Volleyball Today: Six NCAA bids on the line Saturday; Nebraska plays Wisconsin

This is going to be a fun volleyball Saturday.

Not only does No. 6 Wisconsin go to No. 2 Nebraska in the Big Ten, automatic NCAA Tournament bids will be claimed by winners in six conferences.

The only upset Friday was by No. 23 Florida State, which defeated visiting AVCA No. 15 Georgia Tech in the ACC. Ninth-ranked SMU had to go five to get past NC State in the ACC and No. 25 Missouri had to go five to beat Ole Miss in the SEC.

Lines of the day:

UT Arlington’s Brianna Ford had 29 kills in her team’s five-set WAC semifinal victory over California Baptist, hitting .293 with three assists, two aces, 14 digs and four blocks, one solo.

Samford lost to The Citadel in five in the SoCon tourney in a match with some staggering numbers. The Citadel had 145 digs and Samford  a school-record 161 and the individual leaders are listed below. But Samford’s Kaleigh Merritt had career-best 27 kills in 89 swings, an assist, an ace, a solo block and a career-high 35 digs.

26 was the other number.

Florida Atlantic’s Valeria Rosado had 26 kills in her team’s American Athletic upset of East Carolina. She hit .312 and had an assist, 16 digs and two blocks. 

Adriana Rhoda’s Middle Tennessee lost in four to Kennesaw State in Conference USA, but she had 26 kills, hit .309, and had two aces, two digs and three blocks.

Buffalo’s season ended with a four-set MAC tourney loss to Western Michigan, but Katrin Trevichavska had 26 kills, two assists, an ace, a block and 13 digs.

Mercer swept UNC Greensboro in the SoCon and Skyler Ekes had 21 kills in those three sets, hitting .528.

We’ll break it down, conference by conference, in this all-NCAA edition of Volleyball Today, which also includes another coaching casualty.

ACC

Florida State rallied to beat Georgia Tech 25-13, 15-25, 21-25, 26-24, 15-10. The Seminoles, who had lost to GT eight times in a row, got 18 kills from Audrey Koenig, who hit .313 and had two assists, an ace, 13 digs and three blocks. Khori Louis had 15 kills with one error in 26 attacks and four blocks, two solo, and Taylor Head had 13 kills, 23 digs and a block. Georgia Tech, which did not help its hopes for a top-16 NCAA tourney seed, had five players with 10 or more kills. Sofia Velez had 23 digs and 11 assists …Top-ranked Pittsburgh swept at Wake Forest as Torrey Stafford had 16 kills, hit .483, and had three assists, an ace, 10 digs and…