Weekly Wrap-Up (9/24/2023)

I was all set to have a leisurely day watching some SCAC volleyball and taking my time with this Wrap-Up and then was reminded I’m going to a play my godson is in this afternoon. Stupid godson. As a reminder, my son is also an actor but in Chicago so let me know if I have any talent agents or producers out there that can do me a solid. Thankfully, he doesn’t read my site, either. Anyway, I’m now a little rushed with this but I’m sure the quality will stay at its usually mediocre standards.

Looking back this week, I feel you got your money’s worth. We had the D3VbWest Top 25 on Monday and the lesser known AVCA Top 25 on Tuesday. Players of the Week came out on Wednesday as did the Region Leaders. We then gave you two articles on the remaining two RAC members from our region. Coach Lily Hallock should be amazing and excellent and then there was also Coach Mallory Matthews. As, always, we had the Match Days throughout the week.

For the upcoming week, we’ve got matches every day (including Sunday) except for Monday and Thursday. UC Santa Cruz goes from their busy time to their slow time as they don’t have another match until October 6^th. It’s just hard to schedule when the teams near you are in conference and you are in a conference that doesn’t play matches.

As for what interested me this week, let’s start with the new cover picture to the article. I updated it last week, after the fact, but it gets it’s first official run this week. It was submitted by St Thomas setter Kendall Howard, who becomes my latest granddaughter for her help to the site. (I hope everyone realizes that becoming a granddaughter is a perk and not a hinderance for people helping? Could go either way, I guess.) I really like it and it’s much better than the hack job I had up there previously. I do want to make clear that I don’t play favorites with my granddaughters as I stay completely unbiased with my reporting. I certainly won’t be saying anything extra about Kendall despite her 18 assists against Trinity this weekend and 26 assists against Colorado College in their 4-set win.

Let’s see. No more winless teams in the region as both UT-Dallas and Concordia won at least one match this week. I always hate putting those zeroes in the standings (which you can find on the left side or pulldown depending on how you access the site).

There was a pretty amazing comeback this weekend for my Southwestern Pirates as Christina Kuras came back from a really ugly finger injury suffered in their second match of the season. I figured she was out for at least 6-weeks. The team really needs her attacking, which you could easily see when she got ahold of one this weekend. Her timing was off, which is to be expected, but she’ll only get better as the season continues. Christina’s finger reminded me of something I did at the birth of my two children. The second my kids were born I would count their fingers and toes and then go to my wife and say, “Ten fingers and toes.” It meant more than that but it was how I expressed my relief, pride, worry, excitement, concern and every other emotion that goes through you at that time. So, Christina, “Ten fingers and toes.”

As I continue into my 7^th season with this website, I’m sure I repeat my stories from time to time but I’m sure a lot of my readers only find me when their daughters start playing DIII volleyball. So, forgive me if you’ve heard this one before. Thinking of my wife’s pregnancy, it reminded me of my first kidney stone. Absolutely the worst pain in my life and I’ve been through cancer treatments since that time. I was doubled-over and the pain actually made me physically sick (trying not to draw too clear of a picture here). After my ER visit and the pain had passed, we checked out. My wife and I were arguing about what was the worse pain – pregnancy or kidney stones. I happened to ask the lady checking us out and she responded quickly, “I’ve had children and a kidney stone and the stone is absolutely the worst pain I’ve ever felt.” Boom! Proof! Men have it worse (or the rare woman that has to go through both, I guess).

On the subject of pain, Izzy Lipacis (Colorado College) suffered another injury this weekend. She rolled her ankle prior to the season and missed the first weekend but came back for the East/West Challenge and played great. She then destroyed my team on Friday before getting hurt in the TLU match the following day. This is a huge loss for CC as Izzy provides so much of their attack and is such a leader for them. She’s a senior that has been outstanding her entire time in the program. Hoping she comes back strong and soon.

I mentioned in the Match Day that my anniversary was yesterday, which got me a text from CMS Head Coach Kurt Vlasich who said that he and his (hot) wife, Cindi, shared the same date for their anniversary. Cindi, like my (hot) wife, is short so kind of cool that we were both married on the same date and both decided to normalize the gene pool by going short. I know that during college my daughter would sometimes blame my (hot) wife about not being taller. I wonder if future Southwestern Pirate, Rylan Vlasich, ever blames Cindi for not being taller?

