Weekly Wrap-Up (9/7/25)

I always fear the Weekly Wrap-Up that I don’t start until Sunday morning. I do have half a page of notes in my book so content shouldn’t be the issue. I have to first get to my Sunday morning volleyball tasks so that I’m mentally prepared for this endeavor. The cool thing is that you won’t even know that I’m missing. Alright…brace yourself…and I’m back. This is the Wrap-Up where we look back, we look forward, we even look at today and then just to get weird, we try to look sideways.

Looking at the week that was, we had the NPI Rankingskicking us off. We’ll be updating this more often in another week, I think. We also had our Top 25 followed by the AVCA Top 25. We had the Players of the Week article and the Region Leaders that now cover our six “West” conferences. The Region Leaders covers all of Region VI and X. What’s amazing to me is that this season brings expanded coverage with the same staff and no increase in pricing! Tariffs…smariffs! Other than the Match Days, we had a Reception Errors article that also included some Points/Set and Hitting Percentage info. I think I’ll make something like this a weekly event. Use the links if you missed anything.

Looking at the week to come for our six conferences:

• ASC plays Thursday, Friday and Saturday

• C2C plays Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday

• NWC plays Monday (!), Friday and Saturday

• SAA plays Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday

• SCAC plays Thursday, Friday and Saturday

• SCIAC plays Wednesday, Friday and Saturday

I love having no Sunday matches. Less confusing to me. The NWC playing on a Monday is annoying. Stop that.

Time to scan the notebook, but I will mention that the standings have been updated through yesterday’s matches. You can find this on the left side or pulldown menu depending on how you are viewing this.

Last Sunday, we had the Oxy/UC Santa Cruz match at UCSC. I tuned in because…well…that’s who I am. I was greeted by some announcing gold. Everyone take lessons and go watch that match from August 31^st. When I first heard him, I thought he was high. I’m not 100% backing off of that but he could just be one cool dude. I immediately contacted a coach who I thought might be interested and he said he was already watching and, “Yes. I think he’s high.” We then texted back and forth on what we enjoyed the most. My favorite was when a Slug hit the ball into the net, he said, “Who put that there? Who put that there?” I think this needs to be a common announcing go-to saying. Other gems:

“Coach Chad makes it happen.” “Olee, olee” “Everywhere, everywhere, they are everywhere!” “Oh, they need a timeout.” “Show me something, Heidi!” “Slugs ready to go to Sweep City, again” “Oh! They donate it to the Slugs.”

Throughout the broadcast there were a lot of squeals of delight and disappointment. Very enjoyable watch.

Something that needed mentioning last week but, frankly, I’m not good at my job, is the dedication of the Julie Jenkins Court at Trinity. (Not sure I needed the “at Trinity” portion of that sentence. It’s not like she’s getting that honor at Southwestern!) That’s just very cool. I reached out to congratulate her and she replied, “The court dedication blows me away, not anything I ever expected. We had a wonderful turnout with our VB alums and got to celebrate the impact they’ve made on our program.” That’s Julie. The dedication is about her and she’s all about others. She makes it so difficult to hate her!

You may have noticed on the left side menu (or pulldown) that I have archived the 2021 and prior seasons. The site was getting too cluttered and I hated scrolling down so much to see the standings.

Sending love to Pomona-Pitzer Head Coach Valerie Townsend. She’s been fighting through some family medical issues and has had to rely on her staff to help her with the team. I know she missed matches this weekend. May have missed them all. Things will get better…just keep pushing forward…rely on your friends…and love the ones you love.

Also sending love to St Thomas’ Audrey Cataline. She suffered a knee injury in their match against HSU last week. She’s one of the best outsides in the SCAC and was already having a great senior season. The injury will end her year but can you say “Super Senior”. Come on parents, it’s only money!

I again want to say thank you for the donations this week and the merch orders. I will say the D3VbWest Store only loses me money because I buy more than I make. I handed out “Official Granddaughter” stickers to my Pirates this weekend. I was a little disappointed that some first-years and transfers had no clue about D3VbWest. I am specifically calling out senior Annika Flora and junior Lauren “Mac” McIntyre. Don’t do me like this! The look on Brenly Walker’s face when she found out she had another grandfather was pure shock. Mac was sitting next to her so she gets the blame. I did get to meet Brenly’s other less favored grandfather at the match. Good guy, but I can see why Brenly likes me better now.

