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#7 Volleyball clinches outright Pac-12 title

Fourth title in past eight seasons for Washington

By ekstrong
7th-ranked Washington will head to the NCAA tournament as Pac-12 champions
Red Box Pictures via UW Athletics

After clinching at least a share of the Pac-12 title on Thursday night, 7th-ranked Husky volleyball (17-3 Pac-12) sits alone atop the conference after earning a sweep in their regular season finale at California (1-21).

Both clinching moments actually happened because of results elsewhere. UW won at Cal on Thursday to improve to 16-3 but didn’t secure a share of the title until over two hours later when Arizona State finished off an upset of then 2nd-place #16 Oregon, dropping the Ducks to 13-4 where they could no longer catch UW.

Coming into Saturday, that left new second-place team #15 Washington State as the only team that could spoil UW’s hopes of an outright title if they could beat Arizona and Cal could pull the upset of the season against the Huskies. Instead, Arizona played probably their best match of the season to earn a fairly close sweep in Pullman, sealing sole possession of the title for Washington about 30 minutes before the Huskies’ final match ended.

Final Pac-12 Standings

  1. #7 Washington (17-3 Pac-12)
  2. #16 Oregon (14-4)
  3. #12 Utah (13-4)
  4. #15 Washington State (11-4)
  5. #17 UCLA (14-6)
  6. Arizona (10-11)
  7. USC (7-8)
  8. Colorado (8-12)
  9. Arizona State (6-14)
  10. Oregon State (5-13)
  11. Stanford (2-8)
  12. California (1-21)

This is the sixth Pac-10/12 title for Washington and their fifth outright:

  • 2004: 29-3, 16-2 Pac-10, lost in national semifinal vs Stanford
  • 2005: 33-1, 17-1 Pac-10, won national championship vs Nebraska
  • 2013: 32-3, 18-2 Pac-12, lost in national semifinal vs Penn State
  • 2015: 31-3, 18-2 Pac-12 (t-1st with USC), lost in regional final vs Nebraska
  • 2016: 29-5, 16-4 Pac-12, lost in regional final vs Nebraska
  • Spring 2021: 17-3, 17-3 Pac-12, TBD

The Huskies await their seeding in the Selection Show, which will take place Sunday April 4 at 1 p.m. PDT on ESPNU. Washington is likely to earn a national seed in the mid-single-digits, with a fairly good shot at the #4 overall seed, and the other four ranked Pac-12 squads should be in the field as well (Oregon, Washington State, Utah and UCLA). All matches this year will be played at the CHI Health Center Omaha in Omaha, Neb.

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