Saturday, Sept 13 Match Day!

goldenstateservicesj
Sep 12, 2025
14 min read

Scoreboard:

West Schedule:

ASC ScoreboardC2C ScoreboardNWC ScoreboardSAA ScoreboardSCAC ScoreboardSCIAC Scoreboard

Matches I’m Watching Nationally (Times are CDT & links provided to schedule or tournament page):

Hope vs La Verne 9 am – Tough morning time for the Pacific Coast team (7 am SoCal time) and after playing late against the hosts. This reeks of a scheduled lost. Based on performance, La Verne should win but this freaks me out a bit.

Colorado College vs UW-Platteville 10 am – Which UWP team shows up. That will decide this match.

Chris Newport at NYU 10 am – Double check times with the Amherst cancellations.

Ithaca at Carnegie Mellon 10 am – Big win for Ithaca last night. Can they continue?

Chicago vs La Verne Noon – Back-to-back early matches for La Verne. Take out Oshkosh and win both today and how do you not rank them first? Oh yeah…Whitewater.

St Benedict vs Coe 11 am – One loss between them. There could be space opening up in the Top 25. Gust Adolphus is also at this tournament and they only have one loss, too.

Wash & Lee at Franklin & Marshall 11 am – The battle of the ampersand! Both undefeated. Both ranked by me.

Johns Hopkins vs MIT Noon – Another big time game.

Emory at Berry 2:30 pm – Always a battle.

ETBU at Trinity 5 pm – Great match between these two last season. ETBU knows what they need to do, but can they?

I left off a TON of great matches. So many. This may be the greatest day of wonderful matches of the year until the tournament.

Updates:

Double check the matches in Oshkosh. They had a change to their schedule where each match was moved back an hour. Scoreboard didn’t pick it up.

I just learned that the Chicago opposite, Thalita Marangon, who I mentioned yesterday went down later with an injury. Looks like she might be done for the season. Injuries suck.

La Verne has this first set well in hand. Jumped out to a 4-point lead and have now increased that to 20-11. ULV just attacks from everywhere and their defense, which was what worried me this preseason, has been solid.

25-20 for ULV as Hope made a little comeback attempt but it fell short. The Ray sisters have 7 kills in this one.

La Verne with an easy set two win but the third set is close. ULV looking for the sweep before they have to take on Chicago.

In other matches, HSU gets the sweep over Methodist. 12 aces for HSU while hitting 0.308 as a team. Yes…it was an easy sweep. Rough year for Susquehanna. They are about to go 0-8.

Hope takes set three in extras after ULV fails in their comeback. ULV still up 2-1 but you can’t give Hope…hope.

Your NPI update through yesterday’s matches:

Some big changes there. Notice how Oshkosh and Juniata still stay high despite their loss. Playing tough schedules. (I guess you can also include Tufts into that mix, but I think their tough schedule is more NPI’s doing than reality.)

This Hope/ULV match is turning. Stats wise they are even but where ULV gets the advantage is in aces. ULV needs to step up their blocking a bit or they could be looking at a surprising loss in a reverse sweep. Set four is 10-8 for Hope. Still early.

Set four is going to go to Hope who are up 23-19 right now. Hope has four players in double-digit kills while ULV only has Mya Ray (hitting 0.345!). ULV needs others to help out Mya just like UWO needed help for Samantha last night.

Well…the D3VbWest jinx is alive and well. ULV scores the next 3 points forcing a timeout. Mya Ray is serving so this will be on others but right now Hope is gifting points. Let me try the jinx again. Hope has this. Hope will have two set points. First one is a Hope touch. Kill by Gott. Second one is an ace. That’s been the difference in this match. We are tied 24-24. Just like last set. Different outcome? Long rally with lots of defense and blocking. Set point Hope. 25-25. One rotation for Ray to go front row. Gott with the kill. Match point for ULV.

ULV with the win 27-25. First off, in this rally the libero dumped a second ball that was clearly a double. Missed call that should have tied it up. Attack error by the Hope libero of all things ends it.

Here is my problem with the Leopards from La Verne. They play with their food. I mean all credit to Hope who played great in the 1st, 3rd and 4th sets. They had more kills as a team but the ULV serving game really killed them. Loved the defense from both sides. Okay. I’m down for a few hours. Carry on without me.

I am back. Looks like Fred is getting ready for his volleyball blog next year in Region V! Thank you for the comments although I was streaming the end of the MIT/JHU match and your comment almost beat the final point. LOL. Time to catchup on the action. (Oh, I also streamed a bit of the Southwestern/Austin College match.)

Lasell moves to 7-0 with a win over Roger Williams. Their best win might be Plymouth State so they really don’t move the needle for me. Rose-Hulman is 8-0 although the NCAA schedule gives them an extra win. They have another match today against Denison. Their best wins are ONU and North Central (IL) so I am intrigued a bit. Marywood takes their first loss to Penn St – Harrisburg. Albion moves to 8-1. Best team in the MIAA? Probably not but fun to think about.

