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Saturday Takeaways: Illinois Volleyball Swept No. 23 USC
Nebraska are 13-0 and held Ohio State to minus .010 on 98 swings. No. 20 Oregon won at No. 15 Minnesota in four.
Illinois beat No. 23 USC 3-0 at Huff Hall on Saturday, three days after beating No. 15 Minnesota, and the two schools do not agree on the third set.
Illinois print the sets as 25-21, 25-23, 25-23. USC's box score and USC's own release both print the third as 25-21. Both are official, we are not choosing between them, and the sweep stands on either version.
Illinois's release has them with ranked wins in back-to-back matches for the first time since 2019, when they beat No. 19 Tennessee twice to open that season.
No. 1 Nebraska swept Ohio State 3-0 (25-19, 25-10, 25-12) at the Bob Devaney Sports Center and No. 20 Oregon beat No. 15 Minnesota 3-1 (25-20, 25-20, 23-25, 27-25) in Minneapolis.
No. 18 Indiana swept Maryland 3-0 (25-17, 25-18, 25-20) in Bloomington and No. 25 Creighton beat St. John's 3-1 (20-25, 25-10, 25-17, 25-21) in Queens. No other ranked team played.
Illinois Hit .301 and Aguayo Hit .500
Alyssa Aguayo hit .500 for Illinois with 18 kills and one error on 34 swings. Kristina Starostenko hit .417 on 12 and Ashlyn Philpot .333 on 12.
London Wijay led USC with 12 kills at .290 on 31 swings. Abigail Mullen hit .065 on 31 and Riley Malloy .050 on 20.
Illinois hit .301 as a team on 113 attempts and USC .224 on 125. Illinois got 44 kills to USC's 42, and did it on twelve fewer swings.
2,502 were at Huff Hall on both box scores' count. Chris Tamas's side are 10-3 overall and 2-0 in the Big Ten, and USC are 7-5.
Nebraska Swept a Team That Hit Minus .010
Ohio State finished with 22 kills and 23 errors on 98 attempts, which is a team hitting percentage of minus .010 across a full match. No Ohio State player hit above .200.
Nebraska hit .333 on 81 attempts against that, won the second set 25-10 and the third 25-12, and are 13-0 with a nine-match homestand behind them.
Teraya Sigler played. She left the third set against Missouri on 23 September, no statement followed either way, and she is in Nebraska's official scoresheet for Saturday with three sets and a dig.
Minnesota Are 0-2 in the Big Ten
Oregon won the fourth set 27-25 after Minnesota had taken the third 25-23, hit .291 on 148 attempts, and are 10-2 in front of 4,633 at Maturi Pavilion. Minnesota are 6-4 and 0-2 in the Big Ten.
McKenna Wucherer took 58 of Minnesota's 159 swings and hit .086, while Kelly Kinney hit .351 on 37 and Elena Hoecke .421 on 19. Minnesota's most-used attacker was their least efficient one and the ball kept going to her.
Illinois Are 10-3 and Still Unranked
Illinois have wins over two ranked teams and no ranking of their own, and the AVCA's next ballot is published on Monday.
The Sunday schedule has No. 7 Texas at No. 3 Kentucky at noon Central and No. 6 Wisconsin at No. 10 Purdue at three, and both of those are ranked against ranked.
If Illinois are not in the top 25 on Monday, their three September losses will be the whole reason. The wins are on the board now.
