Second-ranked San Diego escaped the wave of upsets Thursday, rallying not once, not twice, but three times to beat Loyola in five in the West Coast Conference.
Liberty, the top-seeded team in the ASUN Championship, saw its season on the brink. The Flames faced match point in the fifth set against eighth-seeded Stetson but pulled it out, avoiding what would have been a mid-major upset of epic proportions.
But there were plenty of upsets, both in conference play and in regular-season action.
To wit:
UC Davis put Hawai’i in the Big West driver’s seat by knocking off second-place UC Santa Barbara in five, which included winning the third set 40-38.
Also in regular-season play, North Dakota State ended South Dakota’s 12-match Summit League winning streak.
Third-seeded Jacksonville State was bounced from the ASUN tournament, second-seeded Hofstra lost in the CAA tourney when seventh-seeded William & Mary pulled off a reverse sweep, and seventh-seeded Rider hit .450 and stunned second-seeded Marist in the MAAC.
In the Ohio Valley, the Nos. 5, 6 and 7 seeds also won.
We’ve got the recaps, results and top performances, but first a look at Friday’s schedule.
And it starts with the ACC match we’ve been waiting for, No. 7 Pittsburgh at No. 4 Louisville. Pittsburgh won the first meeting 25-15, 25-13, 25-27, 20-25, 15-12 at Pitt on October 23. Pitt has won 18 in a row. Also in the ACC, North Carolina is at Florida State, No. 13 Georgia Tech is at Clemson and Syracuse is at Miami.
There are seven Big Ten matches. Third-ranked Wisconsin is at Rutgers, No. 5 Ohio State is at Maryland, No. 6 Nebraska is at Iowa, No. 9 Minnesota is at No. 14 Penn State, No. 19 Purdue is home for Michigan, Michigan State is at Illinois, and Northwestern plays at Indiana.
The Pac-12 slate shows No. 12 Oregon home for UCLA, No. 21 Washington home for Colorado, No. 25 Washington State home for Utah and USC at Oregon State.
The lone SEC match has Ole Miss at Georgia. The Big 12 is off.
In the Big East, No. 11 Creighton is at DePaul and No. 16 Marquette is home for Xavier.
In the American Athletic Conference, No. 23 Houston, riding a 17-match winning streak, is home for Memphis, and No. 24 UCF, which has won 11 in a row, is at East Carolina.
Play continues in the ASUN, CAA, MAAC, Ohio Valley, Southland, Sun Belt and WAC tournaments.
Tournaments that begin on Friday include those in the Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Horizon League, Ivy League,…
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