Weekly Wrap-Up (8/31/25)

It’s a new season so it means a new Weekly Wrap-Up! This is the article that sums up the week in DIII Volleyball with a nice little bow and a kiss on the forehead. In the Wrap-Up, I like to look back, forward and even into alternate universes once in a while. I hope you enjoy and you can find it here on most Sundays.

Looking at the week that was, we had the Preseason All-Region Team. Southwestern and Trinity were included because they are in Region X. We then had the annual Retention article that highlights the 2025 rosters and how they changed from last season.  We then learned that Southwestern and Trinity would NOT be in Region X, which required an article and some updates to the All-Region Team. We had our last two “West” conference release their Previews. I’ll link to the SAA article because they were the last one and I have links to the others in there. Finally, there was the Volleyball Eve Musings article. Always a special one for me. Use the links if you missed something.

After all of that, it was down to our Match Day articles. Slightly different format this season. I’m not thrilled with it but it was easier to put together. We do have some matches today so we use the old style for the single match in the region today.

As to what is coming up this week, we’ll still have our Match Days when any of the “West” teams play. I will do my Top 25 on Monday while the AVCA will release theirs on Tuesday. I’ll do a Region Leaders article on Wednesday and, I guess, there will be both Region VI and Region X. We’ll also cover the AVCA Player of the Week along with the weekly winners from the six “West” conferences. I assume there will be an NPI article with updated rankings, too. “Ned” has sent me a bunch of stuff so that might generate an article. We’ll have to see.

Matches to come:

• ASC plays Friday and Saturday

• C2C plays Wednesday, Friday and Saturday

• NWC plays Friday, Saturday and Sunday

• SAA plays Thursday, Friday and Saturday

• SCAC plays Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday

• SCIAC plays Thursday, Friday and Saturday

So, checks note, I only get Monday off.

Alright, time to clear out my notebook of things I wanted to talk about this week.

Somewhat funny (hot) wife story. She has some high school friends who had a daughter that played at Whitman. Their daughter and our daughter actually overlapped and I think were at the same tournament one year but the teams didn’t play each other. Anyway, the (hot) wife can’t remember Whitman to save her life. So, whenever I mention a school that begins with ‘W’, I get asked if that is the school her friends’ daughter played for. Let me just say, there are a number of schools that begin with ‘W’. So, she’s almost always wrong. This has been going on for about 4-years now.

As the conference predictions came out over the last two weeks, I started noticing that my Top 25 ordering didn’t always agree with the coaches. I had UW-Eau Claire second overall in my rankings and the WIAC coaches only had them 3^rd. They have Oshkosh 1^st (ranked) and Whitewater (unranked) ahead of them. All three will be in the rankings this week. Well, actually four because I really like Platteville, too. I had Millikin 5^th in my rankings but their coaches had IWU (ranked) in first with Millikin second. I will be agreeing with them this week. The ODAC agreed with my Washington & Lee ranking but I thought it interesting that Lynchburg received the only other first-place vote. That had to come from W&L Head Coach Bryan Synder, right? They went 4-0 this weekend and are now on my watch list. The Centennial coaches agreed with JHU but they had Swarthmore second ahead of Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg. I’m not sure about that. Gettysburg only went 2-2 this weekend so maybe there but I still like F&M. The other interesting one was the MIAA that had Hope over Calvin. I wasn’t sure what Hope had left but that looks like the way to go. I had both ranked but Calvin higher.

As I watched a lot of average to bad service reception this week, I kept coming back to:

“Front row wins glory. Back row wins championships.”

I remembered a team my daughter played one season. Well, it was Millsaps to name names, and they were a good team but not great (they did win over 20 matches). Not a team we were going to struggle with but it went 5-sets. Their greatness was in their defense. They could return serve and play defense. I mean that was our strength, too, but we could also bring some heat. They really couldn’t. In the end, both teams averaged around 30 digs per set and remember that included the shorter 5^th set. At one point, I really wanted to go to the coach and tell her to stop blocking. It was pointless and really only led to their kills as they just tried to tool everything. It was such a tough match and it took forever. The UT-Dallas teams from 2015 and 2016 were also amazing defensive teams. I just don’t think enough credit is given to the back line.

Some NPI rooting advice. You should always root for teams in your conference to win. It doesn’t matter how much you hate them. You want your conference as strong as possible because you are going to play them once or twice or thrice. You also want to root for non-conference teams that you are going to play. The better their NPI, the better your game NPI will be. You also want to root for non-conference teams you’ve played. Same reason. Because NPI ripples, you also want to root for everyone else. Hope that helps.

