Top-ranked Nebraska, which swept Rutgers, is the lone unbeaten in NCAA Division I women’s volleyball.
The Citadel (23-1) won’t run the table, because the Bulldogs lost their SoCon match in five at Western Carolina.
Dayton is the first to 25 victories. The Flyers, ranked No. 16 in the VolleyballMag.com Super 16 Media Poll, swept their Atlantic 10 match at George Washington.
There were two Big Ten surprises, when Michigan State knocked off No. 13 Penn State in five for its first win over the Nittany Lions since 2013, and Illinois beat AVCA No. 16 Purdue in four.
Line of the day: Panna Ratkai had 33 kills, hit .305, and had five aces, 13 digs and a block for Purdue Fort Wayne in a five-set win at IUPUI. The Hungarian redshirt-freshman had 35 kills in a match eight days earlier.
There’s a showdown in the SEC as No. 10 Arkansas goes to No. 15 Florida. Arkansas (19-3, 9-1) is tied with idle Kentucky (11-7, 9-1) atop the standings, while Florida (14-4, 6-3) is alone in fourth. Third-place No. 12 Tennessee (17-3, 8-2) is home for Texas A&M, Mississippi State is at Georgia, South Carolina is at LSU and Missouri is at Ole Miss.
In the ACC, Miami (8-3), two games off the lead, has a chance to close the gap when it plays at No. 4 Louisville (10-1). Seventh-ranked Pittsburgh (10-1) is home for Wake Forest. Both 9-2 second-place teams are in action when No. 11 Georgia Tech is at Syracuse and Florida State is at Notre Dame. Also, NC State is at North Carolina, Clemson is at Boston College and Virginia Tech is at Virginia.
Stanford, holding a two-game Pac-12 lead over three teams, plays at one of them, AVCA No. 21 Arizona State. Sixth-ranked Washington State is home for Oregon State, No. 8 Oregon is at Washington, USC goes to Utah, Cal is at Arizona and UCLA is at Colorado.
The three Big Ten matches show No. 2 Wisconsin home for Minnesota, Indiana at Northwestern and Ohio State at Michigan.
AVCA No. 22 Houston plays one of the two Big 12 matches when the Cougars go to Cincinnati and Oklahoma is at Iowa State.
And Saint Peter’s and Hampton give it another try. Saint Peter’s, 0-25, which hit .000 and lost its MAAC match Saturday to Iona, plays host to Manhattan. Hampton (0-15) goes back to Elon, where it lost its CAA match Saturday.
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.
BIG TEN: Michigan State (14-9, 6-6) won a wild one over visiting Penn State (15-6, 9-3) 25-19, 11-25, 16-25, 25-18, 18-16 to break a 13-match losing streak against the Nittany Lions. Michigan State beat Penn State at home for the first time since 2002 and beat a ranked team for the first time since 2007. The Spartans hit just .156, but Penn State hit .135. MSU led 11-6 in the fifth, Penn State rallied, and then the Spartans fought off match point at 16-15 before closing it out. Taylah Holden led MSU with 14 kills, an ace, 10 digs and two blocks, one solo. Seven other Spartans had kills. Jess Mruzik led Penn State with 19 kills, an assist, an ace, five digs and four blocks, one solo …
Illinois (12-10, 7-5) beat visiting Purdue (14-7, 8-4) as Raina Terry had 19 kills in the 20-25, 25-19, 26-24, 25-18 victory, Terry, who had an 11 errors, had an assist, an ace, three blocks and eight digs. Kennedy Collins had nine kills, three digs and nine blocks. Illinois had a 15-12 blocks advantage. Purdue’s Eva Hudson had 18 kills, 11 errors, two blocks and seven digs. Raven Colvin had 13 kills, two digs and eight blocks, one solo …
Nebraska (21-0, 12-0) swept visiting Rutgers (10-12, 2-10). The Huskers who hit .384 and got 13 kills from Ally Batenhorst, who had one error in 22 swings, and 12 kills from Merritt Beason, who had three errors in 22 attacks … Maryland (15-9, 5-7) swept at Iowa (8-16, 0-12) as the Terps hit .337. Sam Csire had 11 kills with no errors in 25 attacks to hit .440 and Samantha Schnitta had 10 kills with no errors in 13 swings.