Sewanee gets a nice sweep over Asbury. Millsaps does the same to Dallas. The NCAA Scoreboard is just weird today. A number of double matches for the same teams. Boy, you’d better win those when they happen!

Oglethorpe sweeps Warren Wilson. Southwestern did beat Austin College 3-1. Belhaven swept McMurry in a bit of a surprise there.

One of the games to watch was Colorado College/UW-Platteville. CC wins in 5-sets as Camille Sherrill had 29 kills in this one. I know we have some UWP dads reading. Feel free to comment if there are any injuries going on. Your teams has been very up and down so it has to be frustrating.

In another game to watch, Chris Newport takes down NYU in 5-sets. I guess I was pretty good in my picks today. Alyssa Dozier with 4 solos and 10 total blocks. She also hit 0.310. In the battle for Ohio, Wesleyan takes down Northern in 5-sets.

Carnegie Mellon beat Ithaca in 4-sets and I know those matches at CMU this weekend are going to just frustrate me when it comes time to do the Top 25. Juniata gets the sweep over Transy. Their consecutive wins streak stands at 1.

Oh. Gettysburg takes down William Smith in 3 sets although all were close. I would have agreed with this preseason but recent results were telling me a different outcome was coming. Scranton surprises Salisbury winning in 5-sets. Tufts won their two matches today. They will continue to have a high NPI.

I also streamed a tad bit of the Chicago/ULV match. ULV won in 4-sets taking all three matches in Oshkosh. They move to 9-0 and will be either the first or second team in the nation this week. (Not by the AVCA…they move too slow for something like that.) Chicago just with too many errors although ULV blocked a ton in this one. Nice match from Valerie Gallegos who had 9 kills, hit 0.533 and had 4 aces. She also contributed 3 total blocks.

Coe gave St Benedict their first loss on the year in a relatively easy sweep. They are playing Gust Adolphus right now and I think it’s 1-1.

Caltech took another loss in their tournament in Iowa. Dang. Glad they did this, however. Otterbein is up to 9-0 and are playing right now. Marietta beat CWRU and look to be close to winning their second match of the day, too. Williams moved to 7-0 and will soon be 8-0. They have not dropped a set but really haven’t played anyone. What a waste.

W&L moves to 9-0 with a sweep over F&M. Two of the sets were close. Impressive win for the Generals.

Mary Washington gets their second win of the season beating Marymount. Sarah Starling with 8 kills and hitting 0.412 in this one. Springfield hands Trinity (CT) their first loss although it took 5-sets to get it done.

Wesleyan (CT) with a nice win over Swarthmore in 4-sets. That’s their best win of the season as they are undefeated.

McMurry comes back from that earlier loss to be 8-win Huntingdon. Carli Colbert misses out on the triple-double by 1 kill and 3 digs. This was just a 3-set match. Impressive.

CC couldn’t get the double as they are swept by Carthage. Carthage has one loss on the year and that was to WashU. Their best wins are today against CC and UWP.

I’m finally down to that JHU/MIT match which the Blue Jays won in a sweep. Simone Adam with 12 kills hitting 0.344 from the pin. She also had 3 aces and 9 digs. That was the first loss for MIT. Cortland beat Middlebury in 4-sets as the Panthers are struggling at the Scranton Tournament. They will get Salisbury shortly. Methodist just got beat up by the Baptists today. They lost to both HSU and UMHB.

WashU was able to sweep Hendrix. Bummer. Oshkosh is taking on Hope right now and are up 2-0. Bad timing for Hope to get UWO after they lost last night. They had to be motivated. With a loss, Hope will move to 4-4 on the season although they are playing a really difficult schedule. Of course, we know what NPI thinks of difficult schedules…nothing.

Shout out to UW-Stevens Point who seems to be playing better of late. They are 7 of their last 8 with that loss being in 5-sets to WashU. Their best win is probably Calvin. Caltech lost their fourth match of the weekend. Dang.

Another “Whoa” Alert. I didn’t think Whitworth was going to win a match at the Trinity Tournament this weekend but they beat Northwestern, took a set from ETBU and then beat the hosts! 20 kills for both Alyssa Baird and Amblessed Okemgbo. Whitworth had more kills as a team than Trinity. A big blocking day for both teams. I’m really shocked by this result. Trinity still has ETBU tonight. That will be two very motivated teams. (ETBU is playing NW right now up 1-0.)

A number of matches are on-going right now. Montclair St and NYU are 1-1. MIT is leading big in the first set against Ithaca. Emory and Berry are even in set one.

