Friday, Aug 30 Match Day!

Update: The paywall streams are going to kill me. When these companies want to give me a free pass to stream, I’ll link to them. Because I’m nice:

• FloSports has the St Thomas Tournament, Pacific Coast Classic, Pikes Peak and Austin/Dallas Tournament.

• Baller has the Great Lake Crossover (LeTourneau).

The links are going to be wrong in some cases. The times, as well. I tried to double/triple check stuff but a few times there are disagreements with the host school and the visiting school and the NCAA and the conference. When in doubt, I tried to go with the host school information. Based on past history, some of the Live Stats will be wrong. They will also forget to close out a set or match, which will also cause problems. Welcome to Week 1. Oh, I also don’t have the links where they will create a new window. This causes me 3 extra mouse movements and scrolling. I’ll go back to this on the lighter days.

NCAA College Scoreboard

Above link is for all DIII volleyball matches today. I’ll put some of the more important matches (results) below.

I used the NCAA scoreboard for my schedule tomorrow. Big mistake. I probably corrected a dozen of the times/opponents. Looks like Shenandoah’s flight was cancelled yesterday so they are flying in today. That caused a big schedule change to the Austin/Dallas Tournament. Corrections should be right below.

There is a match tomorrow at 7 am Central. That’s 5 am Pacific. I’m hearing the CMS parents will be reserving The Whisper House at that time for a watching party. Everyone is invited! Free entry if you tell them that D3VbWest sent you.

It’s 10 am! According to the NCAA, Whittier and Centre will lead us off! Of course, that is wrong. It will be Hendrix/St Thomas, which you currently cannot find on the NCAA Scoreboard. (Or you make a user error and see the match after you fix being stupid.)

Alright. Live Stats not working and NCAA Scoreboard not updating. Seems like we are in mid-season form! St Thomas up 9-3 with Hendrix taking the first timeout of the season.

I saw that block granddaughter. Good job.

Hey announcer! Do not blame my granddaughter for being out of rotation. First off, middles are NEVER out of rotation. The rotation starts with the middle. Middles are never wrong.

St Thomas rolls to a first set win 25-15. A lot of errors from Hendrix. No Live Stats, yet. Sigh.

Live Stats is up! Seven attack errors from Hendrix in the first set. St Thomas hitting 0.300 as a team. I heard Hendrix’s bench chanting “FBK”. For those new to the site, that is the worst chant in volleyball. Do better!

I saw Kara Spice miss a dig. Didn’t know that ever happens. 🙂 St Thomas spreading the ball around. Six with 2 or more kills early. 8 total with a kill.

St Thomas takes set 2 after being down midway through. Hendrix is just making a lot of errors. St Thomas’ best offense is just keeping the ball in the air right now.

St Thomas up big in the third. Time to fetch some food for (hot) sicko.

Back from the food run. Pretty easy win for St Thomas as they get the sweep. They hit 0.330 as a team with Audrey Cataline going 0.400 with 11 kills. Granddaughter Laynee Beam hit 0.600 and granddaughter Kendall Howard finished with 15 assists.

The noon hour brings options. The 12:15 TLU/Cortland match is probably the best one of the lot.

Got lots of games on. TLU was down big to Cortland but has made a small comeback. Cortland still leads by 5. The Whittier live stats say they are playing Oberlin. Weird. They took the first set easy over Centre. Chapman takes a close set one against Union.

McMurry takes set one 27-25. Superior was up large at 21-14 in this one. Crazy last set point. The LETU match against Manchester reminds me of club ball. Not the play, but the camera angles. No idea what the score is there.

Redlands took set one against Whitman.

Another great broadcast by the gang at Trinity. They seem to put together a strong team every year there. TLU has climbed back in this set but both teams are very sloppy right now.

Man, if you are paying money to watch one half of the court on this BallerTV (LeTourneau) then you have my sympathies. Trinity to LeTourneau match is like the high to low scale for broadcasts.

Cortland takes set one 25-21.

Redlands have something in first-year Emma Murphy (6’0″ Opposite). She has 8 kills in 2 sets and is swinging nearly 0.700. Whitman is struggling. They usually start defensively well but that is starting slowly for them, too.

Still no idea what is happening in the LeTourneau match. Are they even switching sides? Live Stats is down for this match.

Ouch. Whittier was up most of the second set but drop it to Centre 26-24. Those hurt.