The Top 25 is going to be hard this weekend. I figure Tufts is out and that probably means UC Santa Cruz doesn’t need to come into the rankings. Still, I’ve written down Mount Union, Springfield and North Park into my notes and that’s before I’ve really done any research. Oh, I forgot about CWRU win over NYU yesterday. Speaking of that, the UAA finishes up their pod today. Good match between Emory and Carnegie Mellon and NYU and WashU. Both start at 11 am Central so probably they are already going by the time I finish this.

I teased this story in a Match Day but my plans to take over the New England regions has proven fruitful already. I don’t want to go into too much detail but I am secretly inserting Region X assets into Regions I and II for the eventual take over. We already have two assets in place at Bates College and now one has been inserted into one of the main New England power centers at Springfield. To top it off, she’s a granddaughter! I don’t believe New England reads my site. Heck, can they read? So, let me just say that Emma White is now a graduate assistant at Springfield. I am a little worried because they did beat UC Santa Cruz after I gave Emma a detailed scouting report to use that should have helped our cause. A snippet of the report, “They always hit on two and never set the pins. Make sure to always serve the libero. Also, all of their hits go out so don’t bother playing defense.” I guess I’m a little concerned my top asset has flipped on me.

Alright, let me get to the conferences. The ASC has everyone pretty much at 3 or 4 matches but Sul Ross State kind of messes that up. Their matches are not counting in the conference standings this year as they will be moving to DII next year. Six teams will make their conference tournament and right now it looks like the last spot will be between Howard Payne, McMurry and Concordia. I think ETBU, UMHB, HSU are locks. UT-Dallas should be fine for another spot. LeTourneau worries me a bit but they did get a 5-set win over HPU this weekend. Big matches upcoming this week are HSU/McMurry (rivalry) and UMBH/UT-Dallas (always fun). Back to the week that was, big performances by:

• Grace Willamson (11 kills 0.429) for ETBU in the LETU match

• Katie Warden (16 kills 0.577) for UMHB in the HSU match

• Morgan Nix (2 aces 35 digs) for LETU in the HPU match

• Kaci Monk (13 kills 0.353) for LETU in the HPU match

• Reina Lawson (5 kills 49 assists) for LETU in the HPU match

• Riley Brittain (2 kills 57 assists 13 digs) for HPU in the loss to LETU

• Addyson Tiffin (10 kills 0.500) for McMurry in the loss to Concordia

• Camryn Parker (15 kills 0.481 5.5 Total blocks 21.5 Points) for Concordia in the McMurry match

• Hannah Frasca (6 kills 19 digs) for UMHB in the McMurry match

• Morgan Nix (37 digs) for LETU in the loss to Sul Ross State

• Daniella Garcia (12 kills 4 solo blocks) for Sul Ross State in the LETU match

• Bailey Schievelbein (27 kills 0.520 2 aces 15 digs) for UT-Dallas in the HPU match

I saw a UT-Dallas tweet out that Bailey’s 27 kills was tied for second all-time. It was a 4-set match so I checked their record books (seriously, who else takes the time to do this stuff?) and Bailey actually tied the 4-set record. In other news, does Morgan Nix get 2 digs for every play? Does she have some superpower that controls the statistician? Her dig numbers are insanely good. Do we think player of the week goes Bailey and Morgan Nix? I was going to write how many times Nix has won it but it’s zero this year. Shocked me.