Juniata had a nice weekend and will be under consideration for the top spot in my rankings this week. I know the AVCA has them there but with all of their losses, they had to prove it to me. Proof accepted. They are up to 103 consecutive wins on track for the NCAA record of 109. This weekend it will be:

104 – Wittenberg 105 – Transylvania 106 – Ohio Northern

These matches will all be at ONU and JC will be the heavy favorite in each. I really think that this is now coming down to match 109 against Johns Hopkins at home on the 20^th.

My daughter subscribes to this blog…my (hot) wife does not. We were all having dinner this week when this topic came up. My daughter says she reads some of it but mainly just searches for the word “daughter”. (Hey honey!) My (hot) wife then asked her to search for “(hot) wife”, too, and let her know anything that she needs to be aware. It so personally rewarding to know that my life partner supports my work.

We had one of the best tournaments of the year at Oshkosh this weekend. UWO was the big winner going undefeated against the three best opponents that were there. The #1 spot is between JC and UWO and this tournament will probably keep the Titans there. UWO beat Emory, CMS and WashU all in 4-sets. On the other side of the coin, is CMS who dropped all three of their matches. The thing is, besides the 4-set loss to UWO, they lost to Emory and WashU in 5-sets. Most of the sets across those two matches were decided by 2 points. Literally, 6 of the 10 sets were 2 pointers and a number of them went extras. The rub is that NPI doesn’t care. As a human, a selection committee can look at that and say these teams were even. It’s what I will do in my rankings this week as a 3-3 CMS team will stay. Our formula will not be as kind. Right now, those losses are 49.5, 46.6 and 43.5 points that must stay on their record and be counted. Those numbers will go up into the 50s as more matches are played but they still require compensation and I’m not sure looking at CMS’ schedule that it’s built in. In my Schedule Analysis for them, they could afford to lose to the teams that made the NCAA Tournament in 2024. These was three of those six teams. La Verne (conference foe) were the other two but CWRU was the sixth. CMS has already beaten them but CWRU is not an NCAA Tournament team this season. CMS really needed at least one win this weekend and they didn’t get it. I think this makes beating La Verne at least once mandatory for this team. When we talk about NPI and how a schedule can derail a quality team’s chances, I think we are seeing a case of it right here. When you factor in the Oshkosh match, those 2-point sets go to 9 of the 14 played this weekend! In NPI’s eyes, however, CMS would have been better off playing (and beating) Alfred State (61 NPI) and Lycoming (55.7 NPI) this weekend like Marywood did. That’s Marywood who currently sits 6^th in NPI right now.

Speaking of NPI, through yesterday’s matches, the leaders are Otterbein, UW-Oshkosh, Juniata, one-win Wellesley and ETBU. Wellesley’s one win is against Regis who has an NPI of 49.1. Yeah, it’s still early.

Something I need to remember to do is share the NPI Upsets for the year. This is any match where a team beats another that is 5 NPI points or higher:

The two upsets from week one are starting to look worse. Both had a 5 NPI difference last week. As the season progresses and NPI changes, these upsets may go away or, like the first two, get worse.

For the HPU fans out there, I haven’t seen an update to their matches this weekend. They played non-DIII teams.

MIT hasn’t really played anyone so far but it’s still interesting to see that their Points scored is over double what they’ve allowed. I think there are a few teams like this.

I did a first pass at the Top 25 this morning. I think I may have just one or two spots open with a ton of teams itching to get in. A problem for tomorrow.

I’ll end this portion with some Illinois Wesleyan (IWU) love. It’s hard watching a lot of matches when sitting in a gym, but it does allow you to really see a good team in action and that was IWU. They have a number of hard hitters and just play outstanding defense. It almost looks like luck and it certainly did at times this weekend. They just were always where they needed to be when a ball was going to hit the floor. Their defensive alignment is a tad unusual but very effective. Lots of movement when the opposing outside is set. They also have some players that can really pressure the opposition with their serve. I was really disappointed that Southwestern couldn’t raise their game to match but I think part of that is having almost half their starting squad being new to DIII. They got hit in the mouth yesterday and it will be interesting to see how they react to that. For me, I have a benchmark on what a great team looks like. Oh, and it was great talking with Coach Kim Nelson-Brown and her staff. They obviously have done a great job with this squad. I also really appreciated the 2XL IWU shirt…checks notes…that I didn’t receive. I guess you guys just aren’t as nice as Puget Sound and Mark Massey. (Or the awesome bling from Southwestern who were smart enough to know that the (hot) wife should get the good stuff.) Let’s not make the same mistake when I see you at the Elite 8. Best of luck the rest of the way!

Time to look at the matches this weekend and for this we’ll go conference by conference. I had reached out to the NCAA about providing weekly statistics for DIII but they responded that there wasn’t a call for it. Let’s just say that I’m calling right now!