Interesting timeout usage in the Cortland/TLU match. TLU Coach Fowler had her team comeback and tie the match at 20. Cortland wins the 21st point and Fowler calls a timeout. Kind of cool. Calm them down. Take a breath. They go up 24-22 and have set point and Cortland calls a timeout. Traditional timeout usage by Cortland. Nothing wrong with it. It’s now 24-24. Wow. Cortland up 25-24 and TLU uses the block and it’s obvious. Neither linesperson had it. Thankfully, the down referee did. 25-25. The replays by this Trinity crew is on point. 27-27. The issue with these two teams is that they don’t seem to have that one player that can terminate consistently. Some nice long rallies. TLU has a player, Brylie Nedd, who disagreed with that last statement but I like her because it sounds like our friend “Ned” is playing. Ouch. TLU drops set two 30-28.

Crud. Southwestern is playing. Forgot.

Blah! 31-29 Aurora. Lot of good volleyball. Shame they are playing in a room with 10′ ceilings.

It’s really hard to see a double and the play continue. That will take some getting use to.

Southwestern up 2-1. Great set point in game 3. Both sides playing great defense. QPR is also on but we are down 1-0 to Luton Town.

3 hours later, I have the noon results. I am a work in progress. The UC Santa Cruz/Whitworth match is a battle.

As for Southwestern/Aurora, a nice win for my Pirates. They looked really good. Transfer Payton Shiflet was really good in all aspects of the game. They had 21 kills from the opposites, which is huge for any team. Christina Kuras was shifted from outside to opposite and I think that’s the position for her. Hard hitter and she can focus on that. One of my newest granddaughters (who has no clue who I am), Brooklyn Spikes, has a great name and should be quite a force in the middle for the next 4-years. That was fun.

Note that the UCSC/Whitworth Live Stats is backwards. Whitworth is ahead 2-0 and not the Slugs.

QPR is now up 2-1. Michael Frey is the player of the day so far.

Hendrix up 2-0 on Schreiner. With St Thomas having an easy time with Hendrix earlier, that’s not a great sign for the Moutaineers but it’s early.

ETBU up 2-0 on St Ben’s. Mosley/Reid with 13 kills. Centre had 4 set points on La Verne but they are currently tied 26-26.

“Match, Set as La Verne takes Game 1” – La Verne announcers. That’s about every way you can describe the grouping of points in volleyball. The announcer is very excited so I like that but let’s try to be more like Trinity and less like whatever BallerTV is doing to LeTourneau. Oh, yeah…ULV with a big comeback in match, set, game one. Another note on this broadcast is that the sound seems to be earlier than the action. Quite annoying. In the past, this was a free stream so what are you going to say. Now, it seems like La Verne fans should have a say in getting this fixed.

How can the NCAA Scoreboard be “queue full” when they are not updating anything in DIII today. Week 1!!!!

Schreiner has comeback to tie the sets at 2-2. Going to a fifth. QPR with the win!

Southwestern/Elmhurst has started. The down referee seems…interesting. I think she just yelled at Coach Flora to go back to the bench as he asks a question. I mean, I know he’s annoying but let him ask the question.

I had to step away for a bit. Looks like Payton Shiflet is out for Southwestern. Need to find out what is going on there.

The NCAA scoreboard seems to be working and there are already a couple of “upsets”. Gustavus Adolphus takes down UW-Oshkosh in 4-sets. Check out my musings article from yesterday for news on Gust Adolphus. CWRU took down Ohio Northern in 5-sets. I liked Ohio Northern this year.

Pomona-Pitzer having an easy time with Muhlenberg so far. Good to see.

Southwestern doing well against Elmhurst but the injury to Shiflet has left a hole that a couple of players haven’t been able to fill. Despite having match point, Elmhurst takes the third set. SU up 2-1.

Whew. Southwestern holds on for the 3-1 win. According to the announcer in this one, every Southwestern player has an extra year of eligibility. Juniors were Sophomores to him. Sophomores were first-years. Not sure how he identified our true first-years.

Alright. (Hot) sicko is hungry again. What is with her? Grilling chicken. Be back later.

I just noticed that Hendrix is playing 3 matches today. They don’t play tomorrow.

Catching up on stuff. Trinity had an easy set one but are struggling set two against Cortland. Whittier up 2-1 on UWRF. Hendrix is handling L&C 2-0. LETU up 2-1 on Heidelberg and trying to close it out. HSU down 2-1 to Washington & Lee. Redlands leading early over Whitworth. Watch out for the Bulldogs!

Transy is leading Gust Adolphus 1-0. This is after Gust Adolphus beat Oshkosh. Interesting results so far but it’s so early.

Concordia is playing Wartburg really tough. Lost first set in extras. Would be a big result for a team that struggled last season.

LETU takes down Heidelberg 3-1. Morgan Nix with 32 digs because that’s what she does.

