Weekly Wrap-Up (3/7/21)

Before I get to the Wrap-Up, I have some personal news to report. I’m bringing this up because I expect my ability to produce the same amount of content moving forward will be impacted as it has been this past week. In fact, there may be days where expected content doesn’t get posted. For the past couple of months, I’ve had swelling in my abdomen and it got to the point where I scheduled a doctor’s appointment. Almost immediately after making the appointment, I got a kidney stone. Went to my appointment this past Monday and was immediately sent to the emergency room because of the pain the stone was causing. The CT Scan that was ordered to locate the stone did its job but it also revealed that I most likely have lymphoma. I reached out to UT Southwestern in Dallas and found a lymphoma specialist who upon reading my report immediately got me in for more tests. To say my scan was bad is an understatement. The doctor originally complained that the report was way too dramatic. Upon seeing the imaging, he said it wasn’t dramatic enough. Per my oncologist, I’m currently 7 months pregnant as my lymph nodes have swollen to the point where everything else is being pushed to the side. More tests next week, which will determine the location of my biopsy. So, technically, not a confirmed diagnosis, yet. Following the tests come the treatment plan and I expect some wonderful times will come from that. My doctor described me as standing at the edge of a cliff but I hadn’t jumped, yet. I’m still “fixable” and there has been some great successes with lymphoma. I’m certainly not afraid of dying as I believe the real pain only comes to the ones left behind and that’s why I’ll fight this to the best of my ability. From my readers, I request two things. Please keep enjoying the content I can produce and please (always) give your children a hug. I love to write so I probably will end up documenting this story and, if I do, I’ll add it to the About Me page.

Because of the above, I didn’t watch as much volleyball as I would normally. That means the box scores have to talk to me more than my eyes. I do know that every team that is going to play in the West Region has done so with the only team having yet to play a DIII opponent being George Fox.

As always, before we get to the results, here is what was on the site this week. We had the Region Leaders article came out with appearances by a couple of players that had just started playing. We had the West Region Top 10 come out on Tuesday and the Players of the Week on Wednesday. Thursday gave us the weekly Points/Set Standings and they AVCA dropped their Top 25. The rest of the week was all about results (5 playing dates this past week).

Some things I was saving for a future Musings article that I’ll share now. Interesting coaching situation at Marymount out of the Atlantic East. Head Coach Beth Ann Wilson, without any fanfare, was removed from their website back in August despite being their coach since 1993. She quickly moved on to be a director of a club in the area and the school proceeded with a job search. In the last month, she has been added back to the website as the head coach, again without any fanfare. Glad whatever happened there has been resolved but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth when a school can’t even offer a press release for a coach of 27 years.

I was sniffing around some NCAA website pages and noticed volleyball committee openings for certain regions starting in the fall. They were for the new regions being formed. Remember, we are going from 8 regions to 10 and the West Region will become Region X.

I’ve talked about the SCAC Tournament format in a couple of previous posts. I did get some confirmation that at least 8 schools will participate (probably all 9 with a play in match between seeds 8 and 9). It also looks like the conference will follow what they are doing in basketball and not have the tournament at one location. Each higher seed for each round will host the match. Still not fully confirmed but I’m hearing the direction they are going.

Alright, let’s look nationally (sort of) a bit and focus on the Top 25. An upset occurred to Trinity (#1) twice this past week although it was to the #4 team (Colorado College) on the road. Whitworth (6) took a loss to PLU. Mt. St. Joseph (8) lost twice in the Heartland which say Transylvania (3) take home the tournament trophy. Loras (16) took a loss as they split their matches this week. One notable school to start undefeated this past week were IWU (1-0). We’ll probably see them in the Top 25 this week. There are also a number of matches outside of the West Region today (like Berry/Millsaps) that could impact the Top 25, too.

Looking forward to this week, we have Carthage and Elmhurst playing on Tuesday. Wednesday, we have Loras playing Cornell College and Millikin playing IWU. Thursday, Northwestern-St. Paul starts their second season up as they played in the fall. I assume after next week they will be eligible for the Top 25 again. On Friday it looks like the OAC will start play and they have a number of really good teams (like Ohio Northern and Muskingum and Otterbein and Mount Union and etc. ). In the West Region, we’ll have Colorado College playing at Southwestern. If the Tigers can beat my Pirates twice then it would appear they will wrap up the #1 seed in the SCAC and the tournament winner will have to go through Reid Arena. Friday also gives us George Fox playing their first DIII match (against Pacific). On Saturday, we have Berry playing Hendrix which should be a treat. Just a ton of matches that Saturday with old friends like DePauw. A few more matches on Sunday with teams like Carthage and Aurora among others. So, we are really starting to see a full slate of matches nationally although I know Calvin doesn’t get going for another 12 days.

Alright, back to looking at our home in the West and starting, like always, with the ASC. Sul Ross State took two from Howard Payne on Tuesday as we saw Annika Canaba take over the national lead in Triple-Doubles again. LeTourneau took their two matches from Belhaven with Kianna Crow registering 14 points in both matches. UT-Dallas would also win their two matches and would be the only ASC team to get a sweep in both as they took down ETBU. Catherine Croft had a nice night totaling 26.5 points in those two matches. On Wednesday, the only match was UMHB and McMurry and although I wasn’t surprised with the two UMHB victories I was surprised they were both sweeps as McMurry had trouble closing out games. Hannah Frasca would be the hitting star for Mary Hardin-Baylor as she totaled 24.5 points on the night. Thursday saw Howard Payne head to NAIA school Jarvis Christian as they beat them but lost to another NAIA school in Southwest. Concordia and Hardin-Simmons played the next night and we saw a rare split in matches as Concordia won the first one 3-2 but were swept in the second. Taylor Salone was the hitting star for HSU with 23.5 points on the night. Concordia had outstanding performances in the first match from Kylexus Block (23.5 points) and Sarah Ghormley (16.5 points) but were a totally different team in the second match hitting negative as a team. The final match from the conference was LeTourneau and UT-Dallas and these ended up as sweeps for the Comets. Owen and Croft led the UTD hitting with Jones and Baxter leading the defense. With regards to Points/Set, UTD had 22.3 in the first match and 21.6 in the second. They weren’t going to beat themselves with those kinds of numbers.

After this past week we are down to just two undefeated ASC teams in UT-Dallas and UMHB. Not a surprise and this will most likely continue until the ASC Tournament. LETU and ETBU still need to play which will sort out that second seed in the East Division. Concordia and McMurry are in play for the second seed in the West Division. With that said, Concordia’s loss to HSU in that second match was troubling. We also can’t look past Sul Ross State at this point, either.

Switching over to the NWC and we had a full slate of matches from them for the first time this year. Pacific, Lewis & Clark, Willamette and Linfield played on Thursday, which is a weird match day for that conference. Pacific probably looked the best beating Willamette in 4-sets and coming away with a 17.25 P/S. Makenna Mahuna led the attack with 43 assists and the team had three hitters with double-digit kills (Zweifel, Lum and Unti). I big day for Haley Walz was also had as she finished with 33 digs. Willamette had 12 kills from Dani Queja. Lewis & Clark also won in 4-sets as they took down Linfield. Izzy Willis had 11 kills and 16 points while Michelle McGinn had 27 assists. Linfield was led by Raelynn Hammock who had 16 kills. The teams went at it again the following day with the same results although this time it took Pacific 5-sets to win. Same three hitters hauled in double-digit kills with Zweifel finishing with 19 while also chipping in 31 digs. Setter Shaianne Cambra had 40 assists. Willamette also got 19 kills from Natalie Klotz while Emma Porter had 41 assists. L&C again had Willis reach double-digit kills and she was joined by Kelsey Parker who got to 10. Linfield were led by Hammock (14 kills) and Regan Dean (12 kills). Aylea Dixon would end with 27 assists and 12 digs. The Washington teams continued to play this past week with Puget Sound beating Whitman twice and both would go 5-sets. UPS Katelyn Chekian would get double-digit kills in both matches while Jordan Holman and Melanie Siacotos would each get 10 kills in the second match. For Whitman, Christina Boxberger would get 26 kills combined in the matches. Whitworth and PLU put on a show with each coming away with a win. Whitworth, as always, was led by Wolverton, A’leu, Lee and Barr. They are excellent players and together they sound like a law firm. PLU was led by McKenzie Pfeiffer in their win as she had 20 kills and 21.5 points. Wilson, Johnson and Bartle all had 10 kills or more, as well. Emily Dulaney had 54 assists with Halle Hetzler finishing with 49 digs.

