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Friday, Aug 29 Match Day!
Updates: As I mentioned in a musings article, the Match Day is going to look a lot different. I am officially out of the individual schedules. When I started this, the NCAA Scoreboard was iffy but now they do a good job of keeping us informed. So, I will be linking to the daily Scoreboard and then link to each conference where a West team plays. That’s six in total. Box scores can also be found in the link. Hopefully, this will still be helpful and I’ll still provide comments on the more interesting matches. What we lose are the video and the school’s live stats links. Not happy about this.
I did see some conflicts over match starting times. This happens when schools are playing in different time zones. Time zones are hard. Trust me. I’m really bad at them. Heck, I can’t even get the days right some times!
Here is a late Thursday update on my plans…I am staying home. I am so bummed. San Antonio was wide open and then we got weather at DFW tonight (Thursday) and a ton of flight cancelations. I think 2 to San Antonio Thursday evening and one Friday morning turned my flight from 40 open seats to -4. Seattle was a late possibility because of all of the missed connections. The (hot) wife and I almost drove up to DFW just to stick our thumbs out and see if there were enough missed connections to open two seats. And, we’re done. The last flight to Seattle just got cancelled. Alright. Friday is a day of watching the streams for me.
(9:42) In the first DIII match of the 2025 season, Piedmont loses to non-DIII Truett-McConnell. I can only assume that is a law firm. We are still waiting on our first pure DIII match and first DIII win. Four matches will start in about 15 minutes. The NCAA Scoreboard has Adrian/St Thomas playing at 3:30 am this morning. That did not happen. Switch the am to pm and then subtract an hour for Central. I will have HSU/Adrian on the TV and Berry/Transy on the laptop (stream).
(9:55) Call 1-800-5TRUETT! We will get you the money you deserve! In an accident? Call Truett-McConnell.
(10:00) Two screens. Nothing working. Note to the streaming staffs…dry runs are a good thing prior to the first match.
(10:02) Let’s go! Both screens working!
(10:06) The first point in a DIII match in 2025 goes to Adrienne Xiao from John Jay.
(10:20) I’m fortunate that I have a benefactor for FloSports. My question for the day (reply in comments) is what do the parents/fans do of teams in a conference that doesn’t partner with FloSports but play a team that does on their court? Do you buy it? Not watch? Does some stream that is at the match? Curious.
(10:28) First DIII match set win goes to HSU over Adrian 25-22. Closer than I would have thought in this one. Rachel Nordt 2 for 2 in this one, so far. May need more sets. Berry with a late push blows past Witt 25-16. I swear it was like 16-16. Wow, it was 17-16 Berry and then they just rolled with Ava Brovet serving. Sister of a granddaughter, Madie Whitehead, with 3 kills. (Yes, I play favorites here.)
(10:35) Nordt gets the set on her first chance in the second set and is now 3 for 3. Good to see the HSU coaching staff reading my stuff during the match.
(10:39) Great point for HSU at 8-7, second set. Great defensive plays that lead to a hard spike winner. Witt with a small lead forcing a Berry timeout.
(10:47) Whitehead building a house on the right side. She has the roof done. Witt looks like they are going to roll over Berry in the second set. Ava Brovet is running a 5-1 for Berry. The team is playing their man-up defense. Not many teams do this but some good ones still do.
(10:54) HSU with an easy set two win. They have some big hitters on the Cowgirls this season.
(11:03) Witt takes set two 25-20. Berry tried to get closer but just didn’t have enough time. George Fox has started their match against Pfeiffer.
(11:18) Crown won 2 matches last year and had an NPI of 37.9. They just lost their first set to Nebraska Wesleyan 25-5. Rough. No live score on the George Fox feed is annoying. Congratulations to New Jersey City as they get the sweep of John Jay and get the first DIII win of 2025!
(11:24) HSU with the sweep. Match point showcased the Cowgirls defense. HSU will be a tough out this season again. Witt up 16-11 in the third set. George Fox, according to the score on the stream is currently – to -. Time for lunch…carry on without me for a bit.
