Quarterfinals (11/16/22)

Updates: Got it into my head that the first match was at 10:30 central. If only there was a website that listed all of the match times where I could check. Alright, now I have to figure out how to stay busy for the next hour. In other news, I’m feeling much better. Got out of the house yesterday for the first time although I have to mask up until Friday. I will say that the strain of COVID I got (BA. 4 and BA. 5) was the new one. My (hot) wife got the new booster a week before the SCAC Tournament trip and has been fine through it all. Take that info how you will.

Not sure when the Coach of the Year, Assistant of the Year and Player of the Year will be announced. I assume between two of these matches today. If we get some West representation, I will probably hold off on writing about it until Friday as that is our off day.

In other news, not to make this into a musings article, I probably will miss the championship match! Poor planning on my part. My godson is in a play here in Fort Worth and we have tickets for that night. Might be able to switch to Friday but also have to weigh it against how I’m feeling. We shall see.

2022 AVCA DIII Assistant Coach of the Year is Melanie Hughes (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps)!!!!

2022 AVCA DIII Coach of the Year is Julie Jenkins (Trinity)!!!!!

Looks like I have something to write about on Friday. 🙂 Just Player of the Year is left. A clean sweep for Region X?

11:30 and no video. I was trying to find a good live stats link. I added the Scoreboard link below and I was able to find one there. It appears that Emily Ellis is still not healthy enough to play. Not good for Trinity but she was hurt for the CMS match, too.

11:33. It would be awesome if they streamed these matches.

11:36. We have audio and video! They are announcing All-Americans right now. Lauren Keller (MIT) got the Elite 90 Award.

Boom!

2022 AVCA DIII Player of the Year is Jenna Holmes (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps)!!!!

Wow! A clean sweep of the AVCA awards today.

Double-Wow. On the very first point, we have a review on a touch. Those are hard to overturn so interesting decision. Overturned in favor of MIT.

MIT’s defense is pretty darn good. One of the main keys to me for Trinity is getting Sarah Williammee going. She’s been great this season but not as good as last year.

Four aces early for MIT.

MIT with the early lead on the first timeout. Anyone can win this tournament. Just need to get hot at the right time.

All tied at 18-18. Nice comeback for Trinity.

Wasted opportunity for MIT. They really got the CMS treatment as they played clean but Trinity figured out a way to win set one.

Announcer said Trinity won set one despite their leaders not contributing a lot. She then mentioned Ellis who is not playing due to injury. So, I guess, she’s right?

At the Championship, not only do we have reviews, but we have automatic timeouts when a team gets to 15 points and no timeout has yet been taken. The announcer said that was an MIT timeout but I think it was an auto timeout. Although…live stats says it was an MIT timeout so maybe the auto timeout at 15 is no longer a thing.

We have an Emily Ellis sighting! And she gets a block! Maddie Fate is the player out. Nice when you can replace an All-American with an All-American.

Trinity is up 2-0. Not as clean from either side as set one. Trinity just doing what they need to do to win.

Another review! This time by Trinity but it’s another touch call. This time the call stands.

Word of advice to MIT. If Ellis and Flynn are on the front row, think about going away from your outside.

Okay. You be you. It hasn’t worked over and over but it will the next time, right?

Trinity gets the sweep. MIT showed some nice play at times but it wasn’t nearly enough.

Ten blocks by Trinity and the Ellis/Flynn wall at the end of the third set was unbending. Double-digit points for Reagan Whatley, Sara Flynn and Sarah Williammee for Trinity. Lauren Kelly was double-digit for MIT. MIT ended up hitting 0.070 as a team.

Ran to the gym so I missed the first set. NYU with the 2-point win. Looking at the stats, another really clean first set. So far four teams have not wilted to the initial pressure of playing in the quarterfinals.

Down 21-14 and you challenge a touch call. Is that the wisest use of the system, NYU? If you don’t win the challenge, you lose one of your challenges. You are about to be in a best of three match when you lose this set.

Ends a lot closer but Transy ties it up.

18-15 NYU and they question an “in” call. But they only have one challenge left. They decide not to challenge (I thought it was a good call). But you can see how wasting just one challenge can hurt you.

NYU with the set three win. All three sets have gone 25-23. Can’t get much closer than that.

Late in the fourth set and we have a Transy review, but we don’t know what is being reviewed. So, they lost. I mean, you can’t win a challenge when we don’t know what to look for.

23-20 NYU late in set four. Time is running out for Transy. Olivia Lewandowski (NYU) has a 20-20 match already.

