NCAA volleyball: Penn St. stifles Nebraska; Sacramento St. wins Big Sky; big Saturday on tap

A day after fourth-ranked Penn State put an end to No. 1 Nebraska’s 25-match winning streak to claim at least a share of the Big Ten title, a regular season that began on August 27 comes to an end Saturday.

There’s a lot on the line for a lot of teams, not the least which is No. 3 Louisville as it plays at No. 6 Stanford in the ACC finale.

At 6 p.m. Eastern Sunday on ESPN the 64-team NCAA Tournament bracket will be announced, including the all important top-four and top-16 seeds. We’ll have a story shortly after and later Sunday we’ll post our annual Zoom with ESPN and Big Ten Network analyst Emily Ehman and tourney participants from around the country, including NCAA Division I volleyball committee chair Danielle Josetti of Marquette.

One team that will hear its name called is Sacramento State, which got 30 kills from Bridgette Smith on Friday and defeated Northern Colorado in the Big Sky final for its first NCAA bid since 2007.

NCAA volleyball Saturday

Three tourmament championships, with NCAA automatic bids on the line will be decided, when top-seeded and fifth-ranked Creighton plays second-seeded Marquette in the Big East, top-seeded Colorado State plays second-seeded San Jose State in the Mountain West and top-seeded Cal Poly plays second-seeded Hawai’i in the Big West.

The Big East loser is assured an at-large NCAA bid but Creighton (RPI 6, KPI 6) has slim hopes of being a top-four seed. Colorado State has a slim chance of getting an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament if it loses, and Cal Poly has to win to get into the NCAA field but Hawai’i has a good shot at an at-large.

The key battle in the ACC pits Louisville (25-4, 17-2, RPI 3, KPI 3) at Stanford (24-4, 16-3, RPI 5, KPI 5). Louisville swept their previous meeting in Louisville on September 28. Also in the ACC, No. 1 Pittsburgh (28-1, 18-1), which has already won a share of the league title, is home for No. 19 Georgia Tech. SMU (24-6, 16-3), hoping to tie for second, plays host to NC State, Notre Dame is at Cal and Boston College is at Virginia.

Three of the SEC’s ranked teams are in action as No. 12 Texas is home for Ole Miss, No. 16 Florida is at Georgia and No. 24 Missouri is home for Auburn and Texas A&M is at South Carolina.

The Big Ten has Nebraska at Maryland and No. 6 Wisconsin home for Michigan State. 

The lone Big 12 match has Colorado at Houston.

Loyola Marymount, which awaits its NCAA call, has a two-game lead in the West Coast Conference. San Diego, tied with Pepperdine for second, is home for Saint Mary’s, while Pepperdine is home for Oregon State. Pepperdine and San Diego hold slim hopes for at-large bids. Portland goes to Pacific and San Francisco is at Georgia. 

NCAA volleyball Sunday

BIG SKY: Going five for the third day in a row was too much for top-seeded Northern Colorado (25-7) as third-seeded Sacramento State (21-11) won 23-25, 25-19, 19-25, 25-13, 15-9 on its home floor. It’s the 10th league title for Sacramento State since it joined the conference in 1996 and first since 2007. Bridgette Smith had 30 kills, hit .464, and had four of her team’s 14 aces and 13 digs. Gabi Placide led Northern Colorado with 25 kills, four aces and 14 digs.

BIG EAST: Once again it’s top-seeded Creighton (28-2), which has won 21 in a row, against No. 2 Marquette (23-7) for the title. 

Creighton hit .442 and advanced by sweeping DePaul as Norah Sis had 18 kills, hit .441, and had an assist, two blocks and 10 digs, and Ava Martin had 12 kills with no errors in 23 swings to hit .552 to go with an assist and four digs. Kendra Wait had four kills with no errors in nine tries, 40 assists, three digs and four blocks, one solo.

Marquette moved on with a sweep of sixth-seeded Villanova as Aubrey Hamilton had 18 kills, hit .405 and had an ace, four digs and two blocks, one solo. Morgan Daugherty had nine kills with no errors in 16 attacks to hit .600 and had three digs and a block. 

Creighton beat visiting Marquette in four on October 1 and again in four in Milwaukee on November 10.

BIG WEST: In the semifinals, top-seeded Cal Poly swept fourth-seeded Long Beach State and second-seeded Hawai’i beat UC Davis in five. In the regular season, Cal Poly (22-8) got swept at home by Hawai’i (20-9) on October 18 and lost at Hawai’i in four on November.

Against Long Beach, Cal Poly’s Tommi Stockham had 17 kills, hit .333, and had two aces and nine digs. Caylen Alexander of Hawai’i had 22 kills in her team’s 25-22, 16-25, 25-20, 21-25, 15-13 victory and moved into the top spot for NCAA kills this season. She also had 12 hitting errors and three blocks and 17 digs. Olivia Utterback of UC Davis had 18 kills, two assists, two aces, five blocks and 16 digs.