Platteville beats NYU who lost to Trinity but they beat Millikin who also lost to Trinity but they beat Platteville who also beat Trinity. Make sense of that. Small margins?

Juniata hit 100 straight wins this weekend. Just incredible. That extends their DIII record and puts them 9 short of the NCAA record held by Penn State. 101 will be a home match against Marietta Friday. 103 is a home match against Ithaca. 107 is a home match against Chris Newport. 109 is a home match against Johns Hopkins (whose DIII record Juniata broke). 110 will be Franklin & Marshall away. I don’t think JC gets the record but I’ll be rooting for it. I mean the heck with DI.

It wasn’t easy for JC. They dropped sets to Swarthmore and Cortland. They are most definitely human this season and I really think opponents need to look at them this way. If JC gets to 109 then it will be just incredible on so many levels.

I did a schedule analysis this offseason on a number of teams. Two schools that looked to have NPI friendly schedules were Southwestern and Calvin. I defined “NPI friendly” as:

• A maximum NPI (based on 2024 numbers) between 67 and 70.

• A “Loss n” of 61+. (You’ll need to look at the Schedule Analysis Page for this definition.)

• Maximum losses 3+ more than elite teams played.

It’s interesting (and sad for me as a Pirate) that both teams took a loss this weekend. They have the ability to make up for it but this is something to watch.

The NCAA has released a Championship Dashboard that is pretty cool. You can find all of the past champions here across all sports. It also has the link to the championship records and a record of national rankings throughout the years. Just lots of good information here gathered in one place, which has been the issue in the past trying to find this stuff. I’m sure I can get a future article or two out of the data here.

The Hannah Smith saga seems to have ended with her staying at Virginia Wesleyan. She appeared to be transferring to Salisbury. Salisbury took a loss this weekend while VA. Wesleyan went undefeated. Smith scored 70.5 Points in 4 matches (15 sets).

I’m not sure there is a good place to find coaches who had their first head coaching win this weekend but I know that Howard Payne’s Nick Noll and UC Santa Cruz Chad Koenegstein accomplished this. Congratulations to both. Noll is 4-0 and doesn’t know what a loss feels like. They play four non-DIII opponents this weekend before playing my Southwestern Pirates in two weeks. I sure hope their first DIII loss happens then!

Sunday morning and I took a first stab at the Top 25. This is really the first true rankings. We have data points! Some teams that were never considered for my preseason rankings that showed up strong week 1 were Otterbein, Montclair State, Dubuque, Coe, Denison, Aurora, St Norbert, Ohio Wesleyan, Kean, Springfield and Eastern. There were others. My watch list now stands at 58. I did remove a few teams from my initial list but they can always come back on.

The standings page has been updated on the left side menu. One match to go today that I’ll probably forget all week because I’m like that. I will say, that I have been impressed with the SAA and how they present data on their website. The schedule is amazingly complete. But…the standings page is not alphabetized for teams that are tied in the standings. WTF? I guess just take Sunday off? I’ve already come to expect better. Of course, the SCIAC has a duplicate result listed for Caltech giving them an extra win so who’s better here?

Time to look at the matches this weekend and for this we’ll go conference by conference. The NCAA stats database hasn’t updated, yet. I think that doesn’t get done until tomorrow but it would have been helpful here.

I make fun of the SAA taking Sunday morning off but the ASC looks to have taken Saturday off as the matches aren’t updated on their schedule. Oh well…going from memory. ETBU was the big story in this conference. (Sorry Nick.) They played four quality teams and came away 4-0. The 5-set match with my #2 team in Eau Claire was hard fought and appeared to lead to some yelling in the rafters of the pit. If so, I’ll just say that we can all be better than that, right? Nothing can take away from a performance that will get ETBU into my Top 10 this week. Graycee Mosley was the star (4.63 Points/Set) but the surprise was first-year Lara Hornsby who did a great Avery Reid impersonation. The teams faced by Howard Payne will not be in the NCAA Tournament this season but going 4-0 was unexpected as they dropped just one set. Tara Bennett led the squad with 42.5 Points with Halie Coon doing a great job from the setter’s position. HSU went 3-1 down at St Thomas only losing a tough 5-set match to the hosts. Leigh Jespersen led the teams in Kills and Aces. There are only 4 teams in this conference this season so we finish with UMHB who went 2-1 at the same tournament, also losing to St Thomas. Dravyn Hurd was again a menace at the net with 3 Solos and 5 Block Assists while leading the team in Points. It looks like setter Kendall Harrington will run a 5-1 this season limiting her attacking potential but she’s still a fun one to watch. Overall, a very good weekend by this conference although ETBU was the only team to really test themselves.

The C2C has seven teams but only five are full DIII members so I won’t be focusing on Regent and JWU (NC) as much this season. (Remember, I can be bribed.) Both Regent and JWU will start their provisional membership process this season. Both should be full DIII members by 2028. Regent was in the NCCAA while JWU was in the USCAA. The JWU thing is a little weird because they started their exploratory process back in 2021. I guess they are just taking their time with this. Normally, exploratory takes 1 year as it did with Regent.

We know that Chris Newport was going to play a tough schedule and they start their season going 2-1 with a loss to Whitewater. Alyssa Dozier looks to be ready for another great season leading her team in Points with 45. Part of that included 9 Solos. Salisbury also went 2-1 with their loss to Oshkosh. The WIAC was not kind to the C2C this weekend. Gwen Eustace was again the leader for this squad with 41.5 Points. Prudence Marco averaged more than 5 Digs/Set, but let’s not forget that kill, too! UC Santa Cruz was another C2C 2-1 team this week as they hosted their tournament. They dropped a tough 5-setter to Redlands. Gabia Paliulis really shined this week with 55 Points including 15 Aces. The Slugs have another match a couple of hours from me typing this. Warren Wilson went 0-2 and this will be another rebuilding year for this new program. KJ Helinsky was still impressive averaging 5 Points/Set but this team needs a little more help for her moving forward. Mary Washington is coming off two seasons of losing a ton of talent to graduation and that turned into an 0-3 start to the season playing tough teams. They do have six players with double-digit Points with Sarah Starling leading the club with 25 Kills. Overall, a good weekend for the top teams playing good competition.

The NWC struggled a bit this weekend with the only undefeated being Whitworth if you throw out their non-DIII loss (which the NCAA does). Pacific did go 1-0 but that was against a non-DIII opponent. (Sorry, no more about you…see you next week.) Back to Whitworth (No, honey…their daughter played for Whitman.) and they hosted their tournament beating TLU and Carleton. Big effort from Amblessed Okemgbo who had 47 Points. First year Paige McKenzie hit 0.327 while contributing 24 Points. George Fox headed to Covenant where they lost to two teams that made the NCAA Tournament last season in the hosts and Southern VA. They did win their first two matches of the season to end 2-2. Gracie Bearden led the team with 39 Points that included 7 Aces. She also had a team leading 43 Digs. There really isn’t anything Gracie can’t do on a volleyball court. Pacific Lutheran and Puget Sound co-hosted a tournament where both went 1-2. PLU cheated their way to a win over Southwestern while Puget Sound took down PLU in the tournament’s final match. This conference will come down to Whitworth or these two teams and I really have no idea what the outcome will be. It’s really who will play the best that day. Alexis Eggert was a force for PLU out of the middle with 12 BA contributing to 37 Points. Setter Ayre Takamoto finished with 91 Assists over the weekend. Nicolette Raduziner was the star for Puget Sound with 33 Points and 35 Digs. Maddie Badger was a force in the middle for UPS hitting 0.364. Whitman (No, honey…their daughter…wait, yes Whitman!) went 1-2 although one of those losses was to a non-DIII school. Haylee Pruse ran the offense with 94 Assists while also contributing 22 Digs. Willamette faced some good teams at the WashU Tournament where they did very well despite only winning one match. They lost a heartbreaker to Carthage in 5-sets dropping the 5^th set 16-14. They were swept by WashU but lost the first set 32-30. Caroline Jameson finished with 48.5 Points while Leina Chu had 128 Assists and 24 Digs. I will be curious how playing that level of competition will help when NWC games come around. Linfield was off this weekend but Lewis & Clark went down to Santa Cruz but were unable to win a match. Kaitlyn Jensen finished with 39 Points but, overall, a little more efficiency is needed from the offense, which hopefully will lead to more success. Not a great week, overall, for the conference. I liked some of the tournament choices and I think a couple of matches could have gone differently and improved things greatly. It’s hard to get an at-large bid when your conference doesn’t help you out with NPI. It’s extra hard for the NWC because it’s so isolated.

