Championship (2024)

Updates: Go to the NCAA Bracket for Live Stats. Go to ESPN+ for the video.

The 2024 Fantasy Volleyball Stats/Standings have been updated.

I published a championship analysis from the coaches today. Make sure you check it out.

In the house for the last time this year. We will try to track some things the coaches mentioned to watch for in this one. I also will try to track the points out of each rotation. Accuracy not guaranteed.

Big SCOOP!!!! Juniata Associate Coach Casey Dale has lost his voice. Advantage Whitewater!

It looks like Juniata bussed fans to the arena today. Advantage Juniata! The Juniata band is here, too. Maybe 3/4 of the arena is pro-Juniata.

They are throwing out mini-volleyballs here. Someone needs to look at Lily Podolan for baseball. She threw a strike to her dad halfway up the stands.

Here we go!

9-3 Juniata. No slow start here. That’s a bad sign for UWW. Kennedy Christy has served the last 3 points with 2 being aces. UWW has one block so far and no points from their serve. As the score suggests, all positive for Juniata right now.

JC is pushing middle. Trying to freeze the UWW middles.

One rotation through and it’s 13-11. Hard to believe UWW is that close. Best JC rotation was 4 with Kennedy serving. UWW with 3 blocks to JC 1.

19-12. Second timeout for UWW. Mia Schubert (DS) just got a backrow kill. JC is hyped over that.

JC is attempting to serve the front row outside hitter of UWW. Not real pattern for Whitewater. Mostly going at Kennedy Christy. There doesn’t seem to be an effort by UWW to avoid KSRH.

Christy serves out after scoring 5-points in her first time around.

Foley with the solo block. My fantasy team likes that.

Second rotation through. JC led that 10-7.

25-19 JC. No slow start this time. That is not good for Whitewater. Things we’re tracking. 3 blocks each. No advantage and a bad sign for UWW. 3 aces for Juniata versus 1 for UWW. We were also tracking digs for KSRH…she had 6 digs. UWW is not shying away from her.

Best rotation for Juniata is 2, 3 and 4. Six points each for those rotations. Best rotation for UWW is 5 and 6 with just 4 points. My stats are slow but it shows JC with 17 kills versus 7 for UWW. The only positive for UWW is the 7 attacking errors for Juniata. Clean up their game and have that keep going and they can take the next set.

UWW has flipped their lineup. No change for JC.

Big hit off the face to Courtney Williams. She is shaking it off.

First rotation/second set – 11-10 Juniata.

UWW calls a timeout trailing 14-10. They didn’t want to wait for the automatic timeout at 15. Rotation 3 for Juniata is the star. That one has Mia Schubert serving. They are +6 over two sets in that rotation.

At least twice UWW has hit the antenna on a line shot. Another line shot out. At least 2 or 3 of those, too.

Better for Whitewater and worse for Juniata but it doesn’t matter. 23-18 JC leading. Second timeout for UWW. Coley and Christy show for Juniata so far. JC really winning with just two hitters right now.

JC wins 25-19 and this is looking like a sweep. JC is having success from from the start. Whitewater had another 3 blocks in that set but only 10 kills for the team. Juniata’s serves are better. I’m not seeing JC on their heels at all.

For that second set, UWW flipped their lineup but really got no big runs (again). JC had multiple runs. Juniata only hit 0.188 for that second set. This is more about what UWW is not doing than what JC is doing.

Alright, I’m done tracking points but I do want to see what lineup UWW starts with.

UWW back to their first set lineup but they start with the libero serving. Jansky served to start the match but starts middle back here. It doesn’t look like JC has made any changes.

One thing that is working for UWW is the dink over Foley. One of the coaches mentioned this in their analysis.

Our first timeout for JC at 9-5. UWW had 3 blocks in a row to give them a little breathing room. Baby Shark playing. Kill me.

UWW hitting 0.300 and JC hitting zero. Two back row attacks from Christy. The answer to the 3 blocks of UWW?

KSRH has no digs this set so far. She has 10 for the match.

JC timeout at 17-10. UWW is starting to roll. We are seeing the reverse of the JC matches so far this Elite 8. No way someone reverse sweeps Juniata, right?

UWW almost challenged a (no) touch call but then stopped. They are up 19-12 right now. Audrey Muth is struggling for JC. Up to 6 blocks right now in the 3rd set. 7.

Aubrie Krzus with the second ball kill. It feels like she could do that every play if she wants. Set ends 25-15 UWW. KSRH had only one dig that set. Not sure that was intentional or not but a coach pointed it out in the analysis. Juniata hit negative for that set. UWW was up to 0.235. Trends have reversed.

Set four…looks like the same lineups as set three.

First ball, KSRH with a dig and JC converts for the point. Lily Podolan with 2 kills to start the fourth set. They need another hitting to step up. UWW pushing middle but not connecting early.

Triple block against Christy. No problem. Point Juniata.

8-6 Juniata with Lily Podolan coming in. Let’s see what it results in as she was hot earlier. Jansky and Weinfurt are double-digit kills for UWW. Coley and Christy for JC.

Both teams over 0.400 for this set. 10-10.

Coley is unstoppable. 12-12 with Lily coming off. UWW was sitting on the opposite attack that rotation.

Another point softly hit over Foley. That has been a problem. JC needs someone other Coley and Christy to get going. We have the auto-timeout at 15-13. It happens when neither team calls a timeout prior to 15 points.

Christy serving with Coley about to go off. UWW needs to get a lead during this time. Another soft hit over Foley for a point. And here comes the UWW block. 16-15 UWW after 3 straight points.

