Weekly Wrap-Up (10/31/21)

We’ve got matches going on today in that annoying SCAC so some information in this article could change based on those results. As a reminder of all of the good content that you may have missed, here is the gold from this past week. We had the D3VbWest Top 25and a preview of the Region X Rankings on Monday. The AVCA came out with the Top 25 on Tuesday. Wednesday, we have Players of the Week, Region Leaders and Points/Set Standings. We also saw the release of the Regional Rankings that day. Thursday, I did a podcastwhere I simulated the selection of the 20 at-large teams. I always enjoy doing this stuff and this all leads to both Ricky Nelson and myself trying to predict the actual at-large teams in just one week’s time! We also have a bunch of Match Days with a sprinkling of gold in some of them but probably not worth you mining for it.

Alright, now for the portion of the Wrap-Up where I get to riff.

I had a parent let me know that Caltech only allows people on campus that have been vaccinated. This has caused some problems in volleyball because not all opposing players are vaccinated so teams coming in, at times, have had to play with less than their full squad. I reached out to a coach from that conference and asked when that rule was put in place and they said all year. I’m really torn on this because I’m someone who is immune compromised and who’s desperate desire is for everyone to be vaccinated. I can’t live a normal life until the virus is eradicated. On the flip side, even if teams knew about the rule at the start of the season, it does give an advantage to Caltech in their home matches. I know in the last two home matches, the visiting team had to leave their best players at home. What do the visiting teams think of this? Here is what was in the Cal Lutheran recap of the match until it was removed:

“Due to unique circumstances at Caltech, the California Lutheran University volleyball team wasn’t able to travel its full team because of COVID protocols. The Beavers’ COVID protocols created unusual challenges for the Regals, causing them to fall in three sets.”

I can certainly see why it was removed but I can also understand the frustration that caused it. There is no perfect solution here but it’s one heck of a home court advantage for Caltech.

In other news regarding the C-Word, my son came down with it this week. I had seen him on the Friday before but we’re always very careful. He was a teacher so it was just a matter of time for him despite being vaccinated. (I say “was” because he was let go this week because he wouldn’t sign a contract after he was hired that reduced his pay and required him to pay $5,000 if he left before 2-years. In a related note, don’t send your kids to Universal Academy in the Coppell ISD.)

Last C-Word update. Lewis & Clark had a rough weekend but you have to remember that they were just hit by the virus and it just shows you how it can impact a team. Same thing happened with McMurry and Chapman. It takes a bit to get back in the flow (let alone the gym for practices). Just happy they were able to make it back and continued best wishes to those student-athletes impacted.

Shout out to LeTourneau’s Natalie Connelly who broke her school’s record for block assists this week.

I mentioned a few Wrap-Ups ago that the AVCA was asking for All-Region selections a week early, which means that the conferences have to have their inputs in a week early (before the season is over). Well, that happened this past week (and we should see some of the conferences announce their awards this upcoming week). I was also told that the AVCA is limiting Freshman of the Year to true first-year students. The SCIAC didn’t play in 2020 but those sophomores will not be eligible despite this being their first-year of play. Seems like the AVCA could have implemented a Newcomer of the Year for 2021 and solved this issue.

I don’t do conference awards (only All-Region) but let me take a stab at Player of the Year for all four conferences. I’m a big believer that the player probably needs to come from the conference regular season winner or another top team, if one exists. I should also point out that the conference awards are done based only on conference statistics but I don’t have easy access to that.

• ASC: Hannah Frasca (UMHB)

• NWC: Maddie Lee (Whitworth)

• SCAC: Georgia Mullins (Colorado College)

• SCIAC: Jenna Holmes (CMS) & Jessi Lumsden (Chapman)

Hannah Frasca is a 6-rotation outside that leads the conference in Attacks/Set. She is 6^th in Digs/Set behind a number of liberos. Frasca is also 6^th in Kills/Set and 5^th in Points/Set. Her defense is the deciding factor her for me. Other players considered were Kayla Jaikula (UMHB), Alli Pierce (UMHB), Annika Canaba (Sul Ross State) and Sarah Ghormley (Concordia).

Maddie Lee is another 6-rotation outside that is 3^rd in Attacks/Set while being 1^st in Kills/Set and Points/Set in the conference. She was the primary force behind the Whitworth Pirates title effort. Other players considered were Kaity Barr (Whitworth), Emily Dulaney (PLU) and Halle Hetzler (PLU).

Georgia Mullins is a middle blocker who is now also playing backrow. She is 1^st in Blocks/Set, Hitting Percentage and Points/Set in the conference. She is second in Kills/Set and has 157 digs as of this writing. Other players considered were Annie Rose Leggett (Trinity), Avery Tuggle (Trinity), Jenny Jenks (Colorado College), Isabella Vasquez (Colorado College), Isabella Lipacis (Colorado College) and Emma White (Southwestern).

