Volleyball Today: Minnesota upsets Texas; Selena Gomez; Madi Skinner’s world

How about Minnesota?

The Gophers, ranked No. 18 in the AVCA preseason poll and in the same spot in the new poll that came out Monday after opening with a five-set loss to Stanford on Sunday, knocked off No. 1 Texas here in Milwaukee on Monday.

Fifth-ranked Stanford won again and is 3-0 as it takes up residency in Milwaukee. The Cardinal plays at Marquette on Wednesday.

But speaking of Wisconsin, the now-No. 6 Badgers lost their third fourth-set match in a row to open the season and are 0-3 for the first time since 1990. And talk about tough: Wisconsin lost despite hitting .341.

Selena Gomez surprised a volleyball team in Telluride, Colorado, Madi Skinner recounted for us her world travels since Texas won the NCAA title last December, and we take a brief look at the Power 4 conferences after the first weekend.

There are 18 NCAA volleyball matches Tuesday, including No. 4 Louisville vs. No. 7 Penn State. Louisville is 2-0 after beating Wisconsin and then Tennessee. Penn State is also 2-0 after also beating Tennessee and then Temple.

Second-ranked Nebraska goes to Dallas and plays SMU. Among the other matches, No.3 Pittsburgh is home for Buffalo, No. 23 Baylor goes to Rice and Illinois is home for Illinois State.

Saint Peter’s, which lost its last eight matches of a 1-31 2022 season and went 0-30 last year, opens at NJIT. 

Also, the AVCA Division I Poll came out Monday. Click here to see it. We will not have our VolleyballMag media poll until pre-conference play ends later this month.

State Farm Women’s College Volleyball Showcase

The two-day, high-level tournament in Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee put on by Intersport and Fox was a tremendous way to cap the first week of the season.

Especially for Minnesota, which grinded to a 17-13 finish in 2023 under first-year coach Keegan Cook. Taylor Landfair, who led the team in kills, then transferred to Nebraska, where she has five kills in three matches.

Sunday, the Gophers lost to Stanford 26-28, 25-23, 16-25, 25-13, and, after being tied 13-13, 15-13.

When it went to a fifth Monday against Texas, Minnesota left no doubt and came away with a 22-25, 25-19, 25-20, 13-25, 15-7 victory.

“Transitions are hard, for coaches but mostly for athletes. I really love this moment for these guys for sticking with us,” Cook said. “They had chances to go elsewhere and play elsewhere and they stayed together.

“You coach a lot of matches to have moments like this for these kids. I’m happy for them.”

Julia Hanson had a big-time match with 19 kills, an ace, three blocks and 13 digs. McKenna Wucherer had 12 kills, two assists two aces, four blocks and nine digs. Lydia Grote had nine kills, an assist, three blocks and eight digs. And Calissa Minatee — lethal on the slide — had a career-high nine kills with one error in 14 attacks, a dig and six blocks. 

Melani Shaffmaster had another superb match as the setter had six kills, hitting .400, 44 assists, four aces, three blocks and 17 digs. Libero Zeynep Palabiyik had 22 digs and six assists.

Minnesota, which beat a top-ranked team for the first time since topping Stanford in 2019, which hit .211, had seven aces and 14 serving errors.

Two-time NCAA-champion Texas, which opened with a four-set win over Wisconsin on Sunday, hit .183 and had four aces and eight errors. Madi Skinner led with 19 kills, hitting .164, and had two. blocks and 12 digs. Jenna Wenaas, one of the players who transferred from Minnesota and became a key cog in Texas’ NCAA title run last year, had 13 kills, an assist, an ace, two blocks and 19 digs. Ayden Ames had seven kills in 18 errorless attempts, two assists, an ace, seven blocks and three digs. Reagan Rutherford had seven kills and hit .357 to go with an assist and two blocks. Libero Emma Halter had 21 digs and three assists to go with two aces. 

Minnesota goes to Texas this week for a Friday match against Baylor and a Saturday showdown with TCU. Texas is home for Indiana on Thursday and Miami on Saturday.

