Weekly Wrap-Up (10/21/18)

Here’s the weekly wrap-up of the week’s events as we move into the final week of conference play for most teams. The NWC still has two weeks left as they don’t play a conference tournament. A lot to discuss but first a little D3VbWest bookkeeping.

We started the week with the D3VbWest Top 25 that saw little movement despite some important losses. The big news of the week was the first public release of the regional rankings. I decided to not only do a prediction post on the West RAC but also the entire nation. And, since I didn’t agree with all of the rankings, I did an evaluation of the regional rankings – both the West RAC and the rest of the nation. This coming week, we’ll get the first regional rankings that take into account ranked wins. It will be very interesting to see how the RACs use this criterion because it’s an opportunity to reward teams that play quality opponents but often it’s used to reward the larger regions who get to rank more teams. We’ll also know how the three conference tournaments shape up and be one week closer to selection day.

Starting with the ASC East Division and UT-Dallas has completed play and stands on top. Now, the pseudo-division championship was actually won by UT-Tyler who is ineligible for the conference title as they move to DII next year. These two teams will play on Tuesday at UT-Dallas and this may be a match that will get me and my yellow hat to make the drive. Both teams had an easy week as they made the Louisiana/Mississippi trek as part of their conference schedule and won out. UT-Dallas will travel to the WUSTL Tournament at the end of the week with an opportunity to enhance their at-large bid chances (if needed) and bring back fame and glory for the West Region. The seeding for the East is done and it will be UT-Dallas, ETBU and LeTourneau. LeTourneau has lost 8 straight and will play ETBU this week in a match I’m sure they’d like to win if simply to break their losing streak. ETBU lost to UT-Tyler this week and after the LeTourneau match will head to Hendrix to play in the Conway Classic. Louisiana College is the team on the outside for the ASC Tournament but their season has to be considered a success. In only their second season of existence they have 5 wins and 3 conference wins. Belhaven has struggled a bit this season but they get a chance to shock some teams as they also head to the WUSTL Tournament. Nothing would make me happier than to see them take down a Wartburg or a Millikin.

In the ASC West Division we also know the three teams making the ASC Tournament although the exact order isn’t determined. We have UMHB in the first seed and then Concordia and McMurry still have to figure out the rest. Hardin-Simmons will be staying home as will Sul Ross State and Howard Payne. McMurry completed the season sweep of Abilene rival Hardin-Simmons this week and most of the other matches were pretty one-sided. UMHB did go 5-sets with Austin College which had to surprise them a bit but the ‘Roos seem to have another gear they use for ranked opponents. This week, the UMHB / Trinity match has to be one of the highlights and it does have West Region ranking implications. I did want to give some love to Sul Ross State as they have completed their season and ended with 6 wins (5 in conference). For a team that was picked last in the ASC West Division, they have surprised some teams this year. Freshman Annika Canaba gets a lot of the credit for coming in and having a great season with 262 points (4.09 points/set).

As I mentioned the NWC still has two weeks to go and one of the problems with not holding a conference tournament is that the only excitement are for those teams still in the running for the title. With 4 matches left, Whitworth is leading by a match over Pacific Lutheran and has the head-to-head on them currently. Pacific and Puget Sound are both 3 matches behind and I just don’t see where they have a realistic chance at this point. This week is huge as Whitworth is away at Puget Sound and at Pacific Lutheran. Win both and they move 2 matches ahead of PLU with the tiebreaker in hand. Check mate. Even if PLU beats Whitworth they will need to do it in a sweep for tiebreaking purposes. If they do, then the Puget Sound / Pacific match on the last day of the season could determine the winner as the third tiebreaker in the NWC is best record in descending order of the standings. PLU is pulling for Puget Sound and Whitworth is pulling for Pacific. Kind of crazy but it’s that close right now. As for this past week, both Whitworth and PLU looked good as obviously both know what is at stake. Puget Sound did get swept by PLU this week and followed it up with a disappointing loss to Lewis & Clark.  They are a young team with a bright future and their success this season had to be a bit of a surprise. Speaking of Lewis & Clark, they did win both their matches this week and have 4 conference wins on the year (11-8 on the season). Not too bad for a team I had last in the NWC going into the year. In the end, Whitworth is still the biggest surprise to me as they were able to reload after losing a lot to senior graduation.