By far the most difficult choice so I cheated. Jenna Holmes is the offensive leader on the top team in the conference (not to mention one of the top teams in the nation). She is 8^th in Hitting Percentage (as an outside), 2^nd in Points/Set and 2^nd in Kills/Set. One problem Holmes will have winning the award is that CMS doesn’t play as many sets as the rest of the conference because they basically swept everyone. Jessi Lumsden leads the conference in Attacks/Set, Kills/Set and Points/Set. She also has more digs than Holmes. Either would be a good choice. Others considered were Melanie Williams (CMS), Lauren Asato (Pomona-Pitzer), Chloe Gill (Pomona-Pitzer), Catherine Helgeson (Chapman), Sophie Srivastava (Chapman) and Maci Haddad (Cal Lutheran).

If I get two of those right, I’ll feel good about myself. It was hard not to give the award to a Trinity player but Mullins is just silly good and Trinity has so much talent they spread the ball around, which hurts for individual awards.

Speaking of awards, I’ll be creating a 2021 Awards page on the left side (or pulldown) like I have done in the past. I don’t like losing history.

Sul Ross State had to cancel their match with UTD on Saturday due to travel issues. The result was a “no contest” and not a forfeit, which would have occurred if the cancellation was due to the C-Word. This meant they were assured of not finishing 6^th. I think I wrote this incorrectly in the Match Day, but I’d rather have the 3^rd or 6^th seed in the ASC because it puts me on the UTD side of the bracket. Despite UMHB’s “struggles”, they will be very hard to beat at home in the tournament.

Here is a summary of the conference tournaments. I’ll probably do an article on all of this next week.

ASC Tournament

Seeding:

1. Mary Hardin-Baylor

2. UT-Dallas

3. LeTourneau

4. ETBU

5. Sul Ross State

6. Concordia

First two seeds get a bye. The tournament is hosted at UMHB.

NWC

No tournament, but Whitworth clinched their title and the automatic qualifier last night. Congratulations to the Pirates!

SCAC Tournament

Seeding:

1. Trinity

2. Colorado College

3. Southwestern

4. TLU

5. Austin College

6. St Thomas

First two seeds get a bye. Tournament is hosted by Trinity.

SCIAC Tournament

Seeding:

1. CMS

2. Pomona-Pitzer

3. Chapman

4. Cal Lutheran

First two teams host their match. Highest remaining seed will host the finals.

The DIII President’s Council supported three proposals this week in preparation of the 2022 NCAA Convention. The first deals with the small number of DIII schools that also have a DI sport. The proposal would allow these schools to apply all DI legislation to these DI sports. The next proposal would redefine what is a season for a student-athlete. A student-athlete would only be charged with a season of eligibility if the student-athlete competes at any point during the traditional season. The third supported using the NCAA Eligibility Center in certifying the amateur status of international student-athletes to provide more consistency and efficiency to the certification process.

The Selection Criteria has Ranked Results but the input to this is always a delayed because it relies on the previous rankings. Here is an update on the results for the Region X teams:

1. Chapman 1-8 (Last week’s record 1-6)

Win; Pomona-Pitzer

Losses; Whitworth, UCSC, Northwestern, Southwestern, Trinity, CMS (twice), Pomona-Pitzer

• CMS 8-1 (8-1)

Wins; UCSC, WashU, Trinity, Emory, Pomona-Pitzer (twice), Hope, Ohio Northern

Loss; Calvin

• Colorado College 6-3 (7-3)

Wins; Randolph-Macon, Ithaca, Susquehanna, Southwestern (twice), UCSC

Losses; Johns Hopkins, Trinity (twice)

• Pomona-Pitzer 1-4 (1-4)

Win; Whitworth

Losses; UCSC (twice), CMS (twice)

• Southwestern 2-4 (3-3)

Wins; Aurora, Carnegie Mellon

Losses; Colorado College (twice), Trinity (twice)

• Trinity 10-2 (10-2)

Wins; Whitworth, Emory, Northwestern, Colorado College (twice), Endicott, Babson, MIT, Southwestern (twice)

Losses; CMS, Tufts

• Whitworth 0-2 (1-2)

Win; None

Losses; Trinity, Pomona-Pitzer

• Mary Hardin-Baylor 1-0 (1-0)

Win; Birmingham-Southern

Losses; None

I always like reporting on the Top 11 in Hitting Percentage. Remember, based on history, only the Top 11 in this statistic have a chance at the national championship. Here were the Top 11 (well, 12 because of ties) as of Thursday:

Johns Hopkins is now 27-0 and have broken the DIII record for consecutive wins (was 60). They currently sit at 62 wins going into their conference tournament. It looks like it will take the NCAA Tournament to take them down or they will just have to win the national championship again. Remember that their leader in Points/Set is Simone Bliss who has now missed the entire month due to injury. There was hope to get her back before the end of the season so something to look for there.

Natalie Klotz is still out for Willamette. Hope she can make it back for, at least, one more match before her playing career comes to an end. Still not seeing Alyssa Davis for Centenary, either.