MOUNTAIN WEST: San Jose State (14-5) hasn’t played since November 19 when it lost in five to Fresno State. Its regular-season finale resulted in Boise State forfeiting to the Spartans and then Boise State refused to play again Friday in the semifinals.

Colorado State advanced with a four-set win over San Diego State in the other semifinal in Las Vegas as Malaya Jones had 17 kills, two assists, five of the Rams’ 10 aces, a block and 10 digs.

In the regular season, CSU (19-10) swept visiting San Jose State on October 3 and won in five at San Jose on November 16.

BIG TEN: Penn State (29-2, 19-1) dealt Nebraska (28-2, 18-1) a 25-21, 14-25, 25-22, 25-23 defeat that all but assured the Nittany Lions of a top-four NCAA Tournament seed. Caroline Jurevicius, who started her career at Nebraska, had a career-high 18 kills. Penn State had not beaten the Huskers since 2018. 

Read the Penn State recap here and the Nebraska account here.

No. 11 Purdue swept at Washington as Eva Hudson had 13 kills, two aces, 13 digs and a block and Raven Colvin had 12 kills, hit .409, and had two aces and four blocks, one solo. 

No. 14 Oregon won in four at UCLA as Mimi Colyer had 21 kills, an assist, an ace, 12 digs and three blocks.

AVCA No. 15 Minnesota came away with a 25-16, 30-32, 25-14, 25-15 victory over visiting Ohio State as Melani Shaffmaster had seven kills in 10 errorless tries, 42 assists, 12 digs and six blocks. Julia Hanson had 23 kills, hit .400, and had an assist, three aces, nine digs and two blocks.

No. 20 USC swept visiting Iowa as Ally Batenhorst had 16 kills, hit .325, and had an ace, nine digs and four blocks. 

Indiana swept visiting Illinois as Candela Alonso-Corcelles had 18 kills, five digs and a block.

Michigan beat visiting Northwestern in five behind a career-high 26 kills from Valentina Vaulet, who hit .392 and had two assists, three aces, eight digs and four blocks. Northwestern’s Buse Hazan had 23 kills, two aces, six digs and a block.

Maryland swept at Rutgers as Katie Scherer had 12 kills with one error in 20 attacks to hit .550 and added five digs and three blocks, one solo. Eva Rohrback had eight kills in 11 errorless swings and eight blocks, one solo.

ACC: No. 21 Florida State hit .348 and won in four at Wake Forest as four players had 12 or more kills. Khori Louis had 15, hit .565, and three blocks. Wake’s Paige Crawford had 20 kills, hit .474, and had an assist and four digs.

No. 25 North Carolina swept at Clemson. Jackie Taylor had 10 kills, hit .571, and had a dig and three blocks. Clemson hit .069.

Miami swept visiting Duke, which hit .039. The Hurricanes got 12 kills from Flormarie Heredia Colon, who hit .310 and had an ace, five digs and three blocks.

Syracuse won in four at Virginia Tech as Ava Palm had 21 kills, hit .442, and had two assists, five of the Orange’s 13 aces, 13 digs and two blocks. 

BIG 12: No. 22 TCU wrapped up its four-set victory at Cincinnati one of the strongest serving runs you will ever see. Melanie Parra, who had 24 kills, an assist, 13 digs and three blocks, one solo, also had three of her six aces in a 7-0 run to end the match. The other three serves took Cincinnati completely out of system. Jalyn Gibson added 13 kills, two assists, two aces, 16 digs and nine blocks. Sydney Noland had 21 kills and hit .340 for Cincinnati.

Eighth-ranked Arizona State swept UCF for its 17th victory in a row. Geli Cyr had 11 kills with one error in 22 attacks to hit .455 and had two aces, a solo block and nine digs.

No. 10 Kansas won in four at Iowa State. London Davis led with 21 kills, hitting .429, and added three digs and five blocks, one solo. Reese Ptacek had seven kills, hit .357, and seven blocks, two solo.

No. 17 Baylor swept at West Virginia. Libero Lauren Briseno had 12 digs, five assists and two aces.

Jordan Wilson had 28 kills as Arizona won in four at Texas Tech. Wilson hit .451 and had an ace, 10 digs and two blocks. Texas Tech’s Brynn Williams had 23 kills, an assist, an ace and 12 digs.

BYU won in four at Kansas State as Kjersti Strong had 10 kills with one error in 18 attacks and seven blocks, two solo.

SEC: In the only match, Jurnee Robinson finished her season with a flourish, getting 31 kills in a four-set win at Alabama. Robinson hit .312, had three assists, 12 digs and a solo block. 

 

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