Thurday Musings

I really fretted over my preseason All-Region team so I wanted to go back and look at their first week’s performance to see if there are any red flags. In the process, I also looked at other players from those teams that did well and then spot checked some of the teams that were a bit of a surprise.

I don’t want to do a rundown of each player and for the most part the players I thought were the elite of the West Region performed as such but there were two players that didn’t see the court. Despite the great weekend by Colorado College, maybe the best outside hitter in the region (Jordan Mullen) didn’t play a set. Word on the street is that she has a slight injury but there is hope she will be back shortly. As I’ve mentioned before, my freshman of the year pick and honorable mention All-Region Melanie Williams (CMS) was injured in a practice prior to the weekend and didn’t play. Another player, Sara Mullens (Trinity), made my honorable mention team as a libero but appears to only be playing DS at this time. She still did great but the statistics I was expecting will be cut in half if this continues.

Going back to Colorado College, they are just so frigging deep. Another preseason All-Region player was Aria Dudley who I think is one of the best right sides in the west. Well, she did fine this weekend but only played 10 of the 14 sets and her statistics weren’t flashy. Have no fear with the Tigers, however, as they just roll out Haley Harris and Margo Speathling who do great and then pull a freshman OH off their bench in Isabella Vasquez who gets 14 kills against St. Thomas. Just impressive.

Some notes on what I did find with the preseason All-Region team:

• Dylan Brinkman (UTD) who was out all last year had 21.5 points and 20 digs in their 2 matches. Good to see!

• Lizzy Counts (Colorado College) is just plain old Lizzy as she picks up 8 kills and 118 assists with 30 digs. Although I bet she was happiest being part of 8 blocks.

• Miranda Klein has moved from right side only to right side/setter as she picked up 12 kills and 30 assists over 2 matches.

• Playing perhaps the toughest schedule, Trinity’s Madeline McKay had 61 points on 55 kills in 4 matches.

• The Whittier outsides (Makenzie Thieme and Ashley Whittall) racked up the points but looking at the team’s statistics, they really need to get more from their middles and right side players. (See below.)

Some players that maybe should have been on my preseason All-Region team:

• UTD Jillian Via had 27 points over 2 matches. The outsides are really good for this team.

• I mentioned this in my Match Day write-ups but Chapman has two outstanding freshmen in Jessi Lumsden (62 points on 53 kills over 5 matches) and Sophie Srivastava (45 points on 34 kills with 81 assists). Sophie can also just hurt people with her kills…great height mixed with a great swing and power.

• Pacific Lutheran is also very deep in addition to my picks of Makenzie Harris and Caylie Shiramizu. Over the weekend, Isabella Zubrod embraced her new role as a RS/S with 40.5 points on 32 kills with 44 assist. Chloe Epker also had 38.5 points on 26 kills as if they needed more firepower on that team. Oh, and PLU is currently 4^th in the nation in blocks/set.

• Two teams that intrigued me with their performance over the weekend were Redlands and Lewis & Clark. Redlands are 21^st in the nation in blocks/set and were led by Sofia Olsson who had 38.5 points with 19 total blocks. L&C were led by Kortney Meyer who had 38 points in 3 matches with 32 kills and 11 total blocks.

• I’m really regretting leaving off Corinne Novak (UMHB) as she is 15^th in the nation in points/set right now.

• Whitworth was led by Jessica Schmautz who is 45^th nationally in points/set and Erin White who is 5^th nationally in total assists.

• I have to mention Cal Lutheran and Amanda Roberts who had 47 points on 43 kills. Sarah Hein had 46.5 points on 40 kills. Great weekend by the team and these players specifically.

• Avery Tuggle (Trinity) really impressed me at the Southwestern Regional last year and she starts the year off great with 66.5 points on 53 kills and 11 aces! Katrina Lieberman is running a 5-1 and is 7^th in the nation in total assists.

• I’ll finish with CMS who were led by Amanda Walker and Phoebe Madsen. Walker ended the weekend with 72.5 points on 65 kills and 9 total blocks. Phoebe Madsen was forced into a hitting role after running a 5-1 and came away with 43.5 points on 30 kills with 131 assists. I did chuckle towards the end of their Brandeis 5-set match as she looked exhausted in her new all-everything role.

There is a lot of talent there and still a lot more I missed so there was really no way to nail down the All-Region selections before anyone played. It’s just that I have the courage to try and I think that should be celebrated. (Anyone buying that?)

More on Whittier, but first a general statement about the coaches I’ve encountered and the people who run our four conferences in the West; to a person they have all been exceptionally nice and accommodating to me and this little website. Specifically, with Whittier, I was annoyed I couldn’t access Emory’s feed of their match. So, Whittier’s coach sends me the link to the video they shot. What a great community!

The reason I wanted to see Whittier’s games was because the box scores sort of suggested they were out-of-system a lot, which meant lots of sets to the outsides. What I saw in the games I watched is that, outside of Thieme and (most of the time) Whittall, they just struggle to terminate the rallies. Lots of long rallies, which really get to be 50/50 chances are the result and lots of swings by the two outsides. Even in the match they won last weekend they were outhit. If they can improve that hitting percentage they are good to go. (Of course, the same can be said for every team in the nation.)

Nice segue into this little blurb. Loyal readers know that the national champion has to be in the Top 10 of hitting percentage as a team in order to win. With one weekend in the books, the only West Region team in the Top 10 is UMHB as they are hitting .294. Congratulations to the Cru! Everyone else can just go home now.

One thing to watch for in hitting percentage is that I believe JWU (RI) will again lead this category at the end of the year because they are a very good team that plays not so good teams a lot of the time. After a competitive weekend, however, they sit 24^th at .266. This is actually a really good percentage and shows the quality of their team, but it will probably be their low point for the year.

Remember to check out the Tournament Page that has links to the tournament pages if you get into a bind and don’t want to look at the Match Day schedule.

Remember that I often comment on the matches as they are being played so check back to the Match Day pages if you are into that at all. On the flip side, I’m going to the TCU/SMU football game Friday so probably not a lot of updates. (For those that care, I married a frog but sired a pony.)

Finally, there is “Ned” from New England. You might remember that he commented that he wanted to create a new statistic called “Quality Wins”. After the first weekend, here is what he wrote:

Here are the Quality Win points for the first weekend (8/31-9/2). Only listing the schools with positive points. (rules: +4 = win vs Pablo 1-25, +3 = win vs Pablo 26-50, +2 = win vs Pablo 51-75, +1 = win vs Pablo 76-100, -1 = loss vs Pablo >100)

SCAC Trinity (TX) 11 Col College 4 Southwestern 1

SCIAC Cal Lu 9 CMS 8 La Verne 4 Chapman 1

ASW TX-Tyler 7 MHB 3 TX-Dallas 3 McMurray 2

NWC Pac Lu 6 George Fox 1 Whitworth 1

Not too bad. It sort of highlights the lack of competition the NWC faced in week 1 as a number of their teams finished undefeated but still no positive Quality Win totals. We’ll know more about the NWC after this weekend. Trinity looks to have played the toughest schedule with the most success and that will continue this weekend at their tournament. (Well, the toughest part of that will continue…jury is out on the success part until Sunday.)