BIG EAST: All three top teams won. League-leading Marquette (15-8, 11-1) held its one-game lead with a sweep of UConn. Jenna Reitsma had 13 kills, two aces and nine digs and Aubrey Hamilton had 11 kills, 11 digs and a block. St. John’s (18-6, 10-2) won its seventh in a row, a five-set victory over visiting Butler. Erin Jones and Giorgia Walther had 18 kills each. Jones had 13 assists, two aces, five digs and four blocks, one solo. Walther had an assist, three aces, three digs and three blocks, one solo. Creighton (19-4, 10-2) swept at Georgetown as Ava Martin and Kiana Schmitt had 11 kills each. DePaul beat Providence in four and Jill Pressly had 25 kills, hit .375, and had an assist, an ace, 10 digs and two blocks, one solo.
Around the nation
Dayton (25-2, 14-0) won its 20th in a row with its 25-18, 25-13, 25-15 A10 sweep at George Washington. Lexie Almodovar had 18 kills with four errors in 35 attacks to hit .400 to go with nine digs … VCU won its A10 match in five over George Mason as Kialah Jefferson had 24 kills, an assist, an ace, 14 digs and seven blocks, three solo …
The Citadel, experiencing the greatest season in program history by far, lost 25-16, 20-25, 25-20, 15-25, 15-10 Western Carolina. The fifth set was tied 8-8 before the Catamounts pulled away as The Citadel fell completely apart down the stretch. The Bulldogs had eight kills with seven errors and two serving errors in the fifth.
WCU (8-15, 5-7) got 19 kills from Bailey Hartsough, who had two assists, 22 digs and a block. Ali Ruffin led The Citadel with 24 kills, but she hit .164. Ruffin added an assist, 16 digs and two blocks. All three SoCon matches went five. Wofford won at Furman as Bri Mahoney and Mary Emily Morgan had 14 kills apiece, and ETSU won at UNC Greensboro as Jenna Forster had 14 kills, hit .344 and had six digs, two solo. UNCG dropped to 1-22, 0-12 …
In the only Big 12 match of the day, Iowa State swept visiting Oklahoma as Nayeli Gonzalez led with 11 kills, three assists, three aces, five digs and a block …
AVCA No. 23 Western Kentucky (22-4, 12-1) rolled on in Conference USA, as the Toppers swept again at Louisiana Tech. WKU, which won its 17th in a row, hit 422. Paige Briggs had 15 kills with no errors in 28 attacks, two aces, 11 digs and two blocks, one solo. Also in CUSA, FIU beat Jacksonville State in five and Jade Sadeiko had 21 kills, hitting .405, to go with an assist, two aces, six digs and three blocks, one solo …
FGCU (12-0, 6-0) built its ead over Lipscomb (15-7, 10-2) to two games in the ASUN. FGCU swept at North Alabama while Lippy lost in five at Eastern Kentucky. EKU’s Sarah Mitchell had 18 kills, two assists, 17 digs and a blocks …
Sacramento State (17-8, 10-1) kept its two-game Big Sky lead over Weber State (15-7, 8-3)) with five to play. Sac State swept at Northern Arizona as Bridgette Smith had 16 kills, hitting .464, to go with 11 digs and two blocks, one solo. Weber State swept at Idaho. Also in the Big Sky, Idaho State won in four at Eastern Washington as Jamie Streit had 26 kills. She hit .370 and had an assist, an ace, and 14 digs …
High Point swept second-place Winthrop to build its Big South lead to two games. Dylan Maberry had 11 kills with two errors in 20 attacks and Christine Graf had 10 kills with one error in 17 swings …
In the Big West, UC Santa Barbara got back on track to sweep at Cal State Fullerton and maintained its one-game lead over Hawai’i and Long Beach State. Hawai’i which swept at CSU Bakersfield. Amber Igiede of Hawai’i had 16 kills, hit .314, had two aces, four digs and added three blocks, two solo. Long Beach State won in four at UC Davis behind four players with 10 or more kills, 18 by Elise Agi, who had one error in 33 swings to go with an assist, two aces and 13 digs. Cal Poly moved alone into fourth, two games off the lead, with a five-set win over UC Irvine. UCI’s Hunter Riedl had 23 kills, hitting .429 …
