Loyola Chicago and Ole Miss made first-round history Thursday as the NCAA Division I women’s volleyball tournament got underway.
Loyola, which got everyone’s attention when it upset Dayton in the Atlantic 10 tournament final, did not just upset BYU, the ffith-seeded team in the Louisville regional, but swept the Cougars of the Big 12 for the first NCAA victory in program history.
Ole Miss, an at-large from the SEC, came away with a five-set win over Florida State of the ACC, the No. 7 seed in the Penn State regional. It was also that program’s first NCAA victory.
Line of the day: Georgia Tech’s Tamara Otene had a career-high 33 kills in the Yellow Jackets’ five-set win over Tennessee, hitting .400 with an assist, 15 digs and a block.
The two rare first-round upsets set up a busy Friday with seven second-round matches — including Loyola vs. Purdue and Ole Miss vs. Creighton — and 14 more first-round matches.
The NIVC continued Thursday and we have those results, too, in this all-NCAA postseason edition of Volleyball Today:
NCAA volleyball Friday
Every NCAA match can only be seen on ESPN+. We recommend The Fifth Set whiparound show to keep up with all that’s going on because the NCAA and…
