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Thursday, Sept 1 Match Day!
It appears the Caltech/Providence Christian match for tonight has been postponed.
A password is required for UMHB now? Gawd! Annoying! Convincing 3-set win for UMHB as they used their entire roster, it seems. I don’t see Hannah Frasca in the boxscore!?! That is a problem long-term if that is an injury. UMHB looks like they are running just one setter (Sydney Bowen). I approve of all setters named Sydney.
Schreiner up 2-0 on HPU. Individual stats look backwards, which is common early in the year. Makes for some wicked boxscores. Austin College up 1-0 on Paul Quinn.
Schreiner with the sweep. Austin with the sweep.
First of many Southwestern updates for the year; SU takes set one 25-17. Great defense from both teams in this one. Late run for SU is the difference.
Liberos are awesome in this one. Harrop for GFU and Nedrow for SU. 25-13 for SU in set two. My Pirates are looking good against a good opponent.
Stout and TLU 1-1. Both sets by 2 points.
I missed the LeTourneau / Belhaven match. LETU with the sweep. Sorry about that.
SU 25-20 and they get the sweep.
I forgot how hard updates are when you are sitting in a gym. Oh well. I’m back at the hotel and ready to learn something about our young volleyball season.
HPU were swept twice today so not a great sign moving forward. Schreiner looked good (via the boxscore). Scored 56 points with Jacquelyn Sotello scoring 15 on 0.538 hitting.
I am concerned about Concordia. I was pumping them up but Augsburg came in to their home and took them down in 4 sets. I look forward to seeing Augsburg tomorrow in person.
Not a huge surprise but a little bit of one as ETBU takes down St Thomas away 3-1. Live stats looked stuck so boxscore will be late. Scorers often forget to close out the matches early in the season.
UMHB beat Schreiner, which isn’t surprising, but it took 4 sets. In addition, Schreiner had more points for the match 64 to 59 so this wasn’t a push over match. Good news for Schreiner and interesting news for UMHB.
TLU won 3-1 over UW-Stout after dropping the first set. Maddy Schultz had 21 points for the Bulldogs.
As mentioned above, Southwestern swept George Fox and looked good doing it. The SU defense was really good and they just had more firepower than GFU. Loved the play of Piper Harrop (GFU) but the entire team hustled. Christina Kuras led the Pirates with 14.5 points. After the match, reports are she said she did it for me. This remains unconfirmed.
I want to check out some video but I enjoyed the Southwestern match. I think Augsburg’s performance is intriguing and they looked to have improved. We shall know more tomorrow.
All of the Top 25 teams won tonight in sweeps.
Top 25 Matches
Random Thoughts: Welcome to the 2022 Volleyball Season!!!!!!
First off, as I type this on Tuesday, there are not a lot of links and I’m sure that half of what I do have will be wrong. The people putting this stuff together are always late and always slow to figure out their streaming arrangements. I will attempt to update all of the links and hopefully you are reading this thinking I’m mad because all of the links are in and working. If all else fails, I believe the ASC and SCAC are using PrestoSports while the NWC and SCIAC are using Hudl. I embedded their conference links so you can always play around there if looking for a match. Remember, that a lot of smart TVs (and Roku) have apps that will get you to these conference links so you can watch directly on your TV.
Second off, some of the match times are going to be wrong. Time zones confuse people. It’s as simple as that. Colorado College (Mountain) really freaks people out. I did my best, but I’m the guy who called my best friend in Texas from Lake Tahoe at midnight thinking it was only 10 pm in Texas. Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. All of this will get worked out as we move along the year…except for the Mountain time zone. There is just no fixing that and don’t get me started on Arizona. Thank God we don’t have a DIII team in that state!
Third off, I did athlete pictures last year as a banner for the first time but it was a lot of work. I don’t think I’ll do that this year. Maybe just this picture or maybe no picture. We shall see.
I will attempt to add thoughts during the day at the top but I will be at Southwestern for their tournament and it’s always tougher to watch other matches from a gym. This means there will be a lot of Southwestern comments this weekend! If you are also at the matches, come say hello. I’m tall, goofy looking and should be wearing a yellow Southwestern cap. My (hot) wife should also be there and you are, of course, allowed to refer to her as the “hot wife”. You can also tell her how lucky she is to be married to me as she really enjoys hearing that. I may be the only one masked but don’t let that stop you. Still waiting on my immune system to kick in fully. It should be interesting to see if my (hot) wife allows me to sit closer to the crowds this year or not. I will be disappointed if I can’t heckle Zach (UTD). I mean I’ll still do it from the back corner of the gym, but he won’t be able to hear me.
Enough of all of that! Let’s take a look at the matches!
I don’t anticipate UMHB having any problems with either Howard Payne or Schreiner today but still interesting to see how they do.
I have no clue on the HPU/Schreiner match. I think Schreiner returns more talent and they still have Kayla Lofland so I give them the edge in this one.
The Augsburg/Concordia match is part of the Southwestern Tournament but it’s being played at Concordia. Augsburg had some graduation losses this year coming off a 15 win season if memory holds but are typically a good program. Concordia scares me but rumor has it that Southwestern scrimmaged them and handled them well. I say rumor because the video didn’t work. Still, it should be an interesting result and I’m taking Concordia in this one.
St Thomas hosts a tournament with teams that should be evenly matched. Their ETBU match should be a good one and a good indication of strength between the ASC and SCAC. Give me St Thomas in this one.
The UW-Stout/TLU match is interesting because TLU is playing in the Trinity Tournament today but then driving over to play in the St Thomas Tournament the rest of the time. I think TLU should be pretty good this year so I’m going with the Bulldogs. Yes, my UW-Stout knowledge is very limited.
I’m looking forward to the GFU/Southwestern match for my first look at my granddaughters in 2022. I do have one issue because they have Annika Flora now who I’ve known for 6-years and who I’ve recruited the entire time (and was my pepper partner) so she’s really my daughter. I hope the others won’t be jealous and Coach Flora approves although who needs his approval to adopt his daughter? As for the match, I really like GFU this year but Southwestern should win this. Better win this. DON’T LOSE THIS!
The rest of the matches are Region X teams playing non-DIII programs and it’s hard enough to keep up with DIII so no real thoughts there.
Big slate of matches the next two days. Today is sort of the appetizer to a wonderful meal. Enjoy it but partake carefully so you don’t fill up.
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