AVCA Top 25 (9/13/22)

The AVCA has released their Week 2 Top 25 Poll and there has been some movement so let’s see how we match up.

We have a unanimous leader in CMS who garnered all 90 first place votes (both real and mythical). They were fallowed by Juniata, Trinity, Emory and Calvin. Emory jumps up 10 spots on the basis of beating both Johns Hopkins and Trinity. I only have three of these teams in my Top 5. Instead of Trinity (6th in my rankings) and Calvin (10th), I have Northwestern and Gustavus Adolphus.

Dropping out of the poll were Wartburg, Susquehanna, Southwestern (say, what!?!) and Mary Hardin-Baylor. I only had Susquehanna and Southwestern in my rankings and both were dropped in my rankings. Coming into the poll was Wittenberg (16), WashU (20), Albion (22) and Augsburg (24). All four were already in my rankings so the AVCA and me are getting closer.

From Region X, we have CMS, Trinity and Colorado College (10) in the poll. Not a great showing if I’m to be honest. Receiving votes from our region are Southwestern, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Whitworth and ETBU. UC Santa Cruz is also receiving votes. I’m a little disapointed that Whitworth lost ground as they have played a tough schedule and have good wins. Their lost to Transylvania is all some voters focused on this week.

The biggest difference in the rankings this week is that I have Whitworth at 19th while the AVCA has them out of the poll. The AVCA still has Whitewater ranked while I dropped them this week due to multiple losses. Overall, I have Whitworth, Endicott, Millikin and UW-Platteville ranked while the AVCA replaces them with Whitewater, MIT (who lost to Endicott), Tufts and Babson. Yes, my New England bias may be showing a tad but, call me crazy, I like teams that beat quality schools. Tufts probably has the best win of those three (UT-Dallas). Whitworth has beaten Chicago twice and Aurora, Endicott has beaten MIT, Millikin has beaten Whitewater and Oshkosh and UW-Platteville has beaten Coe and St Olaf. Maybe we can quibble about Tufts over Platteville but not much else.

I counted only 60 actual voters this week (down from 64 last week). I saw 6 voters skip this time and two new voters who didn’t vote week one. One voter that never misses is Austin College Head Coach Ed Garza but his vote was missing this week. I learned he has a death in the family and will actually miss today’s match at Howard Payne. Ed and his family will be in my thoughts this week. This will be the first match Ed has missed during his long coaching career.