Starting watching the St Thomas/Southwestern match. UST up 1-0 and leading in the second. Southwestern looks bad here so credit to UST for making that happen. Hard to win when your pins are negative. The UST blocking has taken a toll. Remember, they are undefeated but this would probably be their best win.

Oshkosh ended up getting the sweep of Hope. They are playing Chicago right now. Both St John Fisher and Lynchburg only have one loss. Great for them. ETBU ended up getting the sweep of Northwestern. Last two sets were 2 pointers. Interesting because Mosley hit negative in this one but she was picked up by Anita Hancock and Lara Hornsby who combined for 27 kills. A number of these top teams have that one elite player but when they go south they get in trouble. ETBU has some depth.

Gust Adolphus beat Coe College in 4-sets. They only have one loss on the year and that was to my Pirates.

Millsaps got the sweep of Lyon. That moves Millsaps to 9-4. Belhaven had an easy time with Centenary getting the sweep. Wesleyan (CT) got their second win of the day keeping them undefeated. NYU won their match against Montclair St in 4-sets.

Back at St Thomas, Southwestern has come back and have a set point. This game was 18-13 at one point but Southwestern gets the point and evens up the match. Did I jinx UST? That would be a shame. No worries…St Thomas can’t possibly lose this match. No way. In all seriousness, one thing UST is doing really well with is cupping their hitters. SU is sending back a lot of balls but they just get picked up by the Celts. In that 27 point set, SU had 20 Points while UST had 19 Points. Lots of defense going on and, as it seems it always does, errors are going to decide this. Well, what I mean is that St Thomas is winning this match.

Oh and this St Thomas announcer always pronounces Annika Flora as A-Neka. What is up with that?

Vassar moves to 7-1 with their loss being to Smith. They haven’t dropped a set otherwise. My daughter almost went there so I always follow them. Good to see they are doing well, but they do need better wins.

Ithaca is now up 2-1 on MIT after that large first set win by the Engineers. Ithaca leads in the fourth set. Berry took the first two sets against Emory. Interesting. Salisbury and Middlebury are 1-1 right now while Oshkosh took set one against Chicago. Back at St Thomas, they are destroying SU early in the third set.

Per our reporter in the field, Ithaca beats MIT 3-1. MIT losing two matches in a day is unusual. Still, good group of teams at this tournament so understandable.

That 7-1 lead by UST was almost immediately erased after I wrote about it. There is something powerful going on here with the site today. Let me try this. In no way should anyone give me a million dollars today.

Southwestern is up 20-18 right now. Every set for the Pirates needs to go to their middles. They have a combined 25 swings with 13 kills and no errors.

I will say that the up referee in this UST/SU match is pretty bad. Not much help from the others, too. Bad for both teams. Statistically, UST was the better team in this set, but SU wins it and goes up 2-1. Tatum Ahrens with the last two kills to finish the set. After my suggestion that the middles should get every ball, they got one.

Oshkosh is rolling over Chicago and will get the sweep shortly. I guess they didn’t appreciate that La Verne loss? ONU takes the first set against Juniata. Can they stop their streak of one? Juniata last lost two matches in a season back in 2021. You have to go to 2019 to find a time they lost more than two.

Babson takes set one against undefeated Colby. This would be a surprising result. I’ve talked a lot about SU but UST is fun to watch (except when they are playing my team). Alexis Bodunrin just always seems to want to hit the snot out of the ball. She’s having a great match so far.

UST up 14-8 on SU. Looks like they have this set wrapped up and it will go to a fifth.

Well…the magic is gone. UST gives SU a kicking in set four and we will go to a fifth. UST hit 0.371 in that set. Only 8 kills for SU.

Transy swept Ohio Wesleyan while Salisbury beat Middlebury in 4-sets.

Cal Lutheran swept Linfield to move to 6-1. Kennedy Smith with 11 kills and hitting 0.500 for the match.

May be time to take Rose-Hulman seriously, folks. They sweep Denison to go to 10-0. Whitewater also moved to 10-0 after a 4-set win over St Kate.

Well…Southwestern wins in 5-sets. That was not easy. Great defense from both teams. Statistically, a really even match. The comeback in set two for SU was huge as this really seemed like a match that UST should win. UST had 79 Points while SU had 76.5 Points. Towards the end, Emily Marks and Tatum Ahrens started to get more efficient. Lily McWhorter, however, was the most efficient at 0.562 on just 16 swings. From UST, Alexis Bodunrin was excellent. Maybe the best on the floor for either side with 23 kills hitting 0.311 from the pin. Barnes, Willis and Davis all had 12 kills for UST, too. I thought both liberos played great today, too.

The big match going on is ETBU at Trinity. They are 1-1 right now. Carnegie Mellon is about to go up 2-0 on JHU in a tournament where everyone just beats everyone.

Puget Sound beat Redlands earlier. Maddie Badger had a nice match with 18 kills hitting 0.500.