It appears the ASC is going to be slow to update their standings page each week. Slightly annoying. With just four teams in this conference, it is nice that this section will always be on the short side. ETBU continues to roll and is possibly the only undefeated team remaining. I say “possibly” because I don’t know what HPU did this weekend. ETBU is 8-0 after hosting their tournament this weekend. Their best win so far has to be UW-Eau Claire in a 5-set thriller. They did manage to sweep through their four opponents this week. The attendance figures are interesting to see for ETBU as they list 417 for their ETBU/Carroll match-up. Nicely done. Graycee Mosley leads the offense with 129 Points while Syndey Temple leads in Assists, Callie Humphry in Digs and Anita Hancock in Blocks. Howard Payne sits at 4-0 depending on what happened this week. It’s interesting to note that no matches are listed in the NCAA Database for HPU this past week. They play Southwestern on Friday so hopefully that will get some notice. UMHB was in the ETBU Tournament this weekend and they also won all of their matches. They did go to 5-sets on Carroll but swept everyone else. Natalie Hughes is their Points leader with Kendall Harrington leading in Assists. Peyton Sedlack is the Digs leader with Natalie Hughes also leading in Blocks. HSU headed to Johns Hopkins this weekend and got swept by the hosts but did some sweeping of their own in the other two matches. They really don’t have a signature win (they are 5-2 overall) with their best being Schreiner. Leigh Jespersen leads the team in Points with Keatlyn Rodgers leading in Assists, Ari Villanueva in Digs and Avery Tumlinson in Blocks. (Note to the Latvians and possibly “Ned”…I think you are missing one of the UMHB matches in your data. They have 8 matches played.) The NPI ranges from 53.04 (HSU) to 59.20 (ETBU) so, overall, the conference is strong and that will help once they go into conference.

There are only five C2C teams that are full DIII members but I do have Regent at 5-1 while JWU (NC) is at 1-3. Salisbury sits 4-2 after splitting with Tufts this week. They also had a nice win over Gettysburg. It’s clear that the Gulls are going to be pretty good but maybe not at-large good. Still, they are a favorite to win this conference. Kiley McTaggart leads the team in Points, Julie Altieri in Assists, “Dear” Prudence Marco in Digs and Gwen Eustace in Blocks (11 Solos in 22 sets). UC Santa Cruz headed down to SoCal for their matches this weekend where they went 2-2 (Whittier game is missing in NCAA database) and moved to 5-3, overall. Gabia Paliulis leads the Slugs in Points, Margo Melgoza in Assists, Kate Lau in Digs and Olly Gordon in Blocks. Tough weekend for Chris Newport who went 1-2 and moved to 3-3. Their 5-set loss to Bridgewater (Va) is the one they’d like back. Speaking of attendance earlier, CNU had 497 for their Trinity match. Alyssa Dozier leads the team Points and Blocks. She had 19 solos, which seems to me they are not doing stats correctly or she just dominates all middles she faces. Fielding Croft leads the team in Assists while Maddie Hanes leads in Digs. Warren Wilson is 1-4 picking up their first win this weekend (against a non-DIII opponent). KJ Helinsky leads the team in Points, Alaina Castengera in Assists, Josie McCoy in Digs and Pandora Keele in Blocks. Mary Washington also got their first win this weekend beating St Mary’s (Md). They moved to 1-6. Their leaders are Avery Gallahue (Points), Olivia Fortier (Assists), Sydney Aiken (Digs) and Alice Holoubek (Blocks). Overall, it will be interesting to see if this conference can secure two bids this year. CNU seems a bit down but they play a really tough schedule so they have the ability to climb back into it. The NPI range here is 31.99 (Warren Wilson) to 56.84 (Salisbury).

