Halloween Weekend Brought Plenty of Tricks and Treats for NCAA Volleyball

As spooky season drew to a close this last weekend, volleyball fans were treated to a host of upsets, shakeups, and chills as teams make their final push in the regular season.

Missouri Tigers volleyball players celebrate in historic win over No. 10 Tennessee at Hearnes Center on Nov 1, 2026 | Missouri Athletics

NCAA women's volleyball served up some frighteningly good matches over Halloween weekend. There were a handful of sweeps, more than a few scares for top-ranked teams, and a couple of teams that seemingly ate too much Halloween candy too fast and passed out from the sugar rush.

There are always upsets in the volleyball world and even more eyebrow-raising moments as teams play night in and night out against conference foes, pushing themselves and their opponents harder than ever in a season with more parity and talent than ever before.

Read on for highlights from a weekend of volleyball filled with ups, downs, and more than one surprise ending.

The Zombie Special for Stanford in Back-to-Back Matches against Cal

There are few teams in NCAA volleyball right now more confusing than No. 23 Stanford.

The Cardinal started the season as the pre-season No. 1 team in the ACC and now sit in seventh at 14-8 overall and 7-5 in the conference. Early in the season, the Cardinal took care of No. 7 Wisconsin and No. 15 Kansas 3-1 each, but slowly fell in the rankings as they were seemingly unable to close out against ranked teams.

Brooms are out in Berkeley and it's not for Halloween 👻 👀 pic.twitter.com/5A4J5xyTEt

— Cal Volleyball (@CalVolleyball) October 29, 2026

At the very least, they were beating unranked teams with little problem. A pair of matchups against an unranked Cal felt like just the thing Stanford would need as they steady the ship without starting setter Logan Parks, who was injured late in the 2-3 loss to No. 20 North Carolina last week.

But spooky season came a few days early as Cal pulled a historic upset and swept Stanford, beating their in-state rival for the first time in program history. The Cardinal bounced back and returned the favor a couple days later but the initial loss will stick with the program for a while.

Nightmare on the Road for The Volunteers

Two weeks ago, No. 10 Tennessee fans were on top of the world, knocking off No. 6 Kentucky and No. 21 Vanderbilt. This past weekend was a complete script flip as they went winless on the weekend, first to a surging No. 17 Texas A&M team and then to an unranked Missouri in a five-set showdown.

COMEBACK COMPLETE ✅

Mizzou 3, Tennessee 2#MIZ 🐯🏐 | #LoveFamilyGrit pic.twitter.com/frsLMGQ94R

— Mizzou Volleyball (@MizzouVB) November 1, 2026

Adding salt to the Tennessee wound but each match marked a historic win for the opposing team. The win marked the first time in Texas A&M history that the Aggies won back-to-back regular-season top-10 games. It was also the highest-ranked program win for Missouri in 10 years.

From Treat to Trick for Two Top 25 Teams

Two teams, fresh off of emotionally charged wins, were seemingly unable to capitalize on the momentum in their next match.

Texas A&M came into Gregory Gym hot off its 3-1 upset of Tennessee and 3-0 win over Kentucky with a repeat of last year's historic win over No. 13 Texas on their minds.

Unfortunately, the Longhorns also remembered last year and dashed the Aggies' momentum early with a dominant sweep over the reigning National Champions.

RANKED WIN! #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/n7mZgLQlp8

— Michigan Volleyball (@umichvball) November 1, 2026

In the Big Ten, No. 21 Indiana dug deep to reverse sweep one of the conference's dark horse teams, Michigan State (RV), in East Lansing. But Michigan, which had been stealing sets off of ranked teams for the last couple of weeks, was finally able to put an entire game together and upset the Hoosiers 3-1 behind another game of lights-out offense from the underrated Ella Demetrician.

No. 2 Pitt faced their second real roadblock this season with the announcement that star opposite Olivia Babcock would miss at least one game due to illness. The Panthers held off the Demon Deacons in the first but stumbled in the second, losing their first set to Wake Forest since 2021. Pitt bounced back hard and won the next two sets, remaining 11-1 in ACC play.

Top Teams Got Little Scares but Remain Beasts on the Court

Speaking of teams bouncing back from scary starts, No. 1 Nebraska got off to a shaky start in both of their Michigan matches, losing the first set to Michigan 26-28 and the first set to Michigan State 21-25. While the Huskers ultimately pulled out both matches to win 3-1, fans were left shaking at the lower-than standard defensive plays early on.