The national triple-double race looks to be over. Ava Grapsy (Cedar Crest) picked up her 12^th this weekend while Sophie Srivastava (Chapman) is at 10. Chapman qualified for the SCIAC Tournament but it means getting a triple-double in both matches. Annika Canaba (Sul Ross State) is at 8 after the weekend. She will also get a chance to increase this number in her tournament.

Top performances from the week (Doesn’t include today’s matches):

• Sydney Fit (UT-Dallas) had 27 assists in a sweep of ETBU while running a 6-2. Izzy Sundquist did the same thing in a sweep of Howard Payne.

• Sophie Srivastava (Chapman) had a triple-double in their 5-set loss to CMS.

• Annika Canaba (Sul Ross State) had 23 kills and a triple-double in their 4-set loss to LeTourneau.

• Maddie Lee (Whitworth) had 18 kills in their sweep of Puget Sound.

• Della Trimble (Whittier) had 34 assists in their sweep of Occidental.

• Sydney Takauye (Occidental) had 23 digs in their 3-set loss to Whittier.

• Caltech had Claire Perhach get 16 kills and Megan Wang get 22 digs in their sweep of Cal Lutheran.

• Peyton Sulak (TLU) had 6 service aces in their 4-set win over Austin College.

• Georgia Mullins (Colorado College) had 17 kills and 12 digs in their sweep of Austin College. Jenny Jenks had 37 assists in the same match.

• Lauren Asato (Pomona-Pitzer) had 23 digs in their sweep of Chapman.

• Emily Ellis (Trinity) comes off the bench against Southwestern and hits 0.571 with 8 kills and 8 blocks. Annoying.

• Haley Walz (Pacific) had 39 digs in their 5-set win over Linfield.

• Raelynn Hammock (Linfield) had 28 kills in their 5-set loss to Pacific.

• Really good match last night between Whitworth and PLU that gave Whitworth the NWC title in 4-sets. Maddie Lee (Whitworth) with 20 kills. Eva Millan with 34 digs. Four players with double-digit kills for PLU. Emily Dulaney with 54 assists and Halle Hetzler with 47 digs in a losing effort.

• Jenna Holmes (CMS) had 20 kills in their 4-set win over Whittier. Georgia McGovern had 37 assists running a 6-2. Dede Carranza had 33 digs in the match.

This is the point where I talk about the conferences but it’s all about the tournaments at this point so let me go in a different direction.

Almost a quarter of our student-athletes have played their last match this week or will next week and that always makes me a little sad. My family was so fortunate that in my daughter’s senior year we got to make a Final 4 run and I truly hope that happens to everyone reading this that still has a chance at the tournament. All of the senior parents know that the last 4-years (in some cases 5-years) have gone by fast. These seniors have probably been the most impacted by the C-Word in the sense that it impacted both their junior and senior seasons. For the SCIAC student-athletes, it wiped out their junior year. More importantly, there has been the health concerns hanging over everyone’s head so it had to have taken some of the joy away. In the end, these seniors are all heroes in my eyes. They battled through it all and kept playing and gave us all some normalcy in our lives. I got to go to one tournament this year and it will probably be one of the highlights to my year. I’d love to see every school consider inducting the C-Word senior classes into their Hall of Fames for what they’ve given to their schools during these difficulty times.

This coming week is going to bring some amazing joy to a select few teams and bring agony to the rest. I encourage everyone to try to stream a few of these tournament finals. After the tournaments, there will be 20 teams that will get a second chance. I hope that the National Selection Committee takes their responsibility to heart and attempts to get the 20 best remaining teams into the tournament. A week from Monday will be the Selection Show. I’ve watched four of these with an invested interest. In 2013, I got to be a little happily surprised. In 2014, I got to be crushed to a depth I didn’t think I could feel about a sporting event. In 2015 and 2016, I got to watch knowing my team was in and was just curious about seeding. My wish is that you all get to avoid the 2014 version of me.

If your team makes the NCAA Tournament, make every effort to attend. They are priceless memories regardless of the results. Think about supporting your conference (even Trinity) and region (even Trinity) during the tournament.

As for me this week, I’m a little out-of-practice. I’ll try to do some stuff on the conference tournaments. I’ve done this in the past and the links are still on the left side (or pulldown). I’ll then focus on selection. I’ve done a stream of consensus article on championship Sunday that gets updated during the day as I try to select the at-large teams and this has proven popular and I enjoy it. I don’t think I will be going down to Trinity for the SCAC Tournament but I do have reservations for the following week on the assumption we do have a Region X Regional hosted by Trinity. My (hot) wife doesn’t know about this, yet. She doesn’t read my blog so it’s her own fault, I feel. Not sure I’ll get approval but it doesn’t hurt to hold a room. I suggest you do the same and if you really want to be prepared then also do one for Claremont in case CMS hosts.

Best of luck to everyone playing in a conference tournament this weekend. Best of luck to everyone on Selection Monday next week. Do not be 2014 me!