ONU ended up NOT beating Juniata as their win streak moves to two.

Big comeback for ETBU as Trinity gifted some points at the end giving ETBU a chance which they cashed in. A lot of emotion from the ETBU side in this one. They are up 2-1. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but somebody needs to check when the last time MIT and Trinity lost 2 matches in the same day. Heck, factor in the Juniata loss into that. Ever?

Trinity/ETBU tied at 11-11 and then it all just fell apart for the Tigers…uh…the Trinity Tigers. Set four ends 25-15 and ETBU gets their first ever win over Trinity. Graycee Mosley with 19 kills but Anita Hancock with 14 hitting 0.684. Lara Hornsby started putting it down late which made a big impact. Reagan Whatley with 14 kills for Trinity.

Tuned into JHU and CMU. It’s in the fifth set. CMU gets the turn at 8-3. Everything going right for them currently.

It’s now 12-3 Carnegie Mellon and JHU uses a timeout. Turn out the lights, folks.

Now it’s 14-3 and then JHU runs off 3 points “forcing” a timeout by CMU.

Game over. CMU with the upset as they take set five 15-6. CMU hits 0.533 that set while JHU hit zero. Great match that didn’t end well.

I’ll take a look at some of the later matches and then wrap it up. The late match is UC Santa Cruz at Cal Lutheran. I’m confident someone will win that match.

Just finishing was a Linfield sweep over Chapman. Another surprising result. Linfield led by Nora Myre who had 13 kills hitting 0.367 with 12 digs. UMHB had a pretty easy time of it sweeping LeTourneau. Baylee Mobley had 8 kills and 4 aces in this one. CMS beat UC Santa Cruz in 4-sets. The Slugs took a close first set and then CMS cruised. Brooke McKee with 15 kills while Phoebe Shorney chipped in 10.

UW-Eau Claire went to 10-1. Their only loss was to ETBU in 5-sets. Howard Payne beat Austin College in 4-sets. HPU was led by Tara Bennett with 18 kills and 18 digs. Virginia Wesleyan moved to 11-0 this weekend. Their best win is probably Westminster (MO) who are 11-4. Maybe not enough for me to rank but a number of teams lost this week.

Alright, I’ll start looking at the Top 25 and get my thoughts around the Wrap-Up. I’ll actually be travelling next week so I need to get my ducks in a row before I leave.

Some matches that I forgot to update that I came across while herding ducks. Berry beat Emory in 4-sets. Nicely done. Lura Underwood and Madie Whitehead combined for 25 kills. Emory committed 31 attack errors while Berry just had 14. That’s hard to overcome. Colby needed the reverse sweep to beat Babson. The St Norbert/UW-Superior match is listed as a tie in the NCAA database. I’m sure the Latvians will love to see that. (UW-Superior actually won that match.)

Holy crud, Otterbein lost to Hanover in 5-sets. Otter won the first two and then drop the next two by 2 points each. Then lose the 5th pretty handily for the reverse sweep. Hanover is 7-4 with losses to W&L, Alleghany, Centre and Albion. Some good teams but what to do with Otter now?

Random Thoughts:

8 am for La Verne and Hope, I guess. I have QPR playing Wrexham at 9 am and I will not miss that so two screens needed. I’ll be down a few hours starting around 11 am. So many good matches going off around that time. My problem is that there is just one of me and so many that need me.

With the Juniata loss, does that break the mystique? Do other teams play more relaxed? Or does it take pressure off of JC to know that they don’t have to be perfect? They get Transy and Ohio Northern today and they should be favored in both. With that said, both of those teams will play them really tough.

ASC matches of note:

Northwestern vs ETBU 1:15 pm
ETBU at Trinity 5 pm (mentioned above)

There are a number of good matches at UMHB but those are the two big ones.

C2C matches of note:

Chris Newport at NYU 10 am (mentioned above)
Salisbury vs Scranton 10 am
Salisbury vs Middlebury 3 pm
UC Santa Cruz vs CMS 6 pm
UC Santa Cruz vs Cal Lutheran 9 pm

Did you know that the daughter of the head coach at CMS (Kurt Vlasich) will be attending and playing for UC Santa Cruz next season? This may be the last time in 4-years that he can take joy out of win (if they can get it).

NWC matches of note:

Whitworth at Trinity 1 pm
Puget Sound vs Redlands 4 pm

Great insight into two of the better teams in the NWC.

SAA matches of note:

Austin College vs Southwestern 10 am
Southwestern at St Thomas 2:30 pm
Emory at Berry 2:30 pm (mentioned above)
Rhodes vs North Central 4 pm
ETBU at Trinity 5 pm (mentioned above)

North Central only has 2 losses. Both of those SU matches will be tough but both required to keep an at-large in their grasp. St Thomas is still undefeated! Austin College is still a bit psycho.

SCAC matches of note: