Thursday, Sept 7 Match Day!

Update: The UMHB/Belhaven match has started. Tied early.

UMHB not having any issues. Up 2-0 after a 25-15 and 25-13 set wins.

UMHB with the sweep. Nice match by Katie Warden who had 12 kills and 13 Points.

Ugly volleyball by Southwestern as they drop the first set to Concordia. Service receive and serving are issues so far. 7 service errors!

Better effort by the good guys. Tied 1-1.

Howard Payne up 2-0 in their match.

SU takes set three and go up 2-1. HPU drop set three but lead 2-1.

Southwestern takes the fourth set 25-14 and the match 3-1. Final point was a server taking too long. Haven’t seen that in awhile. I don’t think it was by the way.

HPU wins 3-1. They almost spit up that fourth set. Big kill to finish.

Just checking the Southwestern/Concordia box. Kacy Miller (SU) comes back from missing the weekend to get 7 kills and 11 Points. Carly Berkman had 11 kills with no errors hitting 0.579 from the outside. Concordia Camryn Parker led both teams with 14 Points.

The Schreiner/Pacific match has started. Not sure I’ll be there for the end with an early day tomorrow so use the links.

Pacific takes set one. Played really well at 22 Points/Set.

Pacific still playing well but Schreiner takes set two 26-24. Very low attacking error rate for Schreiner. Points are 43 to 27 for Pacific so Pacific is having to earn everything right now. Pacific was 21 P/S in set two to 15 P/S for Schreiner. That can be discouraging to a team so we’ll see how Pacific responds.

Coach Kip (Pacific) is so laid back on the bench.

Really close match. Pacific is up 2-1.

Random Thoughts: I’ve talked about the UMHB schedule in the schedule analysis articles but here is just a weird example of not really caring about an at-large bid. UMHB is playing in a tournament this weekend and decided to take a pitstop on the way for this match. The problem is that Belhaven isn’t very good so it just kills UMHB’s strength of schedule. Worse, if UMHB were to lose this match then it’s a huge black mark. Kudos to Belhaven for getting this match scheduled but it just doesn’t make sense for UMHB. (Not to mention, it would have meant taking the team out early for the tournament and missing more class time.)

Concordia/Southwestern is usually a really good match but Concordia has struggled to start the year. Good match for Southwestern as they get ready for their tournament this weekend that they host.

Can Howard Payne go 5-0?!? I say yes!

It looks like Schreiner wanted 4 matches but didn’t want them over two days and didn’t want to stay through Sunday so we have this match as they are out there for the Oregon Trail Classic. Pacific started 0-4 so a needed match for both teams.