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Friday, Sep. 3 Match Day!
Updates: News that broke late on Thursday is that HSU will not play in the Austin College/Dallas Tournament. They are listed below because I’d already done the work and didn’t have time to change it. It’s also possible that other matches at that tournament will be impacted. Either moved to different times or maybe different opponents will change out. Ugh. I did my best. 🙂
I’m a little annoyed that we don’t have live stats links for some matches. Then I remember that MOST of the times so far they haven’t worked. So, good job?
For matches played at Trinity, I’m linking in the YouTube Trinity page. Best shot of the stream sh owing up there. HOWEVER, they run two courts and I believe only the main court will stream. I’m guessing on the second Belhaven match, too. I think I now have a video and/or stats link for everyone. Whether they work or not, well…
Three screens up for the 11:30 matches. CMS just took set one. UCSC looks really good. Cal Lu and Transy are in a tough one. Whittier has a lead on GFU. Transy and Whittier get the first set wins. Positive thoughts towards Cal Lu everyone.
CMS/UCSC is a fun one. Melanie Williams (right side) is a “true outcome” type of player. Too many errors right now but you can see what the CMS offense is trying to do. Jenna Layne Holmes with 12 kills through two sets. Cal Lu is about to drop set 2 to Transy. Whittier/GFU is 23-23. Georgia McGovern is running a 5-1 for CMS and doing well. I didn’t know CMS had setters that weren’t named Madsen? Real balanced attack from UCSC. Really good defense, too.
UCSC Ashley Magley with three straight kills to give UCSC the lead in set three. Whittier and GFU are split 1-1. Transy up 2-0 and leading in the third.
Switching over to Southwestern so carry on without me for a bit. Cal Lu tied it up in the third! UCSC 23-21 in the third set that they must win. Whittier/GFU is going 5-sets…they are just to close to each other.
Hendrix looking good against Whitworth. 😦
TLU looking good, too. SU/PLU is a fun one. Southwestern up 1-0.
PLU just had an injury to their setter. They are also down a middle that was injured on Wednesday. Two outstanding players that they need back soon.
Impressive sweep from Texas Lutheran over Concordia. Too many errors for the Tornadoes.
PLU with a big comeback and even getting their setter back is not enough in set 2. SU up 2-0.
Whitworth up 2-1 now against Hendrix. So far so good for Pirates around the world.
Back now. I fear I fat fingered something into my phone updating the site.
I had Hendrix/Whitworth on one screen. Pirates looked good coming back from a first set loss. Mainly I watched Southwestern/PLU because, you know, Southwestern. PLU has certainly caught the injury bug. They lost middle Breeze Bartle in the first set Wednesday. Today, setter Emily Dulaney went down and never looked 100% after that. Sending love their way to get healthy. It turned out to be two close sets and then a big win for SU in set three. Southwestern with the sweep. Outside Emma White hit 0.480 and co-led the team in digs.
LeTourneau dropped the first set to Centenary before winning 3-1. Looks like super outside Kianna Crow missed this match. Hoping she is okay. Great job by the rest of the team to pick up the slack for her. Kaci Monk had 11 kills.
Looping back to the CMS/UCSC, and I can’t do this for every team today, but CMS had some standout performances. In a 4-set match, Jenna Layne Holmes finished with 21 kills while Georgia McGovern had 52 assists and Makenna Fall 26 digs.
Looping back to the Cal Lutheran match because it was kind of an important out-of-region event, the Regals lost 3-0 but all three sets were close. Maci Haddad did her thing (12 kills) but Cal Lu will need more from others moving forward. But, again, this was against a very good Transylvania team.
George Fox looks to be up 2-0 on La Verne. Good morning for the Bruins so far.
Pomona-Pitzer took the first set against ranked Transylvania but have dropped the next two. I think they are up big in set four but the live stats are down.
I HUGE shocker with UT-Dallas getting swept by Centre. Centre with 2-10 in the spring. Let’s hope the Comets bounce back in their next 3 matches this weekend.
Lewis & Clark is up 2-1 on Webster. And, they take the fourth set for the 3-1 win. We only had the live stats from yesterday but today’s box score shows the reverse. Webster with the 3-1 win…unless the box score is wrong.