Welcome to the “West”, SAA. Six of the eight teams finished above 0.500 but only Berry went undefeated at 3-0 beating Wittenberg, Transy and Wartburg. Granddaughter (sister) Maddie Whitehead led the team with 43.5 Points while hitting 0.321. Ava Brovet also impressed with 92 Assists and 27 Digs. Centre went 2-1 with their only loss coming against Washington & Lee. Emersyn Pannell did a great job on the back line finishing with 45 Digs while not be credited with a single return error. A lot of 2-1 teams here and the next is Oglethorpe. Each of their matches went to 5-sets so they got their money’s work here. Ashlynn Stephens almost hit 5 Points/Set but did finish with 50 Points and 27 Digs. Autumn Lilly (great name) finished with 126 Assists and 36 Digs (Aby Wheeler led the team with 61 Digs). Off to Sewanee who hosted a tournament and also went 2-1 with their one loss coming in 5-sets. They had four players with over 30 Points this weekend as they spread out the attack that primarily was led by setter Emma Meyer (69 Assists). I did watch all three matches Southwestern played and I think used every curse word in existence at some point. Very up and down play but a lot of positives from their newcomers. First-year Chloe Blanchard led the team with 55.5 Points hitting 0.272 from the outside. Annika Flora finished with 112 Assists and 32 Digs on the weekend. All three of the top hitters are new to the program so more time in the gym should help this squad. Trinity is up next and I don’t know what I saw. They were impressive but then clunked it up against a very good Platteville team. The NCAA database is so confused they actually have that Platteville game listed twice. I was really impressed (but not surprised) with Reagan Whatley. She played great all 6 rotations and swung well from the backrow (she ended with 4.39 Points/Set). Jenna Rodriguez led the back line with 4.56 Digs/Set. Remember this was one of the best tournaments in the nation this weekend so a 2-1 record is really good. Trinity looks stacked again, folks. Millsaps and Rhodes both went 1-3 at the same tournament both getting their wins from Dallas. First-year Caroline Short led Rhodes with 43.5 Points while senior Ally Baer led Millsaps with 38. Overall, a good weekend from this conference. They played a number of tough teams but the story, I think, is that Berry looks better than I thought they would. Southwestern will need some time to jell and Centre and Trinity are going to be strong. That’s going to be one heck of a conference tournament.

So many teams in the SCAC. They may get shortchanged a time or two in this space just for my sanity. Looking at the Blue Division, we have Austin College at 4-0 after they handled their invites to their own tournament. I will say that there is some issue with the stats getting into the NCAA database from the Austin College location. Someone may want to check on this. Rachel Sadler and Selah Coleman were the Points leader for the ‘Roos this weekend. Hendrix also went undefeated but played only two matches. Ana Bastos was the star here finishing with 28 Kills and 34 Digs. Centenary went 1-0 beating a non-DIII opponent. LeTourneau took a loss but had a nice 2-1 weekend. They took a sweep against Emory but had a nice 4-set win against St Catherine. LETU appears better than I thought going into the season. The YellowJackets were led by six players all over 20 Points with Maddy Hirneise finishing with 56 Digs and 16 Assists. Ozarks didn’t play this week and Dallas went 1-3 in their tournament getting a win over New England College. (And you know how I like those NE wins.) Ja’Niyah Boudreaux (a name that makes me happy that I write and not speak names) had 33 Kills and 15 Digs over four matches. The Blue Division is considered the weaker of the two in the SCAC but a stronger LeTourneau mixed in with Hendrix and Austin College will make it a fun one. Over in the Gold Division Concordia surprised going 4-0 against the same group AC played. Brooklynne Fitzgerald had 45 Kills, 7 Aces and 46 Digs in a nice effort from her. (I wonder why their stats were in the database but AC’s stats were not?) St Thomas did what AC did by hosting a tournament and then beating all comers. The big (sad) news here is that Audrey Cataline (she would finish with 31 Points) went down with an injury in the HSU match. She was on the bench but there were crutches beside her. Great player so get back healthy. Alexis Bodunrin was her normal stellar self, finishing with 71.5 Points. Mia Medina had 90 Assists while Carly Lange had 16 along with 90 Digs (6 D/S). McMurry is next and they went 3-1 to continue the good play by the Goldies (Gold Division…I guess that makes the others Bluey?) Nothing came easy for the Cowgirls as there were no sweeps but Carli Colbert played great going for 25 Kills, 76 Assists, 8 Aces and 43 Digs. She missed a Triple-Double twice this weekend by 3 Kills or less. Schreiner went 2-1 at the St Thomas Tournament losing only to HSU. Giana Hilliard went for 31 Kills and 34 Digs. TLU also went 2-1 as they were at the Whitworth Tournament. Whitworth was their only loss on the weekend although they scared me by starting slow against Carleton. Andie Lozano-Lomeli led the team in Kills while Briana Salvatierra-Moore led the teams in Points on the back of her 18 Block Assists. What is with this team needing four last names to describe two players? Just more work for me! BSM (Ha!) had 10 blocks against Carleton, which tied for the 2^nd most in program history (see what happens people when you tag me on Twitter). My question for BSM is how many of those blocks did you only touch and isn’t it annoying that you have to share your block totals with those little people to your right and left? (Maybe that was just a me thing when I played.) We end the Goldies with Colorado College who had the best competition seen by a SCAC team this weekend at their tournament. Once all of the trips to the Garden of the Gods were completed, CC finished 2-2 taking matches against MSOE and UW-Stevens Point. Their two losses were to UWEC and ETBU who will both be ranked by me this week. This team is led by Dormady and Sherrill but the announcer kept calling out Brooke Brilliant and rightly so. She ended the weekend with 50 Points on the back of 45 Kills. She hit 0.560 this week from the middle. She is going to be a problem for the rest of the SCAC this year. Good job by the Goldies this week. The SCAC is pretty open although I still think it’s Colorado College’s title to lose.