I’ll write a bit about UC Santa Cruz. I liked what they did this week going to New England and playing 4 matches with 3 being away. That’s just tough to do. I’ve long championed teams go do something like this because it inserts yourself into their at-large process and we know the advantages the New York and New England regions get from the number of teams out there. Of course, you have to win and UCSC went 2-2 after impressive victories over Tufts and Endicott. Both will probably be regionally ranked so kudos to the Slugs. Springfield and MIT were too tough but UCSC looked a bit injured (of course, everyone probably is) at the end. One more win would have been the icing and I’m not sure 2-2 helps them much for an at-large bid but I know it will not hurt them. I’d love to see the good New England teams travel more but history says outside of a few that it just doesn’t happen. It’s trips like this that give us more data points into the regions and allow better at-large decisions to be made. I won’t break out all of the performances just for one team but it was good to see Sydney Ahrendt banging again after an injury although she was heavily wrapped at the end of their trip. Kelly Ann Greene looked solid in all four matches and pretty efficient hitting. Ashley Magley unleashed some bombs from the right side but she wasn’t in the MIT match. This team just needs to get healthy and they have some off time to do that.

The NWC will have 4 spots for their new conference tournament. It is kind of strange watching their matches now because I would treat their season as tournament in the past. If the top two teams were playing, it was a huge match. Now, you have to look at it where four spots are important so less pressure during the regular season. Of course, at the end of the season, if one team was doing great then everything went away because you knew who was getting the automatic qualifier. It’s still really early but it almost seems like the four spots are taken between PLU, Puget Sound, George Fox and Whitworth. Willamette was a preseason team of note from me but they are 1-3 with a loss to Whitman. Pacific is the other team that normally would be in a top 4 grouping but they are 1-3 with home losses to GFU and Whitworth. It will be interesting if in another week the regular season loses some urgency in the NWC. Big matches this week will PLU heading to Eastern Washington for matches against Whitman and Whitworth. What is PLU? The team that struggled the first two weeks or the only undefeated team in the conference. This week should tell us a lot more. Of course, Puget Sound makes the same trip so Whitworth is in for a tough time holding home court. Pacific and Willamette play so if one of these teams wants to insert themselves into the conference tournament, then this is a huge match. Big performances this past week:

• Halle Hetzler (3 aces 34 digs) for PLU in the Puget Sound match

• Halle Hetzler (2 aces 22 digs) for PLU in the Willamette match

• Olivia Evaro (32 assists) for PLU in the Willamette match

• Katy Barr (16 kills 0.652 2 aces) for Whitworth in the Pacific match

• Mara Murphy (27 kills 31 Points) for Pacific in their loss to Whitworth

• Lexi Correa (11 kills 0.389 3.5 total blocks) for Linfield in the L&C match

• Olivia Cadien (15 kills 19 Points) for Willamette in the Linfield match

• Izzy Willis (16 kills 2 aces 12 digs) for L&C in their loss to Linfield

• Claire Johnson (4 kills 32 assists 4 aces 10 digs) for Linfield in the L&C match

• Mya Rodriguez (56 assists 13 digs) for Whitworth in loss to GFU

• Piper Harrop (2 aces 36 digs) for GFU in the Whitworth match

• Kassandra Staton (19 kills 13 digs) for GFU in the Whitworth match

Tough call on Player of the Week. Hetzler for defensive but she’s already won it twice. Maybe Rodriguez for GFU and Barr for Whitworth? Really no clue. Murphy also had a great game in a loss.

Time for the SCAC and this is going to hurt. Do I write a lot of just leave it be? Ugh. We still have a few teams still playing today but as I wrote in a Match Day, the SCAC is as close as I’ve ever seen in the Top 5 or 6 teams and probably as close top to bottom, too. We have three undefeated teams in Austin College, Trinity and TLU with TLU probably playing the best of the lot right now. They get Trinity this afternoon so my tone may change quickly. Bottom three include Colorado College, Southwestern and Centenary. Whoa. CC beat Southwestern but with Izzy going down they are in a bit of trouble. Southwestern’s loss to Schreiner was surprising. At some point, you are what you are so this may be what Southwestern is. There are 6 spots in this conference tournament and I’d probably say the three teams that will miss out are Centenary, Dallas and … Southwestern? Dallas has a 10-4 record but their schedule has been weak. I don’t believe Southwestern will miss out but I guess they need to prove me wrong. More pod play this week and, really, every match is important in this close conference. Matches I like are Centenary/Schreiner because if Centenary wants to get into the race, they need this win. Austin/CC will be interesting to see where CC (and Austin) are at the moment. Colorado College actually hosts a pod this week so that helps. Someone will need to explain this to me but St Thomas and Southwestern will play both of their conference matches at St Thomas this week. Seems fair. TLU will also be at St Thomas. Again, all of these matches mean something right now. Of course, the big fun one is probably CC and Trinity on Sunday. Some of the best performances of the week:

• Isabella Lipacis (12 kills 0.297) for CC in the Southwestern match

• Carly Berkman (12 kills 0.385) for Southwestern in loss to CC

• Shavonne Respondek (triple-double) for TLU in CC match

• Mackenzie Logan (17 kills 7 digs) for Trinity in the St Thomas match

• Ava Alvarado (55 assists 2 aces) for Dallas in the Centenary match

• Jaylin St Martin (14 kills 21 digs) for Centenary in loss to Austin

• Samantha Graham (14 kills 0.361 9 digs) for Austin in Centenary match

• Riley Abernethy (14 kills 0.306 17 digs) for Austin in Centenary match

• Kara Spice (28 digs) for St Thomas in CC match

• Carolyn Dormady (14 kills 11 digs) for CC in loss to St Thomas

• Reagan Whatley (14 kills 12 digs) for Trinity in Southwestern match

• Carly Berkman (14 kills) for Southwestern in loss to Trinity

There are more matches on going so no idea on Player of the Week. TLU’s Respondek won it last week (I think) but she had two nice matches so far so maybe a repeat?

I am running out of time to get this out before I have to leave. Ugh. The SCIAC makes me work on the standings as certain matches are left out so there may be a mistake in my standings. Three undefeated teams in La Verne, CMS and, of course, Caltech (?!?). I mean Caltech did beat Pomona-Pitzer so kudos for that. There are four spots in their tournament and ULV and CMS are getting two of them. It’s really wide open for the other two. I guess you have to put Caltech in that mix now. Pomona-Pitzer, Whittier (although winless), Chapman and Cal Lutheran are the others? In this conference, there appears to be a top tier (which may become two single tiers if CMS dominates La Verne) and then the rest with Redlands probably still in a tier at the bottom. Oxy may end up being there, too. Fighting for those two spots in the tournament mean every game is going to be important. Chapman and Pomona-Pitzer go at it this week. Whittier/Cal Lutheran is another match like that one. Caltech has La Verne, Whittier and Cal Lutheran. If they beat CLU and/or Whittier then they are in the mix. CMS/Pomona-Pitzer is always the chance for a team to make a name nationally for themselves. CMS has already played Oxy and Chapman and they haven’t been close. Outside of La Verne, their season may be done as far as challenges go. Performances for this past week:

• Tess Holbert (2 kills 41 assists 12 digs) for CLU in Redlands match

• Kelsey Polhemus (7 kills 0.636 2.5 total blocks) for CMS in Chapman match

• Jenna Holmes (14 kills 0.480 9 digs) for CMS in Chapman match

• Sophia Parker (14 kills 0.393 10 digs) for Caltech in Redlands match

• Paige Wilson (11 kills 22 digs) for Pomona-Pitzer in Whittier match

• Ayana Mier (10 kills 0.450) for La Verne in CLU match

• Malia Capistrano (40 assists 12 digs) for La Verne in CLU match

• Chloe Gill (17 kills 0.286) for PP in loss to Caltech

• Marissa Till (20 kills 0.295) for Caltech in PP match

• Georgia McGovern (8 kills 0.727 27 assists 7 digs) for CMS in Oxy match

• Avery Aminoff (10 kills 0.357) for Redlands in loss to Chapman

• Marly Johnson (21 kills 0.304 3 aces) for Chapman in Redlands match

• Lauren Gott (15 kills 0.271 16 digs) for La Verne in Whittier match

• Xenia Villagomez (14 kills 0.379 18 Points) for Whittier in loss to ULV

Hard to go CMS for player of the week (although you always could) for two easy matches. Maybe go Caltech this week for one of the awards?

My (hot) wife is on my case right now to be done and she’s right (as always). Sorry for the short exit, but lunch, shower and feeding in some order in the next hour.