The Medaille Mavericks, coming off a respectable year of volleyball in the AMCC, are no longer after the school shuttered this Fall. We continue to see the long-term effects of the pandemic and decreased population and enrollment numbers across the nation due to demographic shifts. There are just less potential students coming out of high school these days in what has long been predicted as a problematic trend for colleges.
As far as D3 volleyball, three Mavericks have transferred to take advantage of the new program offered at Buffalo State University starting this season. Senior libero Joshua Shiflet, senior outside Malachi Jackson, and junior right-side George Muriel will be shifting their college experience 6 miles west to the home of the Bengals.
There is an expectation that these types of events can continue in the next few years. Numerous articles have been written on the financial volatility of so many smaller colleges and universities across the country. Some schools can just not sustain the reduction in enrollment traffic and are forced to shutter if they can not find an acquirer. Some school are choosing to reduce programs to balance their budgets, again bringing volatility and risk to some of the volleyball schools. Other schools are doubling down on athletics and using it as a recruiting tool to increase their student count.
We have seen many new D3 men’s programs come into existence this year, and more are planned in the future. Many of these have been made possible by the amazing work that First Point is doing to grow the game and help fund institutions to start men’s volleyball programs across all levels. They have a mission and goal to grow D3 men’s programs to 200 by 2028. We currently have about 125 program which has grown from 90 in 2016, with the help of First Point. IH loves the aggressive nature that First Point is exhibiting and are aligned with our mission to contributing to grow the game.