On my standings page (website), I have the conference split into two because the Oregon teams will not be playing the Washington teams unless there is a tournament. L&C and Pacific are obviously leading the Oregon Division while Whitworth still leads the Washington teams. I really hope the NWC can pull off the tournament because I think it will result in some really fun matches.

The SCAC had some drama this week and unfortunately it hit way too close to home. To be clear, I love the underdogs. I love the programs that may be down but are trying to improve and we can see that in Schreiner. So, I want to give them all the credit they deserve as they split with Southwestern this weekend. Even in their loss (a match I was able to watch), they were tough and showed a lot of fight. Kayla Lofland would end up with 15 and then 17 kills in the two matches. Amanda Combs did an excellent job blocking although I do request that the Schreiner scorer learn how to record block assists. In the Southwestern loss, we did see the rare case of the losing team scoring higher in P/S as statistically, the Pirates did fine. I honestly think it was a case of a team that was battle tested (having played Trinity and Colorado College) going against a team that was getting their first action of the season. Still, any other previous year, Schreiner losses that second match. There is a lot to like with Schreiner this season. Finally, for Southwestern, they were led by Emma White who would record 19 kills in both matches and come away with 36 digs. Next up is Trinity and Colorado College and no one could have predicted a sweep by CC. I got to watch a little of this and the defense was outstanding. CC is playing only 7 players, which seems to be very rare these days. Mullins, Vasquez and Freeburg all had 10 or more kills. Aragon-Menzel had 38 assists. I didn’t get to see the second match but it went 5-sets and based on Points/Set Trinity should have won the match, but they didn’t. Same heroes for CC and you can add Lipacis to the mix with her 10 kills. Trinity had 10 or more kills from Funk, Leggett, Williammee and Ellis. In the end, too many unforced hitting errors for Trinity. I really liked Dallas coming into the year but they struggled again, this time against Austin College. The ‘Roos would win both matches and both were a sweep. Pretty even attacks from both teams in the first match. In the second match, the ‘Roos would have Victoria Smith with 10 kills while Dallas had 11 kills from both Porras and Whyte. Centenary and TLU would split their two matches on Saturday with Centenary winning in 5-sets and TLU winning in four. Centenary’s Alyssa Davis would get 39 points on the day. Liz Lowe had a nearly flawless 1^st match with 15 kills and only one error. Paige Day led TLU with 30.5 points on the day and Lexi Morris would finish with 23 digs in each match.

There are still two undefeated teams in the SCAC as Colorado College is rolling but so is St. Thomas who was off this week. Austin College and Trinity are tied at 4-2 and I just realized that the SCAC is the only West Region conference that will have all teams play each other during the regular season. (Well, except for cancelled matches.) I mentioned above that CC could wrap up the conference first seed by beating Southwestern and I guess that means I’ve slighted St. Thomas (not intentionally). They certainly have a chance but the traditional powers are CC, Trinity and Southwestern. Of course, with St. Thomas doing well and seeing Schreiner put up the good fight, maybe there are changes coming to the conference hierarchy.

So, I know I probably bummed people out with my opening but things for me and the family will be fine. Nobody in the afterlife wants to see my face until the last possible minute. Enjoy the volleyball and I hope I can continue to write throughout this spring season.