(1:00) Back. Hello Whitworth! I’ve got TLU on the TV right now. Time to play catch-up! I’ve got Millikin/NYU on the stream. Hey Reed! One of the best announcers out there, folks! Looks to be another great production by the Trinity team. Always one of the best productions in DIII. Berry shook off that set two loss to win in four. Dominate in the fourth set. GFU got the sweep. Good to see that. Millikin/NYU is 1-1 in the third set.
(1:15) TLU is struggling a bit early. I just switched the TV over to ETBU/Edgewood. ETBU up big early. Great early test for ETBU against a strong team.
(1:22) I had NYU, Millikin and then Platteville at 4, 5, and 6 in my Top 25. All are at the Trinity Tournament. One of the reasons to rank NYU that high was transfer Tatum Chase. She’s not listed in the box score so not sure what is happening there. I assume an injury?
(1:30) NYU up 2-1. Chloe Hynes (NYU) is having a monster game. ETBU just took set one 25-17. The Tigers hit 0.483 with 15 kills on only 1 error. Lara Hornsby hitting 0.750. Lara is a first-year that took Avery Reid’s number and looks to be taking over her performance, too. If she’s for real, then pencil ETBU into the Top 10.
(1:45) Millikin looks really bad right now. NYU can do no wrong. Service receive seems to be an issue for Big Blue. NYU is going to win this match 3-1. Hartwick 32-30 over Kean in their first set. Heck of a way to start the season for both teams. TLU dropped their first set. Not good. Confirmed – NYU beats Millikin.
(1:48) Montclair St takes the first set over Smith. That’s surprising. They also lead in the second. Montclair St was 56.1 NPI team last season and returned a lot. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise. Both Whittier and La Verne have started in the PCC. Both have leads in the first set. Switching over to La Verne/St Olaf as ETBU goes up 2-0.
(2:00) ULV takes set one over a really good St Olaf team. Mya Ray only 2 kills with 2 errors so that was your chance. Coaston picking up the slack with 3 kills on 3 attempts. 5 blocks for ULV and 3 aces were the story there. Something to watch on ULV is the performance of their opposites. They have 1 kill, 1 error in 5 attempts. McMurry has started and TLU took the second set so some good news there.
(2:05) Whittier gets a nice set one win over CWRU. 22 kills through a set and some change for Whittier. Switching over to watch that for a bit. Announcer pronounced Malena The from Whittier as “Tay-uh”. I’m still going with Malena The “Goddess”.
(2:17) Back on La Verne as they are down 19-11 in the second set. Mya Ray looks frustrated as nothing is going down for her. Just 4 kills on 19 attempts. Team has 9 attack errors. Just no flow right now. Out of the timeout, they go to the opposite for the kill. Again, they have to make use of that attack to open up the other hitters. St Olaf was a 54.7 NPI team last season hitting 16.7 Points/Set. They returned almost everyone and I considered them for my Top 25. Still, a team ULV should beat in a somewhat easier fashion.
(2:22) 25-13 St Olaf. It’s 35 to 26 in Points. 31 kills to 13 for St Olaf. Wow. I’ll be switching over to Southwestern in a bit. ETBU and Schreiner get sweeps in their matches.
(3:06) Dark times in Pirate world. Drop set one 25-20. Lost on service receive. We’ll see what adjustments are made with that but kudos to PLU for playing a really good all-around first set. ULV took set three over St Olaf. HPU is tied 1-1 with Rhodes. Chris Newport is up 2-0. TLU came back to win their match 3-1. Whittier gets the sweep over CWRU. With time we’ll see how good CWRU will be this season. They were really good last year.
(3:24) Still watching PLU hurt my Pirates but ULV is now in a fifth set against St Olaf. Ugh. Wartburg took down Transy. Good win for them. Montclair St did take down Smith in 4-sets. Great win for them.
