Volleyball Today: Brittany Abercrombie wins AU title; NCAA update; Klineman retires
Brittany Abercrombie is the 2024 Athletes Unlimited Volleyball champion.
More on her victory and an interview with the former USC standout and well-traveled pro follow.
Also in this edition of Volleyball Today, we catch up on NCAA volleyball’s Monday results and Tuesday’s schedule.
Abercrombie wins AU title
The opposite made herself the player to beat early on in the five-week season and was uncatchable the past few rounds in the competition in Mesa, Arizona.
Monday, she finished with 4,521 points, well ahead of outside hitter Bethania De La Cruz-Mejia (4,142), who was herself way ahead of outside Madi Kingson Rischel (3,400) who made a late surge into third.
Libero Morgan Hentz was fourth (3,291) and Leketor Member-Meneh was fifth (3,252).
Hentz was named top defensive player for the third year in a row and middle Molly McCage was the top blocker for the second straight year.
The previous AU champs were all outside hitters when Jordan Larson won in 2021, De La Cruz won in 2022 and Leah Edmond won last year.
AU said it will have a fifth season in the fall of 2025 with details to come.
Click here for more on Abercrombie’s victory. and remember that our interview with her is below.
NCAA volleyball Monday, Tuesday
There are 14 matches on the Tuesday slate, including Mountain West-leading Colorado State at Wyoming.
There’s MACtion, when conference-leading Bowling Green is home for Toledo, Also, Central Michigan is at Eastern Michigan, Ohio is at Kent State and Western Michigan is at NIU.
The ASUN shows Bellarmine at Eastern Kentucky and Austin Peay at Lipscomb.
The three Southland Conference matches have UIW at Houston Christian, Northwestern State at Texas A&M-Commerce and McNeese at Nicholls.
UC Davis, the Big West leader, is at UC Riverside.
UAlbany of the Big East goes to LIU of the NEC.
There were three matches Monday, not the least of which as UT Arlington improved to 22-2, 12-0 in the WAC, with a sweep of visiting Abilene Christian (8-15, 3-9). Brianna Ford and Sjakkie Donkers led the Mavs with 13 kills each.
In the SWAC, Southern (8-19, 5-6) beat visiting Texas Southern (8-17, 7-6) in four, and Prairie View (13-15, 10-3) hit .392 as it swept at Alcorn (1-20, 0-11). Kylee Owens had 17 kills with one error in 27 attacks to hit .593 and added an assist, seven of her team’s 11 aces and nine digs.
Alix Klineman says good-bye
The beach volleyball Olympic gold-medalist who also had a tremendous indoor career is hanging it up.
Brittany Abercrombie on her path to AU victory
Abercrombie, who last played at USC in 2017, has had a pro career that has taken here to Poland, Germany, Puerto Rico, and last season to Korea, where she played for Hwaseong IBK Alto. We caught up with her Tuesday afternoon, the day after she was crowned Athletes Unlimited Volleyball champion for 2024:
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