Towson (18-5, 11-2) held onto its one-game lead in the CAA, barely, as the Tigers won in five at N.C. A&T. Victoria Barrett had 19 kills and Nina Cajic 18. Second-place Delaware (17-4, 10-3) won its eighth in a row, a reverse-sweep at UNC Wilmington. Lani Mason had 17 kills, two assists, three aces, seven digs and a solo block …
Purdue Fort Wayne got 33 kills from Panna Ratkai in its five-set Horizon League win at IUPUI. Ratkai hit .305 and had five aces, 13 digs and a block. Ratkai, a redshirt freshman from Hungary, has been torrid the past two weekends. She had 35 kills against Milwaukee , 21 against Green Bay and then 25 against Oakland in her previous three matches …
Ivy-leading Yale won in four at Penn and Carly Diehl had 10 kills in 15 errorless attacks and Laurece Abraham had 10 with one error in 22 swings …
There’s no stopping Western Michigan in the MAC. The Broncos (23-2, 13-0) won their 13th in a row by beating visiting Akron in four as Anna Calcagno had 20 kills, hit .375 and had an assist, 13 digs and four blocks, one solo. Maggie King and Keona Salesman had 17 kills and two blocks each …
Northern Iowa maintained its two-game lead in the Missouri Valley loss column with a sweep of Bradley as Olivia Tjernagel had 12 kills with one error in 23 attacks. Second-place Drake swept Illinois State …
Utah State’s Mountain West lead grew to three games when it won in four at Wyoming and second-place New Mexico lost in four to UNLV. Utah State’s Adna Mehmedovic had 14 kills, hit .400, and had five digs and four blocks. UNLV’s Jordyn Freeman, who had 11 kills with one error in 19 attacks, had 10 blocks, one solo. She had eight blocks Thursday in a win over Air Force …
The race tightened in the Ohio Valley after Southeast Missouri (17-5, 9-2) won in five at Eastern Illinois (20-3, 10-2). EIU’s Giovana Larregui Lopez had 23 kills, an assist, four aces, 22 digs and two blocks. Morehead State beat UT Martin in four and M.E. Hargan had 23 kills …
Colgate (717-7, 10-3) still leads the Patriot League, but Army West Point (12-9, 9-3) closed the gap to a game in the win column by sweeping the Red Raiders on their home court. Four Cadets had 10 kills each. Bucknell (13-4, 9-4) beat Navy and American (16-9, 9-4) beat Lafayette to keep pace …
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi hit .500 and pulled into a first-place Southland Conference tie with idle Southeastern Louisiana by sweeping Nicholls. Nine TAMU players had kills, nine each by Kyndal Payne and Rylee Achtzehn, who each had one error in 15 swings …
Denver (9-3) moved into a first-place Summit tie with Omaha (9-3) and Kansas City (8-4) is a game back. Denver won in five over visiting South Dakota as five players had 10 or more kills, 16 by Cadi Boyer, who hit .448. Omaha lost in four to North Dakota State, which got 17 kills from Ali Hinze. Kansas City got 22 kills from Odyssey Warren in its four-set win at Oral Roberts …
Coastal Carolina improved to 12-0 in the Sun Belt with a sweep at Marshall. Also in the Sun Belt, Texas State setter Ryann Torres had another big match in a sweep at Arkansas State, coming up with four kills with one error in nine tries, 30 assists, eight digs and a solo block …
Utah Valley hit .460 in a WAC sweep of Tarleton State as Avery Shewell had 15 kills in 21 errorless attacks to go with an assist, an ace, seven digs and a block …
WCC-leading Pepperdine (10-0) was off, but now Loyola Marymount and San Diego are tied for second at 8-3 after LMU lost in five at Pacific and USD swept at Saint Mary’s.
Huskers only unbeaten after Citadel falls; Dayton rolls on; B1G wins for MSU, Illini Volleyballmag.com.
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