(3:36) Dark dark times in Pirate world. PLU takes set two 25-23. SU fought from behind the entire set only to gift two points at the end. Adjustments were made but too many errors. On the PLU side, they are hitting 0.253 as a team with only 5 errors. If they play that well while always playing great defense, you will struggle against them. La Verne did hold off St Olaf in the fifth to win 15-10. I recommend winning prior to the fifth set in the future if Coach Hendershot wants some advice.
(3:45) Congratulations to Coach Nick Noll (Howard Payne) for his first victory as a head coach. Julie Jenkins will be shaking in her Converses. ETBU and Eau Claire have started. That one should be epic. Willamette playing Carthage tough but down 1-0.
(3:58) PLU had a run of like 9 points in the first set. They are down here in the 3rd but have just run off 6 points to close within 2. 17-15 SU in a must win set for them.
(4:03) Still dark dark times in Pirates world but they hold on to win set three 25-17. PLU only hit 0.063 that set. ETBU takes set one over Eau Claire. I had UWEC as my #2 team. I may be wrong about that. Hornsby and Mosley have 13 kills on just 1 error right now.
(4:22) Dark dark dark times in Pirates world. Match is still going but PLU will win this in four sets. St Thomas gets the sweep against Adrian. Glad we didn’t have to get up at 3:30 am to watch it. Big trouble in Smith land as they are losing their second match…this time to Mount Aloysius. Down 2-0. Gettysburg and Carnegie Mellon are 1-1. Just a ton of matches going on right now.
(4:30) PLU beat Southwestern 3-1. Sad. Switching over to ETBU/Eau Claire. ETBU is up 2-0. Colorado College has two gyms. This match is in the pit. I’m not sure they call it that but I do. You could play wallyball on this court. Looking at the stats through 2 sets and they say UWEC is the better team. Basically, a few more hitting errors by UWEC is the difference, I guess. ETBU defense also seems better per the stats. Eau Claire has so many players on their bench that they wrap around the wall. Looks like a red rover game could start. Graycee Mosley (ETBU) hits such a hard ball. She’s simply one of the best in the West.
(4:40) Bailey Leeke (UWEC) looks like she might be able to play a little volleyball. HPU takes set one over Millsaps. Noll going for win #2. At this point, I’m unsure if he can be beaten.
(4:50) Willamette up 2-1 on Carthage. Huge win for that program if they can get it. Chapman handling Buffalo St so far in their match. ETBU/UWEC and it’s 21-21 in a must win set for Eau Claire. Mosley on the front row and you can not be late in your block. She will power the ball through hands that are extended and set. She will destroy a late middle. Parents yelling at each other in this match. Golden. Big UWEC block making it 24-22. Mosley didn’t power through that one. The problem with hitting that hard is that it comes back really hard, too.
(4:58) The first two errors by Mosley came on the last two points in set three. UWEC takes it but are down 2-1. ETBU needs to improve their blocking and they will take this next set. McMurry’s loss was the first one by a West team to a non-West team. It looks like Cal Lu will lose to St Olaf although they still have time. Marietta did beat Clarkson in 4-sets. That was a game I was interested in to see where Marietta was this season. CMU beat Gettysburg in 4-sets. That was one between two teams I had ranked. Platteville up 2-1 on NYU.
(5:07) I have NYU/Platteville on the stream. UWP and Pomona-Pitzer need to play each other. The have the same jerseys.
(5:25) Platteville takes down NYU 3-1. Ton of service aces early in this one. UWEC is two points from extending their match with ETBU. Well…now it’s 24-24. Big points by ETBU there. Basically, we are in sudden death for UWEC. They have to get up by two or be done. ETBU can still bank on a fifth set, if needed. And we are going to a fifth set. No blocks that set for ETBU. These teams are razor close and that’s the difference for the Tigers to push through.
