NCAA volleyball: Utah St. wins MWC; AVCA Poll, POW; Huskers, ‘Horns play Wednesday
Utah State wins the 2023 Mountain West regular-season title
Utah State has wrapped up the Mountain West regular-season title, the AVCA put out a new poll and announced its player of the week, and we can look ahead to a 10-match Wednesday schedule that includes top-ranked Nebraska, No. 4 Texas, and key battles in the SEC and Summit.
Start with Wednesday’s NCAA Division I women’s volleyball schedule as No. 1 Nebraska is home for Northwestern in the Big Ten Nebraska is 23-0, 14-0 in the B1G, while Northwestern (11-13, 5-9) is tied with Maryland for 10th place. Also in the B1G, suprise of the league Michigan State (16-9, 8-6) is at Ohio State (9-4, 6-8).
Texas (18-3, 13-0), which holds a four-game lead in the Big 12, is at Kansas State (13-10, 7-7). K-State got everyone’s attention with back-to-back upset sweeps of BYU two weeks ago, but last weekend dropped two matches at No. 14 Kansas.
SEC-leading Kentucky (13-7, 11-1), No. 11 in the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll, is at Auburn 18-5, 8-4) , which is No. 24 in the AVCA top 25. Kentucky leads idle Arkansas by a game in the loss column. South Carolina has an SEC match at Mississippi State.
Omaha (12-12, 11-3) plays at Denver (11-11, 10-4), the team it leads by a game in The Summit League. Denver is a half game up on idle Kansas City.
St. John’s (20-6, 12-2), in a three-way tie with idle Creighton and Marquette atop the Big East, goes to Seton Hall.
Also Wednesday, CSUN is at UC Davis in the Big West, Binghamton is at Manhattan in the MAAC and Eastern Kentucky has an ASUN match at Bellarmine.
Want to watch? We have the conference-by-conference schedule with viewing links for any match that is being shown in our VolleyballMag.com TV & Streaming Listings.
UTAH STATE: Utah State (21-5, 14-1) won the Mountain West regular-season title by beating visiting Boise State (11-14, 7-8).
“An amazing crowd,” Utah State coach Rob Neilson said. “3:30 in the afternoon and we packed the Estes. We’re so grateful for the fans celebrating this wonderful team.
“Mountain West champions. I can’t believe it. What a great day. What a great performance. That Boise State team played phenomenally well and we just battled. This is such a tested group. Such a veteran group. I’m so proud of them.”
Utah State won the 2021 MWC regular-season title and last year won the tournament and the NCAA bid that came with it, losing to Arkansas in the first round.
The Aggies, who have 11 victories in a row, won 25-27, 25-20, 27-25, 25-20 as Shelby Capllonch and Tatum Still had 15 kills each. Kelsey Watson added 11 kills, hit .500 and had six blocks, one solo. Leah Wilton-LaBoy had three kills in as many tries, 23 assists and nine digs.
Boise State’s Paige Bartsch had 25 kills, an assist, an ace, six digs and four blocks, one solo.
MONDAY-TUESDAY: Also Monday, in the SWAC, Prairie View swept at Southern and Texas Southern won in four at Alcorn and Southern Utah beat visiting Utah Tech in five in the WAC. SUU’s Andrea Spasojevic and Utah Tech’s Hannah Howard had 19 kills each.
There were three matches Tuesday, as Oakland swept IUPUI and Cleveland State won in four at Purdue Fort Wayne in the Horizon League. Oakland’s Ainsley Guse had 10 kills with one error in 19 attacks and three blocks, one solo. Laken Voss, the freshman daughter of 24th-year Cleveland State coach Chuck Voss, led the Vikings with 19 kills, hitting .315, to go with an assist, 16 digs and a block. In the Ohio Valley, Tennessee Tech won its fifth in a row, a four-set victory over visiting Morehead State. Tennessee Tech’s Ava Schubert had 18 kills, three digs and three blocks.
AVCA POLL: Much like the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll, the AVCA’s still has Nebraska and Wisconsin 1-2 with plenty of changes after that. Texas and Stanford both moved up a spot to Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, while Louisville dropped two notches to No. 5.
The rest of the top 10 shows Oregon, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, Washington State and Tennessee.
USC moved in at No. 25 and Marquette dropped out. Click here for the complete AVCA Division I Women’s Coaches Poll.
AVCA POW: The national player of the week is USC’s Skylar Fields. The senior outside averaged eight kills per set and hit .442 last week in victories over Arizona and Arizona State. She leads the Pac-12 in kills with 493 and in kills per set (5.14). The next closest in kills is ASU’s Marta Levinska with 397.
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