Saturday, Apr. 10 Match Day!

Updates: TLU looks to be on their game with a set one win and leading in the second. Madison Weisinger (TLU) already has 5 service aces. TLU with the sweep. Playing better ball right now.

CC with an easy set one win over Centenary. CC gets it done today with the sweep.

UMHB takes set one over UTD. Remember that UTD is positioned to be the #1 team in the nation if they can stay undefeated and CC trips up. Big match. Of course, there is also that ASC title thing on the line, too.

St. Thomas up 2-1 on Schreiner. TLU still rolling today against Dallas.

TLU with the sweep. Third set goes extra.

I read that earlier St. Thomas/Schreiner score wrong. Schreiner wins 3-1. That’s big as it puts Schreiner into the tournament. I think, based on head-to-head results, that Centenary will be the 9th place team and therefore be out of the tournament. They split with Dallas (who they are tied with) but won 3-2 while losing 3-1. Not sure about the specific tiebreaker but I’m going with that.

UMHB up 2-0 on UT-Dallas. Looking for the sweep. Playing at home is big, but this is still a surprising result to me.

And UMHB with the sweep. Congratulations to the Cru! Our first of two West Region Tournament winners.

All-Tournament Team

MVP – Hannah Frasca, Mary Hardin-Baylor

Corinne Novak, Mary Hardin-Baylor

Allie Pierce, Mary Hardin-Baylor

Madison Ball, UT Dallas

Catherine Croft, UT Dallas

Georgia Quiroz, Concordia Texas

Kianni Mitchell, McMurry

At the AVCA Invitational Tournament, Carthage beats Millikin for the Gold Division Championship. I think this inserts themselves into the national championship discussion despite their one-loss to Elmhurst. They did avenge that loss in this tournament with a sweep. I think you have CC unless they lose. Trinity is still in play if they are the team to beat them in the tournament final. UT-Dallas has just been eliminated from the discussion. Transylvania, Millikin and Elmhurst lost in the Invitational so they are out in my mind. You would then have to look towards Berry, Hope and Calvin. I think Hope and Calvin will not have played enough matches and really they just have the matches against themselves. Carthage really didn’t have a lot of matches either but this tournament adds to their total and they played out-of-conference teams. Does an undefeated Calvin (with two Hope wins) or undefeated Hope with two Calvin wins take down Carthage? CC winning out makes all of this pointless but still interesting to ponder.

Schreiner/St. Thomas going to a fifth set. St. Thomas with the win as the teams split their matches today.

We’re down to just the SCAC Tournament, which should take at least a couple of weeks with the scheduling they’ve decided to use.

Random Thoughts: Championship for the ASC today! The SCAC ends their regular season today. I did get confirmation that the SCAC Tournament will be home series over multiple weeks. That means the title goes through Colorado College this year (hearing that CC has to pay half of the travel costs of the teams coming in). With the split yesterday, Southwestern gets the 3rd seed and Austin College gets the 4th or 5th. I’m too lazy to see what the tiebreaker is if St. Thomas wins both of their matches today. Regardless, they will play each other…only the location would be up in the air. It gets real interesting with the last 4 teams. Between Covid and weather not everyone played the same number of games. One of these four will not qualify (only 8 go). The 8th will go to Colorado College so…yay!?!? If we assume Centenary loses to CC then they will be 3-11, which is where both TLU and Schreiner are now. If you assume Schreiner loses both to St. Thomas then they are the team outside looking in unless TLU also loses both. TLU beat Schreiner so that should give them the tiebreaker. So, right now, unless they can beat St. Thomas, Schreiner looks to be the team in trouble. Remember, this team beat Southwestern and got CC to 5-sets this year.

Dallas/TLU – TLU is playing better so this should be a good one. They have virtually identical P/S numbers. I think TLU wins at least one of these if not both.

CC/Centenary – Centenary played CC tough yesterday. I think CC figures things out and gets an easier sweep today.

St. Thomas/Schreiner – I think Schreiner figures out how to win one of these. No logic behind it. P/S gives the advantage to St. Thomas by +1.21.

ASC Tournament!!!!

UT-Dallas/UMHB – I think it really helped UTD to play a team like Concordia and fight their way through it. Expect more of the same with UMHB playing at home. Most years, you take the home team here. I think UTD gets it done, however, P/S has a +2.27 advantage for UTD but as we saw yesterday, UMHB had tougher teams to play. UTD in 4-sets.