St. Scholastica claims its first ‘upset’ victim

St. Scholastica opened the season with a road sweep (20, 19, 17) over No. 16 St. Olaf today in one of my top five matches of the week. Some will call it an upset. I won’t.

I had St. Scholastica among my top 30 teams. With St. Olaf heading into the post-Prunty/Smisek (All-America setter Kelly/All-America outside Kim) era, the Oles didn’t make my top 30. Even with those two, this could have been a decent match. I really think St. Scholastica can be that good. I get it. It’s one match, right? True, but I’m a believer in these Saints even though they eked by Carleton in five earlier in the day.

St. Scholastica out-hit St. Olaf .256 to .053. Junior outside Paige Hardy paced CSS with 11 kills. Junior outside Anna Zyvoloski added 10 kills and 10 digs for the Saints.

If last season was my year to promote unranked UW-Platteville and Wartburg, this season those teams could be CSS, Millikin and Elmhurst (and Chicago, if the Maroons fall from the top 25). You’ve been forewarned.

I won’t have time to update the first day’s action, including box score links and whatnot, until the wee hours of the morning. But we’re off and running.

I can’t get to a gym until next weekend when I’ll see UW Oshkosh, Elmhurst and UW-Stevens Point. I’ll be watching feeds and live stats in the meantime, but please share your opinions on what you’re seeing.

-Ricky Nelson