Shoutout to the two (2) Redlands fans in the stand. You may be watching something special. I turned on the match late and have seen 3 points. Also, 3 timeouts. Two coaches that keep them late, I guess.

36-34 Whitworth. No more timeouts. No more subs. Some small players on the front row for Redlands at the end. Emma Murphy was on the bench I think at the end. Nice battle. Redlands can play some defense. Live stats is reversed in this match.

Trinity had a nice comeback in set two to take it and go up 2-0.

Centenary gets swept. This could be a long season for the Ladies.

I’ve got Trinity/Cortland on the TV behind me so listening mostly. I just heard the announcer say that Trinity was dressing two liberos. Jenna Rodriguez is playing in this one and doing great because her name gets mentioned every 5 seconds. Not sure if the other libero is playing at all.

St Ben is up 2-1 on TLU.

Trinity gets the sweep. Jenna Rodriguez digging and serving great. She looked like she may have had a bruise on her leg so maybe that’s why you dress a second libero. Played great when I turned my head to watch. Mackenzie Logan with 17 kills. Courtney Pope hit 0.700. First-year Taylor Starr with 8 block assists.

Wow. So, Trinity is running two broadcasts. Normally, the back court doesn’t get announcers. Heck, back in my daughter’s day, the back court didn’t get streamed. Get off my lawn!

Washington & Lee takes down HSU 3-1. Earlier, they upset Berry in 5-sets playing at Berry. Whoa.

Pomona-Pitzer played some fast matches today. They just swept Skidmore before I had a chance to see them. That was like a match in 35 minutes? That can’t be right. I double checked the start times and I had it right. Maybe they started early. They won 17, 13 and 5.

CMS had 21 service aces against MCLA. Yikes.

Live Stats was backwards for Concordia. They lose in 4 to Wartburg. Nice comeback 5-set win for TLU over a tough St Ben’s team.

HSU takes set one over Berry but drops set two. What’s up with Berry?

Just took a “break” to work on tomorrow’s schedule. Let’s see what happened while I was gone.

Berry and HSU are in a 5th set. Gonna watch. First three points I see are Berry service aces. Just saw the craziest point ever. HSU defender chances down a ball and sends it middle back. Player attacks from the backrow but does this Statue of Liberty thing and punches the ball straight up and barely over the net where it falls in front of 4 players. Berry Lindsey MacDiarmid isn’t running a 5-1. Strange. Gabby Jones hitting 0.381 for HSU.

Another interesting timeout usage. HSU up 13-10 in the fifth set after scoring a point takes a timeout. I think that’s their second so a Berry run can’t be stopped. I was wrong. That was their first. It’s now 13-12 and a second HSU timeout. MacDiarmid is back in (running a 6-2) to finish the match. Should help them…and she serves out.

15-13 HSU. Big upset for the Cowgirls. Berry was using a 2 person receive. Some communication problems but I only saw the last 10 points or so. Only a couple were really swinging. A lot of tipping by both teams at the end. Huge touch call at 14-12 on HSU. Ball was hit almost straight up and out but I think there was a touch. HSU came back on a long rally to crush the winner out of the middle.

Clarkson/Whitman, scheduled for 10:30 pm, may start at midnight.

Swinging over to Oshkosh/CC. Oshkosh winning 2-0 and trying to close it out.

Oshkosh with the sweep but CC closed the gap at the end. High level volleyball at the end from both teams. Colorado College’s Camille Sherrill impressed me. She’s an example of a player buried on the bench behind two great players but now getting her chance.

Kendall Harrington (UMHB) will get some triple-doubles this year. She’s setting and hitting front row. I saw her last year and was impressed. UMHB gets the sweep over Pacific.

We just have the Whitman Tournament left to go. UCSC and Pac Lu (trademarked) are in a fifth set and have my eyes. 45 minutes after this one, we get the last match of the night or first match of the morning.

Can we pull the camera back at Whitman. Getting seasick.

UCSC with the 5-set win at 10:51 pm. That puts the next match at 11:36 pm or tomorrow on the east coast. I wonder if the Clarkson fans at home will stay up for this one?

My Willamette love may be misplaced. They lost to two non-DIII teams but they should have beaten Pacific Union.

Before I go, because I’m calling it, some other interesting results nationally that I haven’t mentioned:

• WashU needed 5-sets over Coe.

• Hope swept Northwestern

• Millikin went 2-0 today at that tough CC tournament. They beat Transy in 5-sets.

• Cornell beat UW-Stevens Point in 5-sets. I didn’t see that happening.

• Juniata had an easy time over Chris Newport at CNU.

• Calvin beat Carnegie Mellon in 4-sets.

The next morning. Yawn. Clarkson swept Whitman in the midnight match. I have all box scores except one. When I find that one, I’ll add it.

Random Thoughts: Week one is tournament week. Lots of interesting matchups to start things off. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

I guess first off, NPI has really messed up how we look at these matches. Yes, beating a top team will always be great but, overall, it’s more about winning anyone you play. Beating a 0.500 team is better than losing a close match to an undefeated team. In case you were wondering what the NPI will be for a team that wins their first match, it will be 55.6. Losers will be at 44.4.

I wrote down the MCLA matches at the Pacific Coast Classic as MIT. I’m less excited now that I realized my mistake.

I guess the first thing I’m interested in is just the general play of all of our Region X teams. I’m also interested in watching some of the best teams (Juniata, Hope, Oshkosh) go at it.

I’m actually interested in Redlands/Whitman. I’m curious if Redlands will be much improved. I should also be down at Southwestern next week and Whitman will be there. I’m sure Don Flora needs my scouting input. 😉

I’ll be interested in the Whittier and Chapman matches and see where they will stand in the SCIAC.

TLU has a tough match with Cortland. I dismiss the New York teams pretty easily so we’ll see if TLU agrees. Of course, I think TLU may hit a bump in the road early. To be clear, I don’t dismiss Cortland.

Southwestern/Aurora seem to play every year now. Good relationship with the coaches, I guess. Tough match for both sides. It will be interesting to see if my Pirates will compete this year for the conference or a tournament spot.

Whitworth/UC Santa Cruz is a big regional matchup. Again, NPI changes things up here. The regional ranking order use to be a big deal. Better teams could be blocked by other teams ranked higher. That’s no longer a thing. Heck, regional matches is no longer a thing. Each match is just a number…an NPI number. Still, this could be a really good match.

Hendrix/Schreiner – Can Schreiner repeat last year’s success? Hendrix is always good so a good test here. Same can be said for the later Lewis & Clark v Hendrix match.

ETBU/St Ben’s – Great matchup.

Southwestern/Elmhurst – Not the easiest start for my Pirates. These are both matches you really need to win for NPI but both are very tough and they probably are not the favorite in either.

Millikin/CC – Colorado College has a tough first match here. Tigers are back with a win here.

LETU/Heidelberg – Tough match for the Yellow Jackets. Great opportunity to show the nation what you are.

PLU/Clarkson – Another tough New York team going against Region X. Never dismiss the New York teams.

St John Fisher/Austin College – Two teams that are very alike record wise over the years. I might tune in just to see what the ‘Roos are like without 25 players on the team.

Muhlenberg/Pomona-Pitzer – Can PP be more consistent and win matches like these? I think Jenny Jenks will provide stability to a really good team.

McMurry/Neb Wesleyan – McMurry was not very good last year. Will that continue? Tough team to play on the first day.

HSU/W&L – W&L are always right around that at-large bid. Great test for the Cowgirls. They should be pretty good this year but this would go down as an upset. If there was betting, I’d put $5 down on HSU.

Whittier/UW-River Falls – Kind of sad that UWRF wasn’t really considered for an at-large last year when NPI would have had them in. They lose a lot so this will be an interesting match.

St Ben/TLU – Another great out-of-region matchup.

Cortland/Trinity – Trinity should roll. I kind of dismiss the New York teams.

HSU/Berry – Yikes. Tough first day for HSU. I don’t think they do well here.

UWRF/La Verne – Ray and Gott lead the way for the Leopards. They should roll here.

MCLA/CMS – This was a lot better matchup when it was MIT/CMS. Still, who will be the offensive leader for CMS? How many kills does setter Georgia McGovern get? If she doesn’t average 3 a set for the year, I will disown her. Tough love.

PLU/UC Santa Cruz – Kind of neat that UCSC is playing (maybe) the top two teams in the NWC. We’ll get a feel for how that might shake out. Willamette (who I think might be second) plays non-DIII teams today.

UW-Oshkosh/CC – Boom! Best match of the day for a Region X team? Remember Titans, hit your serves a little harder in altitude. It breaks down the win resistance and causes the ball to drop. (Don’t look this up.)

UMHB/Pacific – Can UMHB make another run at an at-large with the schedule they have. Bottom line, they can’t lose to teams like Pacific although they could here.

Clarkson/Whitman – Tough match for Whitman. Never dismiss those New York teams.

On the home front this weekend, the (hot) wife has COVID. I’m hoping I can avoid it but it does mean I’ll get to stream a lot of matches. We have plans to head down to Southwestern next week for their tournament. Have to stay healthy!