Saturday, Oct 1 Match Day!

Update: Something I’m noticing for the first time. Northwestern is playing two conference matches away at different locations on the same day.

IWU struggling early. Not a good week for them if they drop this one. Got blown out in the first set and getting blown out in the third.

Schreiner wins the first set against CC but it’s tied 1-1 and tied in the third set now. Intriguing.

UCSC is handling Chris Newport, which would be a good win. Up 2-0. Remember the C2C has an automatic qualifier so the Slugs are staking their claim against the every year favorite.

UCSC with the sweep.

Schreiner takes set three. Very intriguing.

Cornell upsets IWU in a sweep that wasn’t close.

TLU and Dallas are 1-1. St Thomas up 1-0. I love that Southwestern has setup a camera for their practice gym where the second match is being played. Does Trinity do this now? Back in the day they didn’t and they always had a really good match playing back there.

I’m watching TCU football right now between volleyball checks. The only football I watch anymore is TCU and English (soccer). The announcers seem to know everything a team is doing wrong. I can watch a volleyball match and see that someone is struggling but don’t always know the reason. These guys know everything! It’s a shame coaches don’t have that knowledge.

St Thomas is now up 2-0. The problem Centenary is having in this match is that their right arm swing is a little to wide. Their approach is also too short by 2.469 inches. They would also benefit from a steeper arm angle on service receive (say 0.56 degrees more). There, I’ve channeled my TCU announcers to this match.

CC won the fourth set and are leading mid-5th set. I can’t get my video working for that match. 😦

CC is up 23 Points in the match but are only up 8-7 in the fifth set. One reason are close sets except for a CC blow out in the fourth. CC also has a lot more unforced errors (attacking and service). CC has two players over 20 kills (Keeley Kandziora and Bella Lipacis).

CC wins 3-2. Weird stat of the day. In this match, there was only one lead change. It happened in the fourth set, which was a blowout by CC. The other four sets were all 3 to 5 point wins and there were no lead changes.

Centenary had 3 set points but now trail 25-24 and trying to avoid the sweep. Doesn’t happen as St Thomas wins the next point.

TLU takes down Dallas 3-1. Meanwhile, a TCU defender just destroyed the Oklahoma QB (late hit, helmet to helmet). It’s kind of incredible to me that this sport still exists. Just too violent.

UC Santa Cruz the only match going on right now in the west. UCSC blitzing Salisbury early.

Pretty easy sweep for UCSC over a now 13-2 Salisbury team. QWI (prior to this week) had Salisbury at 85 but regionally ranked.

Trinity leading CC 1-0 and up big in set two. UMHB at UTD are heading for sweeps.

Coe upsets (sweeps) Eau Claire. They were under consideration last week for my Top 25 and will be hard to keep out now.

Trinity now up 2-0 on CC. Austin College is up 1-0 on Southwestern. Ugh.

Southwestern wins set two. Tied 1-1.

Sweeps for UMHB and UTD. Pretty easy win for UTD, which is a little surprising.

The sound on the Southwestern feed is horrible.

Linfield takes the first set against George Fox. Big surprise there. Okay…less of a surprise. It’s Whitworth. I think the Live Stats had the name wrong initially. Whitworth up on GFU 2-0.

I think Concordia beat Sul Ross State. No Live Stats.

Trinity sweeps CC. LETU takes down McMurry on the road.

Granddaughter Olivia Linton (Austin College) is being really annoying right now. Ninja dig and then a kill. Don’t make me disown you!

Austin College starts off with a big lead but SU comes back and takes the fourth set. Win 3-1. Olivia will still get her virtual $5 birthday checks.

Oshkosh sweeps Augsburg. Looking good for the mighty Titans.

Whitworth wins in 4-sets over George Fox.

Coe with another upset today.

Senior day at Southwestern. Crazy that it’s so early. Good to see all of the seniors play.

Nice win by Pomona-Pitzer over La Verne. The ordering behind CMS is really up in the air.

PLU/Willamette is the last match of the night. Watch PLU win the fourth and force a fifth set.

And it happened. PLU wins in 5.

Top 25 Results

#3 Northwestern 3 Martin Luther 0#3 Northwestern 3 Bethany Lutheran 0#4 Juniata 3 Susquehanna 0#4 Juniata 3 Drew 0#7 Berry 3 Hendrix 1 #11 UW-Eau Claire 0 Coe 3#11 UW-Eau Claire 3 Cornell 1#12 Wittenberg 3 Hiram 0#16 Augsburg 3 #13 UW-Stevens Point 1#14 Wesleyan 3 Bates 0#15 Hope 3 Wheaton (Ill.) 0#16 Augsburg 0 UW-Oshkosh 3#17 MIT 3 Smith 0#18 Otterbein 3 Capital 0Clark 0 #19 Babson 3Gordon 0 #19 Babson 3Bethel 1 #20 Gustavus Adolphus 3Dubuque 0 #20 Gustavus Adolphus 3#21 Illinois Wesleyan 0 Cornell 3#21 Illinois Wesleyan 2 Coe 3Hamilton 0 #23 Tufts 3Centre 0 #25 Birmingham-Southern 3

Random Thoughts: My initial run through missed some matches. One was the second Southwestern match so my mind is definitely not on this today. UMHB/Howard Payne play the never heard of double-header with both counting as conference matches. In other words, UMHB decided they didn’t need to play Howard Payne at home. (Update – First conference match was the first game of the year. The second match from today is not a conference match.)

I was hoping to be down at Southwestern today but it did not happen. Originally, we had plans to be out of the country but the flights fell through. Lots of matches there with the pod scheduling.

I am going to refrain from my predictions. You are welcome.

I will admit there are times Trinity’s Coach Jenkins gets into my head. Looking at the Schreiner pod schedule and Colorado College has to play the early match against the host school and then immediately plays Trinity. Trinity plays that one first and then Schreiner. Someone had to play the match on the back end of a back-to-back but it never seems to be Trinity.

Santa Cruz is playing in what amounts to the C2C Conference schedule. They are at Chris Newport playing the host school, Salisbury and then Mary Washington tomorrow. Those four schools are the best that conference has so quite a fun one. It’s not going to matter (I think) for at-large purposes but a UCSC clean sweep would help a number of teams in addition to the Slugs. Speaking of scheduling, nice of the host school to have UCSC (the only West Coast team) play the early double-header. I think Coach Jenkins is responsible for it.

One of the biggest matches in the SCAC and usually the nation is today when Colorado College and Trinity play. Not so much this year. Can’t assume CC will lose this but Trinity seems to be the class in the conference.

LeTourneau had a nice win against HSU and should do well against McMurry. They are in the ASC title conversation.

I’m really interested in the Whitworth/GFU match because I got to see GFU in person this year. Glad I’m not predicting this one because it could go either way.

Pomona-Pitzer and La Verne should be a good one. Pomona-Pitzer needs to be stacking some wins to secure that conference tournament spot.