Watching Pomona-Pitzer/Transylvania right now. Great match. Pomona-Pitzer is going to be tough in the SCIAC this season. Ugh. Late comeback by Transy in set four and they take the match.
George Fox sweeps La Verne. Tough day for the SCIAC without doing the match.
BSC is up 2-0 over Belhaven. Trinity up 2-0 over ETBU. Pacific down 2-0 to Northwestern. UMHB up 1-0 on Millsaps.
Family coming over. I’ll be more brief for a bit. The lack of box scores is disturbing but that’s a function of live stats. We still don’t have UMHB/Belhaven from Thursday.
Alright, I’m back. Was hoping to watch the Whitman/Southwestern match but the video is down.
Big night for Linfield and Coach Haley Domeck as she earns her first win as a college coach. She coached the team in the spring but they went winless during that shorten season.
Watch out for Centre! They took down L&C in 5-sets. The Pios handled them better than UTD so that’s kind of weird but we are dealing with a small sample size here. It will be interesting to see how Centre does the rest of the way.
The ranked matchup between BSC and UMHB went to UMHB in 3-sets. We’ll have to see if that win helps the Cru any down the road if they need an at-large bid.
Tough day for McMurry as they fall to Austin College in 4-sets. McMurry typically is a top team in the ASC but two losses today will need to be learned from moving forward.
Whitman takes a set from Southwestern (31-29, no less) but SU leads 2-1 with a big lead in the fourth. La Verne up 2-0 but down in the third set.
I think I’m caught up for the moment. I guess I had the Redlands/Vanguard time wrong as that match is already over (Vanguard win).
Southwestern gets a 4-set win over Whitman. That leaves the La Verne match and then the (very) late match – St. Thomas at Puget Sound. By the time that match starts, the Texans will be playing at 12:30 am tomorrow. That can’t be good on the body clock. In no way was that correct but it sounded good.
La Verne trying to make a comeback in the third set in order to close out their sweep. Now up 21-20.
La Verne with the sweep. They were led by Ayana Mier with 10 kills, Emily Heldenbrand with 21 assists and Heldenbrand again with 16 digs.
It’s a little after 10 pm Central and waiting on one last match. Oh, and waiting for a bunch of box scores! On Sunday I’ll do a wrap-up of the week’s action so look for that. Some notes I’ll mention here that might make that article:
The SCAC had a good couple of days. Only St. Thomas has a losing record from that conference.
Six of the nine SCAC teams are undefeated.
Only UMHB and LETU have winning records in the ASC (both undefeated).
UT-Dallas is a bit of a worry. Didn’t do well against Centre. Centre then beat Lewis & Clark but it was a tougher match. Can’t read too much into it as neither match was on video. Still interesting.
UC Santa Cruz is also interesting. Lost to CMS in 4 and were lucky a bit but also played good defense and had a low error rate. Points earned were 82-65 so that’s why I say lucky. Still, they could make a claim that they are the second best team in California right now and that’s…interesting.
Nice start by George Fox. They get Pomona-Pitzer tomorrow who is winless but looked good when I saw them play. A win against the Sagehens would be…yeah, you get the trend.
Only team in the SCIAC with a winning record is CMS. I’ve mentioned in the past that there might be a 2-year hangover for those schools that didn’t play in the spring.
If I had to describe the entire season based on three days, you would have to say that there’s trouble for the West. I really don’t want to see another top-heavy region where only 5 or 6 teams make the tournament. Too early, obviously, but those that read my stuff know that you can’t make the tournament based on the first weekend but you can be eliminated as an at-large possibility in that same time period.
St Thomas wins the late match in 4-sets over Puget Sound. That means every SCAC team is 0.500 or better so far this season.