I think the SCIAC only ended up with 3 total losses that weren’t to a non-DIII program or to one of their own. Nicely done. There are 5 undefeated teams through week one and we start with CMS just because it annoys everyone in that conference when I do. (You can fix it by adding an ‘A’ in front of your school’s name.) CMS went 3-0 but the impressive result was their sweep of St Olaf (who La Verne went 5-sets with). The top guns for CMS were Brooke McKee (59.5 Points) and Solvej Eversoll (21 Kills). The Athenas also got contributions from two first-years. La Verne freaked me out a bit during the St Olaf match. In the end, they got the win but there are some holes that need to be fixed on this team. A few more matches should help things. Mya Ray finished with 43 Kills while Lauren Gott finished with 34. Zacky Coaston hit 0.583 but more help is needed. First-year Alanna Jones didn’t play in the St Olaf match but did in the other two finishing with 21 Kills. Something to watch there. I had Redlands penciled down for a 2-1 record and then they go beat UC Santa Cruz in 5-sets. The stats were very close so no fluke here and basically, the SCIAC needs to be careful about a new team breaking into their tournament mix. Here’s the thing, four of their top five hitters were first-years and the top hitter was Lily Kautai (47 Points). Emma Murphy is the old lady next to the babies (she’s a sophomore) so this team will not be going away soon. Chapman went 2-0 getting a nice 5-set win over CWRU who had a rough visit. Olivia Harrison went off for 37 Points while Sammy Chambers had 70 Assists. Our final undefeated is Whittier who also went 2-0. They had an easier time with CWRU so maybe positioned better than Chapman this season? Malena The “Goddess” had 25 Kills and 30 Points for the Poets. Pomona-Pitzer took a loss to St Olaf but otherwise went 2-1 although they gave me a scare with Lake Forest. The Sagehens had three with 28 Kills or more (Mountanos, Ariyo and Grabb) but it all starts with Corrina Benson who had 6.27 Digs/Set. Cal Lutheran split their two matches this weekend also getting their loss from St Olaf. Tarin Rueckert and Emily Ford each finished with 17 Kills. Keegan Corley finished with 8 Assists and 52 Digs (8.67 D/S!). Caltech went 1-1 against non-DIII opponents while Oxy went 1-1 taking a win against Lewis & Clark but losing to conference-foe Redlands. Oxy is also young with their three top hitters all being first-years (Jasmine Shum led the team with 23 Kills). So much youth in this conference while still having a good first week. La Verne had my critical eye on them and I definitely want to see them be more fluid and automatic next week. CMS surprised me a tad in that St Olaf match in the fact that it was so easy for them. Redlands should be a fun watch this season. This is going to be a very deep conference.

Time for me to start my second pass on the Top 25. I really hope the AVCA voters chunk their preseason work (or lack of work) and start new. As for me, I have no clue about my Top 5. We have data points but not enough for straight lines, yet. (Yes, I know you technically only need two but what if there is a curve inserted between the two? There are a lot of curves out there.)

I also want to say that I really appreciate any and all donations. I received one this weekend and it’s much appreciated. I was very disappointed not to make it to either Puget Sound our Trinity this weekend and that helped left my spirits. As a side note, I was looking at the flights I would have taken back on both trips and there were going to be a lot of issues again. One Seattle flight was actually diverted to San Antonio so I thought that was funny as the non-rev gods were just having a good laugh at my expense.

PS – (Can you PS an article? I am loving the UCSC announcer. You should tune in for a few minutes right now. I’d love for him and the CMS lady announcers to do a game together. Okay. A Slug just hit one in the net and he said, “Who put that there? Who put that there?” Then he kind of chuckled to himself. He’s the greatest!)

If you want to help cover some of the costs of the site, then please consider a visit to the D3VbWest Store where you can buy some merch or even make a straight-up donation.