The Sunday SCAC matches have just ended. The SCAC is now tied at the top between Colorado College and Trinity. Technically, Colorado College is ahead by a half a game and they shouldn’t have a problem winning their last two matches. Trinity has a tougher go of it for their last three matches but is still expected to win them all. The SCAC tiebreakers (you can find the conference tiebreakers on the left side menu) are insanely detailed and I only wrote a portion of it down in the tiebreakers page. With that said, I think if Trinity wins out and sweep Southwestern in the process then they would win the tiebreaker because Southwestern took a game off of Colorado College. If Southwestern wins a game then I have no clue because the order of finish is not finalized, yet. If Southwestern wins 2 games then Colorado College will get the first seed in the SCAC Tournament. Clear? Yeah, me neither. As far as this past week, the big news was the Trinity / Colorado College showdown. Trinity was up 2-1 before Colorado College won the next two 25-23, 15-13. In past years getting the #1 seed was very important because the #2 seed would always face a really tough 3^rd seed. With Southwestern a little down this season it’s not as important. Speaking of Southwestern they did lock in the 3^rd seed with a 2-0 week but the next 4 teams are up in the air. TLU beat Dallas to stay alive in the tournament race while Austin College dropped matches to both Centenary and Southwestern. Dallas should end up with 7 wins and a spot in the conference tournament while Austin College, Centenary and TLU will all play each other to see which team drops out. Centenary should have an advantage because the divisional play will be hosted at their facility. At the bottom of the conference table Schreiner took bragging rights from JWU as they beat them in 5-sets to stay above them in the standings.

In other news, the box scores for the Colorado College matches of late have been interesting. Jordan Mullen made her first appearance of the year against Trinity. Talk about throwing her into the fire but she’s an important player to have healthy come tournament time. The other interesting note was that Lizzy Counts has been sidelined. I reached out to the program and found out she’s got an injury and since they have great depth at the position they haven’t rushed her back. She did play in the Trinity comeback but it will be interesting to see how things play out moving forward. We could see a 6-2 if Mullen is healthy and if Coach Swan wants to get another hitter on the floor. (Note – I just checked the Schreiner / Colorado College box scores and a 6-2 was run.)

Prior to the season, we knew the SCIAC would be one of the deeper conferences in the nation and it got even deeper with the play of Pomona-Pitzer in conference. There are 6 teams fighting for the 4 SCIAC Tournament spots and no one really wants that 4^th spot (would play at CMS). CMS leads the group after a 2-0 week and have 4 matches this week. They will play Pomona-Pitzer, Whittier and Chapman so they will have some say in who makes the tournament. Chapman got a big win against Whittier and snuck past Pomona-Pitzer and is a game up in second place. This is important because the second seed hosts a semi-final match. They have a tough ending schedule with Cal Lutheran, La Verne (away) and CMS but really just need to win one match to probably secure the 2^nd seed. Third place Pomona-Pitzer plays the same opponents (Cal Lu away) and need to get at least one match to qualify for the tournament. They really are the wildcard in this thing and every time I count them out they win a 5-set match. They beat Whittier this past week but lost to Chapman (after being up 2-0). Cal Lutheran sits third fourth a half game up and will play at Chapman and then home against Pomona-Pitzer. In a reoccurring theme they also need to win at least one match. They were looking good this past week before dropping a match to Whittier. La Verne and Whittier are both tied for 5^th with La Verne winning three straight this week while Whittier played poorly but saved their season (so far) with a victory over Cal Lutheran. Bottom line, whichever team gets hot this week will make the SCIAC Tournament and stay alive in the at-large bid game. In other news, we’ve seen how injuries have hit CMS all year but Melanie Williams is back and played in the Caltech match. I’m not sure of her role going forward but she provides a great block. Isabelle Taylor is also back and would certainly help the offense on the outside. On the flip side, it appears Melanie Moore is injured again but should be back before the SCIAC Tournament.

A quick look nationally and the big loser is probably Johns Hopkins. They are ranked 25^th by the AVCA and were 6^th in the Mid-Atlantic Region. They had some injuries to their setters but it looks like their main setter is back. Regardless, they dropped two matches to teams behind them in the regional rankings and will fall out of the at-large picture for the time being. Another Mid-Atlantic teams is Christopher Newport (#22) and they were swept by Mary Washington (one of the teams that beat Johns Hopkins). Over in New England, MIT dropped two matches to unranked teams (although I had them ranked in my predictions) Middlebury and Tufts. Springfield is another team out of New England with a rough week as they dropped three matches (Middlebury and Tufts got them, too). Tufts also took down Babson so they will get some love this week by the region. Oh, and in the South Region, my adopted Berry Vikings (#1 regionally ranked) were swept by Birmingham-Southern in a match that will help BSU greatly. (I didn’t see the match but I’m sure BSU cheated in some way.)

On a personal front, I’ve got some real life issues that seem to be scheduled to crash down the week of the NCAA Tournament. It probably means I will not make it out to the regional where ever it happens to be held. Watching the streamed matches may also prove tough. Very annoying.

That’s all that I’ve got. The final weeks just keep getting bigger and bigger until they don’t matter at all. In the end, only one team will enjoy a special off-season.