National games of rank outside of region play:
#3 Calvin beat Grove City
Augsburg upset #3 Calvin
#4 Emory beat Brevard
#5 Carthage beat Benedictine
#5 Carthage beat Marian
#6 Johns Hopkins beat St. John Fisher
#7 Hope beat St. Olaf
#7 Hope beat Aurora
#8 Berry beat Maryville
#9 Chicago beat # 18 Saint Benedict
#12 Juniata beat Ithaca
#14 Ohio Northern beat Hanover
#14 Ohio Northern beat Mount St. Joseph
Mount St. Joseph upset #16 Muskingum
#16 Muskingum beat Wittenberg
#17 Millikin beat UW-Platteville
#17 Millikin beat Grinnell
Aurora upset #18 Saint Benedict
#20 Northwestern beat Bethel
IWU upset #24 Susquehanna
Chris Newport upset #24 Susquehanna
#25 Elmhurst beat UW-Stout
Calvin losing early is a bit of a shock, but Augsburg has been a good program recently.
Added Match:
Random Thoughts: We’ve got our first day with a full slate of matches! Too many to discuss individually so here are some thoughts. Some “random thoughts” you might say. Oh, I’m not 100% sure on match times in some cases. Got conflicting information from different sources. Also, Chapman pulled out of the Pacific Coast Classic so matches were moved around there. Lots of missing links, which I’ll do my best to update as the day goes along.
We get to see what CMS will look like for the first time in almost two years. Gone are the national championship players. Good test against Santa Cruz. UCSC really took care of Whittier. Is UCSC that good or is Whittier off this season?
Whittier/George Fox could be good. I loved GFU in the spring but they lost a lot of good players. If Whitter handles this easily then it could be a sign of trouble for George Fox.
Transylvania/Cal Lutheran is a fun one. Cal Lu really needs this to jump into the national picture. Here’s the thing with Cal Lu, they just need to win a match like this to create buzz nationally. If Whittier won this match against Transy, we wouldn’t see the same buzz.
I will take the Wheaton/UCSC match to just mention this once. Region X teams are not allowed to lose to out-of-region foes. Period.
I like Whitworth this year and Hendrix will be a great test. See note just above this one.
Transy and Pomona-Pitzer will give us some insight into the Sagehens. Pomona-Pitzer would love to jump into the top tier of the SCIAC. A win like this would show that they will be a force in the conference this year.
Stepping back for a second. I’m a little worried with the SCIAC teams because they just haven’t played in so long. I hope my fears don’t turn into reality but would it surprise anyone if they struggle this first weekend?
Pacific has a chance to create some buzz with their match against Northwestern-St. Paul. Northwestern played the most matches in the 2020-21 season as they played in both the fall and spring. Pacific is always pretty good. Chance for an upset here. (Northwest was also upset on Wednesday.)
I like St. Thomas getting into the Puget Sound tournament. Good test for them and the NWC teams they play.
I really am pulling for Chapman this season and St. Norbert is a program that could give them problems and they can’t afford to lose to teams like this. That’s not meant to be negative to St. Norbert because they are tricky good typically. I’m just saying Chapman needs a killer attitude from the first serve onward this season. Written before Chapman had to pull out due to Covid reasons. Thoughts going out to that program!!!!
Holy cow this is going to be a lot of work today getting these scores updated.
Willamette going against #4 Emory. I love it! Go get ‘um!
Ricky’s Oshkosh has two good matches today. Let’s leave them 0-2, right?
First battle between two ranked teams with UMHB and Birmingham-Southern going at it. I’m going to sound like a broken record but the Cru are not playing a tough schedule this season. So, this is basically a must win from an at-large perspective. I understand that the ASC doesn’t typically get an at-large team into the tournament and UMHB is good enough to win the conference but what if you don’t? And what if the NCAA gets smarter with a national chair that’s not from New England? Like maybe from the South (Region VI). Like where BSC is from? I’m just saying no pressure but don’t lose this one. (BSC lost on Wednesday, which is unfortunate. Still a good opponent for the Cru.)
Hendrix/Trinity is another good one. Hendrix will hopefully have a tough day today.
So many late matches. Ugh. I need my beauty sleep.
CMS plays 9 hours apart? That seems a little weird. That got moved up a bit after Chapman pulled out. Not so far apart now.
There are a number of really good matches today. I need Region X to win every out-of-region match. I need the SCIAC to show me there is no 2-year rust on them. I need Southwestern to win (as always). I need the late matches to only go 3-sets.
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