International Volleyball

Volleyball Today: Wilson, Arizona knock off Kansas; Utah sweeps BYU

Volleyball Today: Wilson, Arizona knock off Kansas; Utah sweeps BYU

Arizona’s Jordan Wilson attacks against Kansas/Madison Farwell Arizona Athletics

Kansas won’t soon forget its first Big 12 trip to Arizona, but for all the wrong reasons.

Two days after getting knocked off at Arizona State, the No. 6 Jayhawks — who were 11-0 in the Big 12 before they left home —  lost in five at Arizona, which broke a four-match losing streak. Jordan Wilson had a career-high .37 kills for the Wildcats.

Sixteen other ranked teams played Friday and all won except for No. 20 USC, which fell in five at Illinois, and No. 21 BYU, which got swept at No. 23 Utah, which beat the Cougars for the first time in four years.

No. 1 Pittsburgh beat No. 25 North Carolina in the only other match with two ranked teams.

The season of the reverse sweep continues. Gardner-Webb came back from 0-2 to beat visiting UNC Asheville in the Big South.

Lines of the day: The top honor goes to Arizona’s Wilson, but Drake’s Macy Daufeldt had 32 kills in a five-set Missouri Valley victory over visiting Valparaiso. She hit .295 after taking 78 swings, and had two assists, two aces, 14 digs and two blocks. 

Tori Hester had 30 kills for Troy in its five-set Sun Belt win at Southern Miss. She had 13 digs and three blocks, two solo, as she became the school’s all-time kills leader. Hester had a career-high 33 kills the day before at Southern Miss.  

Rice’s Samarah Hill had 29 kills in a five-set American Athletic win over visiting Wichita State, hitting .329 with two assists, an ace, 16 digs and two blocks.

Saturday’s NCAA Division I volleyball slate is loaded and a look at the key matches follows.

And the AVP League is down to the playoffs, with matches Saturday to determine Sunday’s champions. Read all about it here.https://volleyballmag.com/avp-league-playoffs-prevew-110824/

NCAA volleyball Saturday

There are a handful of showcase matches on tap, including No. 3 Penn State and No. 7 Wisconsin doing quick turnarounds for a Big Ten match in Madison. Second-ranked Nebraska continues its Northwest trip at Washington, No. 12 Oregon is at No. 13 Minnesota, Ohio State and Illinois also have short recovery times when they play in Champaign, and UCLA is at Maryland. 

There are only two matches in the ACC, but that includes AVCA No. 16 Georgia Tech’s first conference trip to No. 8 Stanford and Clemson at Cal.

The Big 12 has No. 17 Baylor home for UCF, Cincinnati at Colorado and Texas Tech at Houston.

The SEC is off and so are No. 5 Creighton and Marquette in advance of…

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