NYU with the 4-set win. Great match. They will play Trinity in a repeat of the regional final from last year won by Trinity. Olivia Lewandowski had 23 kills and 21 digs. Lindsey Hirano was fun to watch as she was everywhere. Transy was led by Cate Scheper who had 18 kills.

Haven’t caught as much as the JHU/NW match as the others. JHU is up 2-0 and it looks pretty easy for them so far. I really liked NW going into this but you can’t underestimate the Blue Jays.

Northwestern with a big set three win. I don’t want to say it was me, but I’m not sure I’ve seen them lose a point all night.

Good lead late for Northwestern. At this point, if any JHU fans want to pay me to stop watching, I will listen to all offers.

Going to a fifth set. Last chance JHU for a payment? It may be your only chance to win.

JHU review fails. It’s 3-1 in the fifth, NW.

AT 5-4 NW, the backrow JHU setter goes to the net, jumps and tries to bring the ball back. She fails and the referee didn’t call a backrow attack. No one complained. I guess everything thought the ball was under the plane of the net? That’s an automatic call.

The inability to pick up a dink for JHU (and me watching) did them in. NW wins set five 15-13 and gets the reverse sweep. Northwestern hit 0.217 as a team and had 16 blocks. They were led by Ari Schmidt with 15 kills. Alice Yu led JHU with 13 kills and 17.5 Points. Northwestern plays the winner of the late match.

Juniata is playing nearly flawless volleyball. Up 1-0. Currently hitting 0.467 with four players hitting over 0.600.

Juniata up 2-0. They are looking really good. I liked a Trinity/Northwestern final but Juniata looks like they should be able to handle NW.

I’m a good jinx. Hope destroys Juniata in set three. Down 1-2.

Juniata comes back to take set four and the match. Juniata hit 0.308 for the match while Hope hit 0.240. Juniata had 4 players with double-digit Points while Hope was led by Annie Lockett (who actually led all players with 20 Points).

My top 4 teams made it out although I thought Transy would get the upset today.

Random Thoughts: All the drama and anger is behind us! Well, at least behind me. Time for 7 more matches in our 2022 season.

Trinity and MIT will start us off. These teams are 8th and 9th in Hitting Percentage through this past weekend. MIT has the advantage in Opponent Hitting Percentage. Points/Set is 17.4 to 17.21 in favor of Trinity. Their strength of schedule is pretty even although I would put forth that the schedule Trinity played was much more difficult. Trinity has wins over Berry, Transylvania, Juniata and CMS. MIT has wins over Tufts. (Forgive me for not including Keene State, Coast Guard and Middlebury.) Although I think all of the teams in the Elite 8 have a chance, MIT would have been the team I would have wanted to face the most. They are good, make no mistake, but they haven’t played the level of competition the other teams have. Give me Trinity in this one. (Trinity was the leader of our Champions Poll.)

NYU and Transylvania should be a good one. NYU is a team I expected to be here at the start of the year and Transylvania was a team that I thought could be really good. Transy started off slow but has turned into what I thought they would be. NYU is 15th in Hitting Percentage while Transy is 6th. Transy also has the advantage in Opponent Hitting Percentage. NYU Points/Set is 16.62 while Transy is at 16.55. NYU has one of the best strength of schedules in the nation this season. This is a tough to call but I’m going with Transy. (Transy had a small lead over NYU in the Champions Poll.)

I was a little surprised with Johns Hopkins seeding. This is a team that played a tough schedule but were battling injuries earlier in the season. Northwestern is second in the nation in Hitting Percentage while Johns Hopkins is 22nd. Northwestern also has a large advantage in Opponent Hitting Percentage. Points/Set is 18.02 for Northwestern while JHU is at 17.05. Northwestern had the easiest schedule of all of the Elite 8 teams but they are still my pick. I really thought they and CMS were the best teams in the nation and by the process of elimination, they may be my pick to win it all. (Northwestern was our second favorite from the Champions Poll.)

The late match features Juniata and Hope. Juniata has been the most consistent team from the start of the year to the end now with CMS out of the running. Hope is a team that didn’t look good in their conference tournament losing to Albion but then looked to be the best team in the nation beating all comers in a very tough Calvin Regional. Of all of the teams in the bottom four of the seeding (what it should have been), Hope is the team I would have wanted to play last. Juniata is 3rd in the nation in Hitting Percentage while Hope is 13th. Juniata is second in the nation in Opponent Hitting Percentage while Hope is is near 300th. Juniata’s Point/Set number is 18.6 while Hope’s is at 17.56. I’ve got to go with Juniata here and trust that Hope can’t carry whatever voodoo they were using at Calvin. (Juniata was the third choice from the Champions Poll.)