NCAA volleyball news — including wins by Dayton, WKU, Wyoming — notes, polls, photos
Utah Tech’s Kennedi Knudsen dials in as she blasts the ball past the Southern Utah block of Allison Rohrer/Stan Plewe, Utah Tech Athletics
Dayton, the No. 20 team in the AVCA top 25, Western Kentucky and Wyoming were among the winners Tuesday in NCAA Division I women’s volleyball.
News, notes, Monday’s and Tuesday’s outcomes and top performances, follow, plus a remarkable photo, but first a look at Wednesday’s schedule.
There are two Big Ten matches when top-ranked Wisconsin goes to Iowa and Illinois is at Purdue.
Tennessee, the No. 10 team in the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll, is at Alabama. The other SEC match has No. 13 Arkansas at LSU.
The lone Big 12 match has UCF at Texas Tech.
The only ACC match has Florida State at Miami, while the Pac-12 is idle.
Other matches include DePaul at Marquette in the Big East, Western Kentucky is back at Liberty after sweeping their Conference USA match Tuesday, and also in CUSA UTEP is at NM State.
AVCA POLL: The only two unbeatens in top 25 remain 1-2, Wisconsin and Nebraska, followed by Stanford, which stayed No. 3 in the AVCA Division I Women’s Volleyball Poll. Just as in our VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll, Washington State jumped to No. 4 and Oregon, which lost to WSU, still moved up a spot to No. 5.
No one dropped out. Click here to see the complete AVCA top 25.
VBM SUPER 16: In case you missed it, week two had the same result as the first at the top of the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll: Wisconsin edged Nebraska by one point for the No. 1 spot. But there was quite a bit of movement inside the top 16, although no one dropped out. Most significantly, Washington State moved up two spots to No. 4 and Texas is up two spots to No. 8. Click here to see the story and complete poll.
AVCA POW: The national player of the week is Yale junior outside Audrey Leak, the first player from that program to win the honor. Leak averaged 6.71 kills per set and hit .482 when Yale swept Penn and beat Princeton in four.
MONDAY: Southern Illinois improved to 12-4, 4-1 in the Missouri Valley as the Salukis won in four at Missouri State. Nataly Garcia had 20 kills and Annabelle Sulish 19 … Utah Tech swept its WAC match with visiting Southern Utah as Kennedi Knudsen had 19 kills, hitting .469 … In the SWAC, Texas Southern swept Alcorn as Kennedy Reed had 13 kills and hit .478 and Prairie View beat Southern in four behind 16 kills from Bailee Hewitt.
TUESDAY: Datyon improved to 16-2, 5-0 in the Atlantic 10, with 25-21, 25-10, 25-21 sweep at Duquesne. Lexie Almodovar had 18 kills, hit .317 and added an assist, an ace, two blocks and 10 digs. Karissa Kaminski had 23 kills and five assists. Almodovar is tied for third on the NCAA total kills list … Also in the A10, VCU swept visiting Davidson behind 16 kills by Jasmine Knight, who had one error in 23 attacks and eight blocks, two solo, and Loyola Chicago swept at Saint Louis …
Western Kentucky is 13-4, 3-0 in Conference USA after hitting .430 in a sweep at Liberty. The Toppers, who had 38 kills with just four errors in 79 attacks, got 16 kills from Paige Briggs, who was errorless in 24 attacks. She also had five aces. Kaylee Cox had 15 kills with no errors in 29 swings … Also in CUSA, UTEP won in four at NM State, Louisiana Tech did the same at Sam Houston, and FIU beat visiting Middle Tennessee in five as five players had nine or more kills, 13 by Yasso Amin, who hit .321 and had two assists, five aces, three digs and seven blocks, two solo …
Wyoming (12-4, 1-4) got its first Mountain West win by beating visiting Colorado State (8-9, 2-3). Every team in the Mountain West has at least one conference loss after four matches. Wyoming’s Tierney Barlow had 15 kills and hit .440 to go with an ace, three digs and three blocks, one solo. Rylee Schulz had 14 kills, an assist, 10 digs and a blocks, and Corin Carruth had 13 kills and four blocks in the 25-22, 25-23, 19-25, 26-24 victory. CSU’s Kennedy Stanford had 14 kills, an ace and eight digs …
Green Bay won its Horizon League match in four at Milwaukee as Tiffany Paalman had 15 kills with two errors in 25 swings. The Phoenix, plagued earlier by inuries, have won five in a row, all in HL play.
Finally, check out this incredible shot by Jim Wolf from last week’s Hawai’i-at-Long Beach match as Beach setter Zayna Meyer contorts while falling backwards:
Long Beach setter Zayna Meyer with the Matrix-style dig/Jim Wolf photo
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