Wisconsin will also be in Waco, Texas, where it plays TCU on Friday and Baylor on Saturday. The Badgers have a lot to figure out after their 26-24, 18-25, 25-22, 25-22 loss to Stanford, which hit .316 and had 10 aces.

Elia Rubin continued her strong start to the season, this time with 20 kills while hitting .349 to go with an assist three aces and 15 digs. Ipar Kurt, getting the start at the other outside spot had 16 kills, hit .324, and had an ace and two digs. Sami Francis had eight kills with one error in 15 attacks, an assist and a block, and Jordyn Harvey had seven kills, four aces — three in a row during the fourth set — and a dig. Setter Kami Miner had three kills in six errorless tries, 47 assists, an ace, a block and 12 digs. Libero Elena Oglivie had 14 digs and five assists.

Sarah Franklin led Wisconsin with 18 kills, hitting .304, and had three assists, a block and 11 digs. Devyn Robinson had 10 kills with no errors in 23 attacks, three aces, three blocks and four digs. CC Crawford, getting her first start, had eight kills with no errors in 19 attacks to go with an assist, four digs and four blocks. Setter Charlie Feurbringer had her best match with five kills in six errorless attempts, 39 assists, an ace, a block and six digs.

Anna Smrek, the 6-9 right side who has had her ups and downs, did not play.

Around the nation

Also on Labor Day, No. 18 Georgia Tech swept Coastal Carolina, which hit .055. Biana Bertolinio led Georgia Tech with 10 kills, an ace, 11 digs and a block … Texas A&M swept Texas A&M-Corpus Christi as Logan Lednicky, who had five blocks, and Morgan Perkins had 12 kills each. Perkins had one error in 20 attacks, an ace, a dig and a block … Indiana battled to a 25-16, 31-33, 25-16, 27-25 victory over visiting UC Davis behind 16 kills from Candela Alonso-Corcelles, who had an assist, three aces, nine digs and two blocks, one solo … McNeese beat Southern in four as McKenzie Moore had 13 kills and Kimaya Webb and Kayla Wilson had 11 each. Webb hit .444 and had an ace, three digs and five blocks, one solo.

Madi Skinner, world traveler

How much fun has it been to be Madi Skinner?

She started at Kentucky and, along with her sister Avery, won the spring 2021 NCAA title. Then the now senior outside hitter transferred to Texas, which has won back-to-back NCAA titles. She was the MVP in December in Tampa. And then, well, just consider where she’s been.

A few days after the NCAA season, we interviewed her while she was visiting her sister in Chieri, Italy, where Avery plays pro. Madi was the VolleyballMag national player of the year. 

We saw her in Paris, watching Avery in the Olympics, and agreed that when we got here to Milwaukee we’d list all her travels.

She was ready.

“I actually have a list,” she said, because Texas sports information director Kevin Rodriguez had asked for it.

“This doesn’t include trips to see my boyfriend because no one really cares about that as much as I do,” said Skinner, who had 137K Instagram followers so they might. Nonetheless …

“Italy, New York City, Brazil, I was in L.A. for a little bit, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, L.A., San Francisco, NYC, Washington, D.C., Paris, France, Austin, and here we are.”

That included, of course, the international trip Texas took, her time in the USA gym in Anaheim, and a trip to the White House. 

“I’ve been all over but it’s been really, really fun,” Skinner said.

Conference first-week records

The SEC got through the first week 30-11. Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and Auburn all went 3-0. The only winless team was Tennessee, which opened with losses to Penn State and Louisville.

The Big Ten also had four teams go 3-0, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska and Purdue. Only 0-3 Wisconsin is winless. In all the B1G is a combined 31-11.

The ACC, however, had eight teams get off to 3-0 starts, Boston College, Cal, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, Stanford, Syracuse and Virginia. The ACC went a combined 40-10 last week. No team went winless.

And the Big 12 has six teams that are 3-0, Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Kansas and Utah. No team went winless and the Big 12 stands a combined 33-8.

Selena Gomez watches Telluride HS play volleyball

Selena Gomez was in the Colorado resort town. The kids on the Telluride team put up a sign asking her to come to a match. The Today show has the story with some video.

There was also a story in Billboard.

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