(5:49) A 12-9 UWEC lead in the fifth set is now 13-12 ETBU. One block for the Tigers in this set. Whoa. Free ball over hits the back line as ETBU thought it was going out. 13-13. Great service receive pass from Callie Humphry (redemption) leads to a kill. Match point ETBU. Missed block attempt. 14-14. Long rally goes to ETBU. Match Point 2. And a service ace finishes the match. Great game from both squads. I mean, an ace is kind of like a block?
(6:00) I’ll take a break for a bit but I do have the Juniata match on. I mean, interesting story here, right?
(7:20) Doing some updating. Juniata has dropped 2 sets for the second time in 2 matches! That match is still going on but Swarthmore leads 2-1. The 97 match winning streak for JC is on the line. Yeah, they are not the same this season and no one should be surprised. Trinity took care of Millikin in a sweep. Not sure what to make of the Big Blue. They had some passing issues and are not the same team as last season. Willamette is down 2-0 but are giving WashU everything they can handle. First set was 32-30. GAC took care of Puget Sound (saw the third set) in a sweep. Now I’m a little worried about Puget Sound but GAC looked good. Earlier, Willamette lost to Carthage in 5-sets (last set was 16-14). They could go 0-2 today and still feel good.
(7:33) JC has evened it up taking set 4. Going to a 5th set with the winning streak record on the line. Looks like Hope swept Ohio Northern. Score indicates it was pretty easy, too.
(7:43) In one of the matches to watch, William Smith beat Scranton in 4-sets. Juniata gets the turn in the fifth set 8-5.
(7:52) 98-0. Juniata with the 5-set win. Whitewater with the sweep over Chris Newport. Looks like I need to get them into my Top 25. How boring. St Thomas is up 2-0 on Mary Hardin-Baylor. A tad surprising but it looks like the Celts are going to be a menace in the SCAC this season. Transy dropped two matches today. I was worried about them.
(9:13) Watching the CC/UWEC match. Easy set one win for Eau Claire. After that ETBU match, I find that interesting. I hope to see more from CC in the next set. St Thomas held off UMHB for a 3-1 win. Nicely done there against a traditionally tough team. I even checked out Millsaps/Dallas for a bit. Probably time to start updating again. I did the results thing below and it’s a pain now. Just so many matches but I still like being forced to look at the box scores. We’ll see how this progresses but no way I could do this while sitting in a gym. Mary Washington gave up 17 service aces today. Yikes. Redlands with a mild upset over UCSC. Another 17 aces in this one for Redlands. Redlands putting the SCIAC on notice that there may be a new player in the top half.
(9:27) I guess Austin College didn’t pay their internet provider? No stats from that site on the scoreboard, yet.
(9:35) We almost had to have the talk, Pomona-Pitzer.
(9:42) UWEC takes set two although CC played better.
(9:51) This might be my last update for the night. I’ll clean things up tomorrow. Sewanee is about to get a sweep. Whitworth is having an easy time with TLU through 2 sets. Millsaps sweeps Dallas. UCSC is leading Lewis & Clark 1-0 but it’s close in the second set. I will say that L&C has been tough tonight so good to see. UWEC is leading CC 2-0 and is up in the third set. They just look too tough for the Tigers but there is still hope. But…not for me. See you tomorrow, folks.
(Next Day) Should have everything update. I do want to congratulate Chad Koenegstein (UCSC) for his first win as a head coach! You’ll have to double your win total to reach Nick Noll, however.
