The Vegas Thrill made the first Pro Volleyball Federation match in franchise history a memorable one with a five-set victory at the Omaha Supernovas on Wednesday night.
In NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball, No. 3 Hawai’i, No. 6 Ohio State and No. 7 UC Irvine where among the winners.
The recaps and top performances follow but first a look at Thursday’s men’s schedule, that includes more MPSF-Big West matches when No. 12 Pepperdine goes to No. 17 UC Santa Barbara ad Concordia Irvine is home for No. 19 UC San Diego.
The MPSF’s BYU plays host to the NEC’s LIU.
In the MIVA, McKendree goes to Quincy.
Daemen and visiting D’Youville play the first NEC match of the season, EIVA’s NJIT is at the NEC’s Sacred Heart and Fort Valley State of the SIAC is home for St. Andrews. Dominican has a home ECC match against Mount St. Vincent, which is playing its season opener.
If a match is being shown, we have the viewing link in our VolleyballMag TV & Streaming Listings.
A Thrill for Vegas
The rest of the seven teams in the first-year league had already played at least one match before the Vegas Thrill opened at Omaha with a 19-25, 25-23, 25-20, 18-25, 15-12 victory.
Each team had unlikely stars, rookies from teams that are not in the Power 5.
Hannah Maddux, who played last fall for South Alabama, led Vegas with 18 kills, three blocks, 11 digs and her team’s only ace. Maddux, a right side for South Alabama and a 2023 VolleyballMag.com honorable-mention All-American, got five of her kills in 16 errorless attacks in the fifth set.
Molly McCage, a freshman middle on the 2012 Texas NCAA-championship team, had 14 kills and only two errors in 32 attacks, nine blocks — eight solo — and a dig. German national-teamer Saskia Hippe had 11 kills, five blocks — two solo — and 10 digs.
Gabby Gonzales, who had 10 digs, and Layne Van Buskirk had nine kills each. Van Buskirk had one error in 23 swings, two digs and three blocks, one solo. 2016 Olympic setter Alisha Glass Childress, 35, had 46 assists, 16 digs, a block and two kills. Libero Kylie Murr had 28 digs and five assists.
Omaha, picked first by the coaches, dropped to 1-2 two days after it was announced that coach Shelton Collier was moved becoming “an Advisor to the Organization” and assistant Bird Kuhn was named interim head coach. Both the Supernovas’ losses were in five sets. Wednesday, before an…
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