SO many good meets to watch on Friday, beginning with what should be a great SEC matchup between host #19 Auburn and #12 Arkansas. Auburn typically performs really well in front of their crazy home crowds, but Arkansas is coming off a huge win against defending SEC champion Alabama, so it could be anybody’s game. #1 Oklahoma will host SEMO and Texas Woman’s, making it an easy, no-pressure night, leaving them to focus on going 24-for-24 in an effort to stay at the top. #3 LSU will also have a sleepy night at home, as they play host to the unranked Missouri. A little more challenging are #4 Utah hosting #8 UCLA, and then #1 Florida traveling to #7 Alabama. Utah has been playing it slow and steady this year, bringing in big scores thanks to consistency rather than risk, while UCLA has faltered a bit despite the return of superstar Sam Peszek, so I expect a win from Utah especially at home. Florida at Bama could go either way, especially as the Bama ladies are likely furious about being edged out last Friday. On paper, Florida is the stronger of the two, but Bama is known to pull out big routines at home, making this meet the one to watch. On Saturday, #6 Nebraska will travel to Rutgers for a quad meet also featuring Bridgeport and SCSU, #19 Washington hosts #22 Arizona, and #10 Georgia hosts #14 Kentucky. Nebraska is a shoo-in for the win, but things could get interesting in the other two. Washington is coming off of a solid win at NC State this week while Arizona is all over the map. I’d give it to Washington, easily, though the Georgia/Kentucky meet is a little more difficult to call. I want to say Georgia is livid about how they’ve performed thus far, so I really do trust that they can use that anger to fight for the win at home. However, Kentucky’s been kind of awesome so far this season. They don’t have the same caliber recruits that the bigger schools have, but they are showing some awesome skills and have generally been hitting really well. I could definitely see an upset happening at Stegeman. There will be a great Big 10 match on Sunday between #4 Michigan and #11 Illinois on the Wolverines’ turf, so Michigan should come out on top, provided they hit. Finally, on Monday, #16 Stanford will host #9 Oregon State, which could be another close call. I’m going to give it to Stanford, as I think they have the stronger program, but they do deal with consistency issues whereas OSU has thus far been on the money; nothing brilliant, but they hit under pressure and so far haven’t let one fall derail an entire rotation. All times listed are in EST. We’ll update links for live stats and streams as we get them.

Article by Lauren Hopkins