(Shout out!) I received a nice donation today for the site. It was much appreciated and ensures the (hot) wife doesn’t get too mad at me. I guess that’s another way to look at this. If you don’t want to give to the site then give to my marriage so you don’t find me hitting on your grandmother down the road. Just saying. (Although if you have a hot grandmother…)
Today’s West Results:
HSU 3 Adrian 0 – 12 kills from Liz Keidl. Berry 3 Wittenberg 1 – Ava Brovet 4 kills, 35 assists, 4 aces, 2 BA, 12 digs George Fox 3 Pfeiffer 0 – Allaire Gilder 5 kills, 3 BA and 3 Solos JWU (NC) 3 Sweet Briar 0 – Ashley Galvis-Escoba with 10 kills playing just 2 sets. Schreiner 3 Alverno 0 – Jenna Palomarez with 14 digs ETBU 3 Edgewood 0 – Lara Hornsby 11 kills on 0.688 hitting. TLU 3 Carleton 1 – Briana Salvatierra-Moore with 10 block assists. Whittier 3 CWRU 0 – Malena The “Goddess” with 15 kills and 12 digs. Chris Newport 3 Catholic 0 – Alyssa Dozier with 14 kills (0.462) and 2 solo blocks. La Verne 3 St Olaf 2 – Outsides with 27 kills with Zacky Coaston going 7 kills (0.545) Howard Payne 3 Rhodes 1 – Tara Bennett 17 kills Salisbury 3 Penn St-Altoona 0 – Maura Fay with 16 kills hitting 0.520 St Thomas 3 Adrian 0 – Cataline & Bodunrin with 24 kills and 27 digs Pacific Lutheran 3 Southwestern 1 – Alexis Eggert 16 kills, 5 BA, 1 Solo Regent 3 Penn St – Du Bois 0 Guilford 3 McMurry 1 – Jillian Mapes with 2 kills, 31 assists and 9 digs. Colorado College 3 MSOE 0 – Brooke Brilliant 12 kills (0.800) and 2 aces ETBU 3 UW-Eau Claire 2 – Graycee Mosley 23 kills and 28 digs Howard Payne 3 Millsaps 0 – Carli Briese 10 kills (0.375) HSU 3 Alverno 0 – Ari Villanueva 3 assists, 2 aces and 11 digs in 2 sets Redlands 3 Lewis & Clark 1 – Cecily Wagstaff had 12 kills and hit 0.478. Carthage 3 Willamette 2 – Kristina Manojlovic 20 kills and 10 digs George Fox 3 Spalding 0 – Gracie Bearden 11 kills, 4 aces and 10 digs Gustavus Adolphus 3 Puget Sound 0 – Sydney Timm 11 kills and 9 digs St Kate 3 Oglethorpe 2 – Mallory Johnson 13 kills hitting 0.355 McMurry 3 Averett 2 – Marcette Williams 14 kills, a solo and 3 BA Chapman 3 Buffalo St 0 – Olivia Harrison 13 kills (0.706) with 3 solos and 4 BA St Olaf 3 Cal Lutheran 0 – Michaela Dooley 1 ace and 12 digs Whittier 3 Lake Forest 0 – Melana The “Goddess” 10 kills and 2 aces Trinity 3 Millikin 0 – Reagan Whatley 14 kills and 6 digs UW-Whitewater 3 Chris Newport 0 – Aubrie Krzus 5 kills, 33 assists, 3 aces, 2.5 blocks & 7 digs Rhodes 3 Dallas 1 – Emma Clark 20 assists, 3 aces and 11 digs Northwest (WA) 3 Whitman 0 – Non DIII team…I don’t care. WashU 3 Willamette 0 – Anaia Montaque-Harrison 10 kills and 13 digs Berry 3 Transy 0 – Maddie Whitehead with 14 kills hitting 0.464 Centre 3 Asbury 0 – Emersyn Pannell with 18 digs Emory 3 LeTourneau 0 – Olivia Rabinowitz 6 kills (0.857), 36 assists and 9 digs St Thomas 3 UMHB 1 – Alexis Bodunrin 27 kills and 13 digs Misericordia 3 Mary Washington 1 – Jenna Schuda 3 kills, 29 assists, 7 aces (!) & 12 digs Redlands 3 UC Santa Cruz 2 – Lily Kautai with 14 kills and 7 aces (!) and 14 digs Whitman 3 Carleton 2 – Sophie Broesamie 16 kills and 5 digs Concordia 3 Arcadia 1 – Malarie Mican 13 kills (0.360) and 8 digs Concordia 3 New England College 0 – Brooklynne Fitzgerald with 10 kills and 10 digs Austin 3 Arcadia 0 – Laynie Kovacs 4 aces and 10 digs Austin 3 New England 0 – Selah Coleman 9 kills, 5 aces and 7 digs La Verne 3 Buffalo State 0 – Lauren Gott 14 kills and 9 digs Pomona-Pitzer 3 Lake Forest 2 – Corrina Benson 6 assists, 5 aces and 31 digs Sewanee 3 Brevard 0 – Savannah Gann 16 kills and 3 aces Millsaps 3 Dallas 0 – Ally Baer with 10 kills and 4 aces Whitworth 3 TLU 1 – Olivia Paul 5 assists and 27 digs UC Santa Cruz 3 Lewis & Clark 0 – Gabia Paliulis 7 kills, 5 aces and 6 digs UW-Eau Claire 3 Colorado College 0 – Setters Kiebel and Thole with 20 assists each.
