won in five at Sacramento State on October 12 but got swept by the Hornets at home on November 7. 

Beach Pro Tour Nuvali Challenge

Four USA men’s pairs were in the qualifier and just Theo Brunner and Taylor Crabb got through as Zephyr Drew and Charlie Siragusa, Wyatt Harrison and Jake Urritia and Mark Bucknam and Ryan Ierna went a long way to take a first-round defeat and head out.

Brunner and Crabb joined Chaim Schalk and James Shaw in the main draw and both pairs went 1-1 in pool play, enough to get into the winners bracket.

On the women’s side, four USA pairs were into the winners bracket. Piper Ferch and Madison Shields and Madelyne Anderson and Brook Bauer were in the first round, and Molly Shaw and Toni Rodriguez and Hailey Harward and Kylie Deberg awaited second-round opponents. 

Alaina Chacon and Molly Phillips and Carly Kan and Devanne Sours both got through the qualifier but then went 0-2 in pool play. Savvy Simo and Abby Van Winkle lost out in the qualifier.

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