Coley comes off at 17-16 UWW. This will be the set.

18-17 with Lily in and Muth. Foley goes to Muth 3 times straight. 2 kills (off blocks) and one error. Another kill for Muth. She is coming up big when they need her to.

19-19 when Christy moves to the front. 20-20 with Coley in. This is it folks. UWW didn’t do enough there. Timeout UWW at 21-20. Feel free to surprise me Whitewater.

Big run stopped by Jenna Weinfurt with a big time dink. 22-21 JC. UWW outhitting JC this set but JC with more kills. This has been the best set by far in this championship.

23-22. Jansky with the kill. UWW sending in their serving specialist. In the net.

Two match points and we have a 24-24 tie. Big time response by UWW.

25-24 JC. No Christy or Coley. Jansky says no. Christy back row.

Ball is out. JC wins…but wait! Challenge. Overturned! Wow! 26-26. Set point UWW. Wow. No one home for the set from Foley. We are going to a fifth.

And my worst nightmare is happening. I have to go. Have fun. Wish I was there.

Congratulations to Juniata. Bummer of a start for UWW in the fifth.

Made it to the airport. Probably could have afforded to stay and watch the 5th. Oh well. More tomorrow as I wrap it up but we did get our fourth 5-setter in the Elite 8.

Back at home. Got on the flight and back safely. I was greeted with a Smith College Volleyball shirt so that was cool. See, coaches…some programs take that extra step. I do want to say that one of the shirts I got was, I think, a women’s XL. Let it be known that I probably wear a 6 XL in women’s sizes. I won’t mention which school because the thought is what matters and it will find a good home…trust me. My (hot) wife also scored a shirt. We came back for the championship and on the ground by our media table was a small Johns Hopkins shirt. We are not above washing that and putting it in circulation.

Since my (hot) wife won’t read this, let it also be known that I think we would have been fine staying for the 5th set and making the flight. It definitely would have removed all wiggle room but there was no traffic issues on the drive down to Charlotte. I did try to secure an extra 15 minutes at the gym but was shot down.

We did have the match on the phone on the drive and 8-0 is just crazy. JC did seem to find another gear when it needed to. It needed the reverse sweep against Hope and then an excellent 5th set when another team wanted to return the favor. Looking at the box score:

• Juniata played two poor sets but was lucky to win one of them (set 2).

• Best set overall was the 5th by Juniata followed by the 4th by UWW.

• The teams hit about the same percentage (0.209 to 0.207 for JC).

• UWW had 18 total blocks.

• It just felt like UWW needed one more hitter, but it felt that way for La Verne and Hope, too. Maybe it’s credit to JC for preventing that?

• JC had 7 aces to 2 for UWW. UWW had too many service errors to justify with only 2 aces.

• Five kills for Lily Podolan in that 5th set with 4 coming in their 8-0 run. When JC gets that 3rd (or more) hitting going, I don’t think they can be beat.

All-Tournament Team:

MVP Kennedy Christy (Juniata) Olivia Foley (Juniata) Mackenzie Coley (Juniata) Jenna Weinfurt (UWW) Alayna Jansky (UWW) Addie VanderWeide (Hope) Jilienne Widener (Johns Hopkins)

Not that she didn’t deserve the award, but nice that the committee rectified their Kennedy Christy oversight of last year’s tournament. (I’m torn as to the format of the awards. 3 for the winner, 2 for the finalist and 1 each for the semifinalist. Should we just do the 7 best? Maybe add 2 more wildcards?)

As for the experience; chef’s kiss. My only compliant was maybe give us a second entrance to the arena from the side. The walk from the bathroom to the front was annoying. How is that for being a Karen? Overall, great job by the ODAC. My contact was JJ Nekoloff and it was good to chat with him briefly prior to the championship. He did a wonderful job putting this all together for the media folks. Everyone that we encountered at the site was just super nice, too.

Thanks to the parents that introduced yourselves. Love you all. Amazed at your daughters’ talent. I know you all are but be proud. Thanks to all of the coaches that helped me with content during the tournament….even Paul Dill. (Enjoyed meeting him in person at the Elite 8.) I look forward to bothering you all in the future and don’t forget those shirts!

I think that puts a bow on this. Content becomes more sporadic moving forward. I’ll start tackling recruits in January.

Random Thoughts: I’m writing this on Thursday fresh off the two 5-setters.

I didn’t like Whitewater’s performance. You can’t beat Juniata not playing two sets. Yes, JHU is awesome and they contributed to that but most of that was from you. You maybe can afford one bad set but, geez, don’t even do that. I don’t feel like Juniata is as dominate right now as they’ve been this season or last season. They are having some issues in the service receive. They are making some mistakes. Today, they had Coley through 2 sets and then the rest of the team caught fire. I don’t think you can afford to do that again. Smart money is that they won’t. Alayna Jansky and Jenna Weinfurt are dangerous hitters as JHU found out. Hannah Proctor hit 0.385 today but only had 13 attacks. Dix only had 18 swings. It feels like they need more from them and Chloe Werner. The blocking was slow to come around but was the difference maker late against JHU. I don’t think Juniata is as fast as JHU. I think they believe they can beat anyone straight up. I’m not sure that is wise against UWW but I’m not sure it will matter. If Juniata plays like set four against Hope, then they win this in 3- or 4-sets. If they start out slow (again) and give UWW the first set then all bets are off. I’m going Juniata until someone proves they can beat them. One set lost in the quarters. Two sets lost in the semis. Three sets lost in the finals? Symmetry but not likely.