Schedules:
Matches I’m Watching Nationally (Times are CDT & links provided to schedule or tournament page):
Wittenberg/Berry 10 am – Two traditional powers facing off in one of the first matches of the season.
Millikin/NYU Noon – I have both teams in my Top 5. Yikes.
Edgewood/ETBU 1 pm– Edgewood was a good team last season. ETBU lost some good hitters.
La Verne/St Olaf 1:30 pm – First test for ULV. St Olaf was under heavy consideration in my rankings.
Pacific Lutheran/Southwestern 2:30 pm – I hope to be there. (Narrator’s voice: He wasn’t.)
Clarkson/Marietta 3 pm – I didn’t rank Marietta so interested to see how they do here. Clarkson was around 0.500 last season but returning a lot.
Carnegie Mellon/Gettysburg 3 pm – Two teams I have ranked. I’m going to look really smart on one of these teams when this match is over.
NYU/UW-Platteville 3:30 pm – Tough first day for NYU. I basically had Platteville and Millikin the same in my rankings and NYU gets both of them out of the gate.
UW-Eau Claire/ETBU 3:30 pm – Did I over-rank Eau Claire? This could tell me.
CWRU/CMS 4 pm – The battle of the acronyms!
William Smith/Scranton 4 pm – I have William Smith ranked and this is a good first test.
Juniata/Swarthmore 5:30 pm – Undefeated record on the line for JC. Swarthmore should be really good. A great first baseline for Juniata. A chance to break the streak for Swarthmore.
Ohio Northern/Hope 5:30 pm – Another great first test for both teams. Both were really good last season and both lost a lot of talent to graduation.
Millikin/Trinity 6 pm – That Trinity Tournament is insane.
UW-Whitewater/Chris Newport 6 pm – Was I wrong about Whitewater? This should tell me.
TLU/Whitworth 8:30 pm – Big test for Region X teams. Not sure how good either of these teams will be.
UW-Eau Claire/Colorado College 8:30 pm – If CC wants to make a name for themselves this is a great chance at home.
Random Thoughts:
I’m writing this on Wednesday. Travel plans are up in the air for me right now (Get it? Up in the air? Comedy gold, folks). My plan all along has been to go to Puget Sound but the flights are really booked. I count 64 standby passengers for only 25 open seats right now on Thursday. We may still try for the last flight out and hope others have figured out a different path to Seattle or the first flights out Friday, which are still bad. Failing all of that, we may head down to San Antonio Friday morning and catch the incredible Trinity Tournament. The non-rev gods are certainly telling me to go to San Antonio. Assuming I make it somewhere, please feel free to say hello. I should have my (hot) wife with me so, as always, it’s important to praise me in front of her and tell her how lucky she is to be married to me. She knows the drill but I still find it funny.
Taking a look at the ASC teams in action today and they are at either St Thomas, Colorado College or Austin College/Dallas.
The ETBU matches mentioned above are the big ones. Going 1-1 is probably expected. Going 2-0 would not be unexpected but also going 0-2 would not be a surprise. Edgewood cannot be overlooked today!
HSU should go 2-0 today.
