Pitt tops UK; Louisville ousts Stanford; Nebraska-Wisconsin, Creighton-Penn State on Sunday

Now it’s up to the Big Ten to keep pace with the ACC.

The ACC and its two-top-seeded teams, Pittsburgh and Louisville, grabbed spots Saturday in the NCAA volleyball national semifinals and will play each other Thursday.

Sunday, the Big Ten is guaranteed at least one place on the other side of the bracket when Nebraska plays Wisconsin. But will the winner play another Big Ten team in Penn State? Or the Big East’s Creighton?

Pitt advanced with a four-set win over Kentucky, while Louisville moved on by ousting another ACC school, Stanford.

Lynn of Boca Raton, Florida, beat San Francisco State in five to win the NCAA Division II national championship, and Bowling Green pulled off a reverse sweep and knocked out St. John’s to advance to the NIVC title match, where it plays Arizona on Tuesday.

It’s all in this edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA Tournament Sunday

ABC saved the Sunday 3 p.m. Eastern slot for Nebraska and the network could not have asked for more, since the Huskers (32-2) play host to Wisconsin (26-6) in one of the fiercest rivalries — and one the general public likely knows best — in the college game.

Nebraska swept both their meetings, 25-21, 25-22, 25-19 in Madison on November 1, and 25-21, 25-22, 25-17 on the same Devaney Sports Center floor. Nebraska leads the all-time series 22-14-1.

Then get a nap, because at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN, Penn State (32-2) plays host to Creighton (32-2).  Penn State has won nine a row, Creighton 25, and the two programs have never played each other. 

Penn State’s two losses: It got swept at Pitt on September 18 and got swept at Wisconsin on November 9. Creighton’s two defeats: In five at Nebraska on September 10 and in five at Louisville on September 15. The Bluejays went 18-0 in the Big East and won both its conference tourney matches.

NCAA Tournament Saturday

PITT 3, KENTUCKY 0: When they finally got to the third set Saturday evening, Pitt didn’t need any rallies or comebacks. No, the Panthers steamrolled visiting Kentucky to clinch a spot in the NCAA national semifinals for the fourth year in a row.

Will this be the year that the top-seeded Panthers finally make it to the NCAA Division I Volleyball Championship final match?

Kentucky (23-8) might think so after Pitt (33-1) swept 25-22, 25-23, 25-17 as the Panthers hit .500 in the third set with 14 kills and one error in 25 attacks. They have now won 17 in a row.

ACC player of the year Olivia Babcock led Pitt with 13 kills and had just one second-set error in 32 swings to hit .375 and added an ace and three blocks. Bre Kelley had eight kills with one error in 14 attacks to hit .500 and had a dig and five blocks. Valeria Vazquez Gormez had seven kills and four digs, and

Torrey Stafford had six kills — including the match winner — eight digs and a solo block. Setter Rachel Fairbanks had a kill in her only try, 31 assists, an ace, five digs and two blocks. Her team hit .333.

Kentucky, which hit .167, got 22 kills from SEC player of the year Brooklyn DeLeye. She hit .325 and had an ace and two digs. Megan Wilson had seven kills, five digs and two blocks. Brooke Bultema had six kills, an assist and two blocks, one solo. Erin Lamb had four kills but five errors and Jordyn Dailey had three kills and three errors and four blocks. Emma Grome had 37 assists, five digs and three blocks.

LOUISVILLE 3, STANFORD 1: Louisville (29-5) won a fierce 22-25, 25-14, 28-26, 25-20 battle with Stanford (28-5), which lost in a regional final for the third year in a row.

And Louisville gets to stay home for the third weekend in a row. The Cardinals, who beat Chicago State and Northern Iowa in the downtown KFC Yum! Center, then moved to Louisville’s Freedom Hall for victories over Purdue and Stanford. Now they play Pitt in Yum! Center on Thursday with a chance to become the first NCAA team to win all six matches at home.

Louisville got another big-time match from Anna DeBeer, the hometown senior who came up big when she had to, finishing with 15 kills, her team’s only ace on a net dribbler, six digs and two blocks, one solo. The other outside, Charitie Luper, had 13 kills, hit .346, and had an assist, 13 digs and four blocks, one solo.

Sofia Maldonado Diaz, the transfer from Arizona, had 12 kills with two errors in 26 attacks to hit .385. In two sweeps by Stanford last year in the Pac-12, Maldonado Diaz had a combined 14 kills and 12 errors for Arizona. She also had four digs and seven blocks Saturday, one solo.

Cara Cresse had eight kills and hit .500 and had six blocks, and the other middle, PK Kong, had six kills and seven blocks, one solo. 

Louisville hit .295 as it won the rubber match with Stanford. They split in the regular season. The Cardinal, which hit .153, got 14 kills but 11 errors from Elia Rubin, who had an assist, an ace, eight digs and four blocks. Ipar Kurt had 13 kills, a block and two digs and Sami Francis had 10 kills — five in the first set — and five blocks — two in the first set — one solo. Jordan Harvey had eight kills, three of Stanford’s five aces, eight digs and two blocks, one solo. Kami Miner had a kill, 46 assists, four digs and two blocks, one solo.

Lynn tops SF State for DII crown

Lynn (33-3), the No. 3 seed in the national tournament, had to regroup for the fifth set Saturday in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to win the NCAA DII title with a 25-22, 25-22, 16-25, 16-25, 15-13 victory over seventh-seeded San Francisco State (26-7). 

Lynn, which won its first NCAA volleyball championship, got 17 kills from Samantha Wolf, who had an assist and 13 digs. Maria Cecilia Pinho had 14 kills and hit .429 to go with an assist, a dig and five blocks. Fabia Gonzalez-Stanton had 12 kills, an assist, a solo block and 25 digs. Isabella Gentile had 27 digs, six assists and two of the Fighting Knights’ five aces.

Tamiya Wilson led SF State with 21 kills, hitting .426, and had six digs and two blocks. Anastacia Garza had 17 kills, hit .483, and had an assist and a block. Brianna DeBoer had 23 kills, six assists and two of the Gators’ five aces.

Reverse NIVC sweep for Bowling Green

Bowling Green ( 25-9) of the MAC pulled off a 19-25, 20-25, 25-23, 25-17, 16-14 reverse sweep at St. John’s (24-13) of the Big East to move into the NIVC national-championship match.

The Falcons will play at the Big 12’s Arizona (23-9), which has been waiting for an opponent since it defeated Northern Colorado on Thursday. 

Bowling Green, which had two reverse-sweeps victories earlier this season, got 17 kills and nine blocks from Lauryn Hovey. She had two assists, two aces and three digs. Jessica Andrews had 10 kills, hit .474, and had two assists, a dig and five blocks, one solo. Jordan Newblatt had 10 kills, hit .364, and had an assist, two digs and a block. Alexis Mettille also had nine blocks and added six kills, an assist, an ace and a dig. Lindsey LaPinta had 24 digs and seven assists and Amanda Otten had 39 assists, five kills in seven errorless tries, five of her team’s 12 aces, four digs and five blocks, one solo.

Erin Jones had 20 kills for St. John’s, hitting .359, and had seven assists, three aces, 14 digs and a block. Giorgia Walther had 13 kills, an assist and two blocks. 

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