Moving over to the NWC and we have some issues here. The only team I have above 0.500 is Whitworth at 4-3. Since most of the teams are done traveling, this is going to be a one-bid conference as the NPI range here is really bad. It goes from Lewis & Clark (32.40) up to Whitworth at 48.42. Remember that the ASC teams are all higher than Whitworth right now. (It should be pointed out that the NCAA database is missing some matches from this conference.) I’m going to format the team leaders different here. As you may be able to tell, I don’t always have a plan when I start to write. Some more about the teams, first. Whitworth was down in SoCal going 2-2. They beat Pomona-Pitzer and Whittier but took losses to La Verne and Chapman. They fly down to Trinity this week and will be severely tested. Linfield sits 1-1 but their win is against a non-DIII opponent. They will head down to SoCal this weekend. Pacific is 1-2 with their only win being non-DIII. Remember that non-DIII does not count in the NPI world for selection. They play two more non-DIII today (on-going) and then start conference play. They will have played only one DIII opponent prior to conference. George Fox didn’t play this weekend but will get Colorado College today and then a non-DIII team tomorrow before conference starts. They are currently 2-2. Puget Sound was down at Southwestern and it was great meeting Coach Massey in person (finally). They had to fight through an injury issue but managed to beat TLU before dropping matches to IWU and Southwestern. They are 2-4 and will head down to SoCal next weekend. Willamette sits at 2-5 and they are done until conference. PLU sits at 1-5 after dropping 3 at Whitewater. They play one non-DIII opponent before starting conference. SoCal wasn’t kind to Whitman as they dropped 4 matches although they took Pomona-Pitzer to 5-sets. They are 1-6 and are done until conference. Lewis & Clark is now 0-7 and also are done until conference. They were able to take Macalester to 5-sets in that loss. Here’s a look at the team leaders:

• Whitworth: Amblessed Okemgbo (Points), Mya Rodriguez (Assists), Olivia Paul (Digs) & Lauren Kremer (Blocks)

• Linfield: Lani Taliloa (Points & Blocks), Pi’ilani Hirahara (Assists) & Naia Alefaio-Foifua (Digs)

• Pacific: Emma Velcheck (Points), Kayla-Jane Padayao (Assists), Alyssa Cargill (Digs) & two tied in Digs

• George Fox: Gracie Bearden (Points & Digs), Mikaila Kronholm (Assists) & Allaire Gilder (Blocks)

• Puget Sound: Maddie Badger (Points), Randi Rush (Assists), Samantha Keightley (Digs) & Skya Favor (Blocks)

• Willamette: Caroline Jameson (Points), Leina Chu (Assists), Dream Takemoto (Digs) & Emalia Freitas (Blocks)

• PLU: Shaela Allen-Greggs (Points), Ayre Takamoto (Assists), Macy Matsushima (Digs) & two tied in Blocks

• Whitman: Arina Gushchina (Points), Haylee Pruse (Assists), Jamie Bartok (Digs) & Lilli Thompson (Blocks)

• Lewis & Clark: Kaitlyn Jensen (Points & Digs), Ruby Kuerschner (Assists) & Christi San Diego (Blocks)

Time for the SAA and the “no plan” approach will show up again as I’m not listing everyone for these last three conferences. Sorry. The alphabet really messed you up here. Leading off are the two teams at 5-1 in Berry and Trinity. Berry was at the Whitewater Tournament where they went 2-1 but lost to the hosts in 5-sets. Whitewater needed a reverse sweep and extras in the fifth set. So close. Madie Whitehead with 16 kills in this one. Trinity was at Chris Newport where they went 3-0 only losing one set to William Paterson. In that match, Reagan Whatley had 21 kills hitting 0.429 with 21 digs. This conference looks like it could get multiple teams into the tournament and these two look to be the early favorites. Switching over to the NPI ranges, Sewanee is at 44.80 and Trinity leads at 58.28. Centre went to Otterbein and Capital this weekend finishing 3-1 with 3 sweeps. Unfortunately, they also got swept by Otterbein who are proving to be a really good team this season. In their Stevenson win, Hollye Tate had 15 kills hitting 0.542. Southwestern was cruising in their tournament this weekend before running into IWU. They sit at 4-2. In the TLU match, which might have been their best of the weekend, Kendall Jurgens hit 0.500 with 12 kills. Oglethorpe is sitting on a 4-3 record after going 2-2 this weekend. They had a nice 5-set win over William Peace which say three players hit double-digit kills (George, Sims and Williams). Rhodes went 3-1 this weekend evening up their record at 4-4. They surprised me with a win over Austin College with the fourth and deciding set going to 29-27. Caroline Short came up big in this one with 18 kills. Millsaps was at Huntingdon where they went 3-1 beating the hosts in 4-sets. Rachel Zamjahn had 40 assists in this one. Sewanee is the only SAA team to be below 0.500 after two weeks. They went 0-3 this weekend at the Covenant Tournament. They did take Covenant to 5-sets and were led by Savannah Gann who had 19 kills, 5 aces and 13 digs. Right now, this conference has a top half and a bottom half but a number of teams improved their stock this past weekend. Both Centre and Southwestern have disappointing losses on their schedule and it will be interesting to see if they can get into the at-large race.