Howard Payne could finish with any record today (like ETBU). Their competition is very close to their talent.
UMHB has a good one playing at St Thomas. I would normally give this to the Cru but St Thomas is always tough.
Over to the C2C. Not sure why the Regent/NC Wesleyan match was changed to an exhibition. NC Wesleyan plays Mary Baldwin later that day so it doesn’t save them a play date. The Regent result (win or loss) doesn’t matter as Regent transitions to DIII. This sounds like someone just doesn’t understand the rules. The only way this makes sense is if Regent counts in the DIII standings.
I’ve got the CNU/Whitewater match listed above. Great evening tilt.
UC Santa Cruz should go 2-0 today. This will be Coach Chad Koenegstein’s first match as a head coach. I expect with a win that the UCSC team will pour water on him in the locker. (Send video!)
I’m a bit worried about Mary Washington this year. Their match against Misericordia will tell me how worried I need to be.
The NWC is spread out a bit this week. Having two tournaments in Washington on the same weekend seems self-defeating. (Although they are on opposite sides of the state.) I just think we need to have a coordinated tournament schedule for Oregon and Washington schools.
George Fox needs to go 2-0 this weekend. They are not push over matches but matches I want this program to expect to win.
Willamette has the tough matches today drawing both Carthage and WashU. Let’s shock the world!
Love that the Puget Sound Tournament (co hosted by PLU) drew both Southwestern and Gustavus Adolphus. All of the matches here will be good.
I listed TLU/Whitworth above. Just a great benchmark for the region. Good to see where both of these teams are day 1.
The new look SAA has a number of top matches today. (A few mentioned above.)
Oglethorpe draws an always tough St Kate’s team. Let’s mini-shock the world!
Berry going Wittenberg/Transy back-to-back is a tough start for them. They started slow last season and will need to be firing hot to get through the day in good shape.
Millsaps should go 2-0 today. HPU may be tough and we really don’t know about Dallas.
Sewanee goes 2-0? Probably.
Our largest conference with 12-teams has, obviously, a ton of matches on day 1. (Some I’ve already mentioned.)
McMurry is in Virginia so that is kind of cool. They get both Guilford and Averett. Play tough and good things should happen here.
I’d like to see a good start from Colorado College this season. They should take care of MSOE but Eau Claire is a different beast.
Kudos to New England College coming West. They play Concordia and Austin College today. As always, it’s important to always beat New England schools.
LeTourneau made the trip to Emory this weekend and draw Emory out of the gate. That’s a tough one. Again, let’s shock the world!
The SCIAC all stayed in-state this first weekend. The Pacific Coast Classic allows for that but I’m not sure for how long.
CWRU made the trip to SoCal. I don’t believe they will be as strong as last season but they have turned into a top program. They get Whittier and CMS today and really need to lose both of those to make me happy. I’m sure the primary goal for the CWRU volleyball team is to make me happy, right?
La Verne draws St Olaf (who I think will be close to the at-large bid cut-line this year) and Buffalo State (solid team). Neither should challenge the Leos but both are capable of an upset here.
I’d like to see the SCIAC teams not predicted to be in the Top 4 really shine today. A mixed bag of matches but all matches that could be wins. Cal Lu may have the toughest challenge of these teams.
Lake Forest is coached by former CMS assistant Melanie Hughes. Her team will draw Pomona-Pitzer and Whittier today before getting CMS tomorrow. Everyone needs to make Melanie’s weekend a tough one. Sorry Melanie but you left us.
I should point out that the NCAA Schedule doesn’t seem to be listing all of the non-DIII matches. It has some of them but I’m not diving into each team schedule to see where they are off. Sorry.
As you can see, the Match Day is much different than past years. I hope everyone finds the matches they want to stream without me. For me, it will be about how much information I can take in when I’m not actively finding and looking at box scores. I think this will answer the question as to whether I can be dumber or not.
I hope everyone finds their way to a match this weekend. Enjoy opening weekend!
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