Rice edges WKU; 10 others win bids, including first-timers Delaware St., SLU

Rice and Western Kentucky staged another Conference USA battle for the ages.

Delaware State won the MEAC and Southeastern Louisiana won the Southland and both are in the NCAA Tournament for the first time.

James Madison, denied a shot last year in the CAA, won the Sun Belt.

In all, 11 NCAA automatic bids were claimed on Sunday. The only team that won that wasn’t a No. 1 or No. 2 seed was Delaware State, which was a No. 3 seed.

The recaps follow.

Things now slow down considerably for a few days. 

There are just four matches Monday, semifinals in the MAC and Missouri Valley. 

In the MAC, at Ball State, the top-seeded home team plays fourth-seeded Central Michigan and second-seeded Bowling Green faces sixth-seeded Buffalo. Bowling Green has an RPI of 51, so it’s not impossible that should the Falcons not win they could become the only mid-major loser other than Western Kentucky to get an at-large bid.

In the Valley, at Evansville, fourth-seeded Southern Illinois plays the fifth-seeded host team and No. 3 UIC plays sixth-seeded Valparaiso. Top-seeded UNI and second-seeded Drake await the winners. UNI has an NCAA RPI of 49, so it, too, could be in the at-large hunt if it does not win the tournament. 

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CONFERENCE USA: Of course it went five.

Second-seeded Rice (26-3) won 22-25, 25-22, 22-25, 28-26, 15-11 at No. 1 Western Kentucky (28-3) to not only avenge its only C-USA loss this season — in five — but break a six-match losing streak to the Hilltoppers.

No. 22 Rice got 17 kills from Danyle Courtley, who hit .302 and had a block and eight digs. Anota Adekunle had 15 kills, hit .370 and had two digs and two blocks, one solo. Sahara Maruska had 13 kills, an assist, an ace, a block and 17 digs. Lola Foord, who had a total of nine kills in the last four matches, entered the match in the fourth set and finished with 11 kills with two errors in 19 attacks, a block and a dig. Satasha Kostelecky had nine kills, two digs and seven blocks, two solo. Carly Graham had four kills in 11 errorless tries, 64 assists, an ace, a block and 19 digs.

No. 20 WKU, which won the C-USA title the past three years, was led by Lauren Matthews, who had 27 kills and hit .407 to go with a dig and four blocks. Paige Briggs had 20 kills, an assist, two aces, two blocks and 17 digs. 

“The Western Kentucky-Rice rivalry…