The SCAC just beats me down with all of these teams. Looking at their NPI range right now, we have Dallas at the bottom with an NPI of 39.52. Hendrix tops the conference at 55.65. They are 0.01 points higher than St Thomas. Both of these teams are still undefeated. It’s good news that 8 of the 10 listed teams are above 50 but neither Centenary or Ozarks qualify as they haven’t played a DIII opponent. Back to Hendrix and they sit at 5-0 after going 3-0 this weekend. They did drop 4 sets in the process but a win is a win. In their 5-set win against Lyon, Riley Brady had 16 kills hitting 0.462. Austin College was at the same tournament as Hendrix but they only went 1-2. Their only win was over Lyon where Mia Johnson had 8 kills, 4 aces and 6 digs. LeTourneau was at the Covenant Tournament and went 2-1 taking their only loss from Transylvania. In the match against the hosts, Maddy Hirneise had 31 digs while Aubree McCann was their Points leader. Dallas continues the rebuild going 0-5 (!) over two days. That’s a ton of matches. Whoops! The database shows the UMHB twice. Ugh. Lots of errors in the data this year. Good thing NPI does use it. Oh, wait! In that Carroll loss, Dallas was led by Mary Mehan who had 12 kills hitting 0.625. Neither Centenary or Ozarks played a DIII team so they are in timeout right now. Looking at the other division, I’ll start with St Thomas who were perfect again moving to 8-0. In their 5-set win against Millsaps, Jazilyn Davis had 12 kills and hit 0.414. Remember this team is doing this without their brilliant outside Audrey Cataline. Schreiner was up in Oregon where they won three and are now 5-1. They needed 5-sets to beat Willamette where Lauren Monaco had 11 kills and 4 total blocks. McMurry didn’t play this weekend so they can be in timeout, too. Colorado College will play later today but went 2-0 this weekend, so far. In their sweep of Macalester, Carolyn Dormady had 7 kills, 3 aces and 7 digs. Concordia is now 5-3 having dropped 3 this weekend at the ETBU Tournament. Their lone win was against Belhaven where Emma Rosier had 20 assists, 3 aces and 12 digs. Brooklyne Fitzgerald had 19 kills in this one, too. Tough weekend for TLU as they went winless at the Southwestern Tournament. They will go through some growing pains this season. In the IWU match, Ryann Ely had 14 kills against a very good defensive team.

Whew. On to the SCIAC and I talked enough about CMS but let me give some love to Brooke McKee who had 24 kills and 4 aces in that WashU match. Looking at the NPI range, Oxy is at 43.14 and it ranges up to La Verne who is at 56.84. Six of the eight teams are above 50 although we are missing Caltech as they have yet to play a DIII program. I will also say that we are missing a bunch of Whittier matches so the data will be slightly off. I have La Verne and Redlands as the two undefeated teams in this conference. La Verne went 3-0 this weekend with their big win being Whitworth. In this one, Mya Ray had 23 kills and hit 0.487. Redlands only played Pomona-Pitzer this week but came away with a non-conference conference win. Lily Houston finished with 16 kills and 18 digs in this one. Chapman moved to 5-1 with a nice win over Whitworth but dropping a match against UC Santa Cruz. In that Whitworth match, Chapman were led by three players in double-digit kills (Leslie, Sampson and Harrison). Whittier seems to be hated on by the NCAA as they have no matches being completed this weekend. In fact, they did go 3-1 to move their overall record to 5-1. In their UCSC win Malena The “Goddess” had 15 kills. I haven’t talked a lot about Cal Lu this year. They are at 4-1 with their only loss being opening day to St Olaf. They were up in Oregon this week where they went 3-0. In their 4-set win against Willamette, Kennedy Smith had 14 kills and 10 digs. Caltech will play their first DIII match this upcoming weekend. Pomona-Pitzer obviously had to fate through difficulties this weekend and, unfortunately struggled a bit. They went 1-3 with a 5-set win over Whitman. In that match, Paige Mountanos finished with 25 kills to lead the Sagehens. Oxy went 0-2 this weekend playing two conference foes in non-conference matches. In their match with Chapman, they came away with 9 blocks led by Eliana Channell with 4. Overall, we really don’t know what we have with Caltech, yet. More on that next week. Oxy is still rebuilding and Pomona-Pitzer has struggled a bit more than we would have thought in preseason. Still, the conference seems strong but I think are hurt slightly by the lack of quality teams they brought into their big three tournaments.

Alright. Done. I think. Pacific won their first match against Pacific Union this morning. Should win the second. GFU vs CC should be interesting. That starts in a few minutes. I’ll go ahead and publish this now instead of waiting. I’m not sure how confident I am in the NPI data with so many matches missing but even if all of the matches were in, NPI isn’t that accurate at this point in the season anyway. Still, I’ll release the complete ranking tonight or tomorrow morning with what we have.

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