Last Updated 9:30PM PST
This blog will be updated throughout the day so stay tuned for new content…
The first full weekend of action for NCAA D3 Men’s Volleyball has a number of high-level matchups on the schedule. Through last night, just 17 D3 teams have started play for 2024 leaving over 100 teams who have yet to hit the floor. Some of those newcomers will engage in games today and the vast majority of the remaining teams will start-up by next weekend.
Misericordia had two of the early games on this Saturday morning and got their season off to a fantastic start going 2-0. Elmira was first up for the Cougars and Jared Piontowski, the 6′ 10″ right side transfer from King’s College, broke out in his initial game with his new team. Jared hit .676 on 34 attacks, posted 25 kills and just 2 errors, and added an ace and 4 blocks. The Cougars may have one of the most potent and powerful left side/right side attacks in the country with Jared on the right and Anthony DePalma at outside on the left. DePalma had over 400 kills last season. Max Cohen served up 27 assists and Edwin Sosa slapped 11 kills, but it wasn’t enough for Elmira as they fell in 4 sets.
Jared and Anthony were equally as impressive in game two against SUNY POLY combining for 30 kills in a straight set win. Gannon DeFrain had 37 assists over the three sets. Piontowski also added 4 aces in the match. Zane Martin had a nice match for the Cougars hitting .467 with 8 kills. DePalma hit .344 and added 5 digs. POLY was fueled on the attack by Jason Aubrey who had 12 kills, 5 digs, and 3 blocks. Brendan Palmer had a great day on defense lifting 11 digs in the match for SUNY.
We spoke with Jared after the match and he was his ever, humble self, which we love about him. He stated “We are 18 strong! every guy on our team contributed to that win”. “The game was electric! if it wasn’t for my teammates, I would not have achieved what I did in the match” he added. IH has Misericordia at #24 in the preseason analysis. They are a team to watch for sure.
Nazareth traveled down south to Randolph Macon to take on both Yellow Jackets and Roanoke from the CVC. The Golden Flyers handed RM their first loss of the year coming back after being down 2 sets to 1 to win an exciting fifth set 15-13. AJ Burda spread 49 assists over the 5 sets to earn the win. Owen Wickens led Naz with 20 kills but AJ spread the offense with Nathan DeJoy (8 kills, .353), Alex Bertino (10 kills), Josh Weaver (10 kills, .316), and Andrew Bodensteiner (10 kills, .333, 5 blocks) feeding the attack. The Yellow Jackets brilliant sophomore Ian Wagenhauser had 15 kills and Owen Hahn had 7 kills and hit .600.
Naz then took on Roanoke, a team that InsideHitter has earmarked as vastly improved this season. Roanoke jumped out to a 2 set to none lead in this one but could just not put Nazareth away, falling 25-22 in the third and 4th sets, and then 15-12 in the final fifth set. Wickens was the go-to for the Golden Flyers, especially in set 5. He posted 26 kills for the match and added 9 big aces to power the win. Bodensteiner had 12 kills and just 1 error, hitting .579 on 19 total attacks. Roanoke got 15 kills from Michael Cummings and 11 from Jackson Rutkowski while Leo Houser posted 34 assists and 5 digs.
Owen Wickens was kind enough to share some of his thoughts before getting on the long bus ride back to upstate NY from Virginia. We asked him how the team fared and if he was happy with the performance. “In ways, I’m definitely happy with how we came out of the gate this weekend. Personally, I like the fact that we went 5 with both teams because they’re both competitive teams that have a lot of talent. But what I really liked is that we were able to face adversity as a group with the team that we have. Guys who have not started in past years stepping into a roll and the team having trust in each other. It was definitely sloppy and we as a team made too many errors and I am included in that. But regardless of what was going on we were able to trust in each other and decide that we truly wanted to walk away 2-0 after being down in both matches.” We also asked what we can expect from the Golden Flyers this season… “My expectations for this team this season are to, in a way, do exactly what we did this weekend, which is not shying away from adversity and being down in matches. Play as hard as we can no matter who’s on the other side of the net. And I expect this team to continue to compete at one of the highest levels because that’s what we will need to do in order to be successful this year.” Owen is a class act and is a true leader and we always appreciate his time.
Southern Virginia got their season underway with two games against Eastern and Lancaster Bible. SVU powered past Eastern in game 1 in what seemed to be a flawless effort. Southern Virginia hit .733 in set 1 and had just 7 attack errors for the match as they won easily in straight sets. Jeremy Brown had 16 kills and Christian Sheaffer posted 9, hitting .636 and .667 respectively. Tyler Sheaffer had 25 assists. In game 2, Lancaster Bible tightened the defense in the last two sets but could not keep up with the Knight’s powerful offense and lost in straight sets as well. Jack Rotelle and Jordan Yoder each had 9 kills for the Chargers.
Cal Lutheran, still high from their straight set win over UCSC last night, eased to another straight set win over Adrian Saturday. The Kingsmen had just 6 attack errors for the match and held the Bulldogs to just 42 points over the three sets. Ben Weber had 7 kills and hit .545 and Jordan Cooper had 8, while Taylor Marks posted 19 assists, 6 digs, and 3 aces.
Dominican rose to the occasion after splitting the first two sets with Fontbonne, taking the third set 27-25, and then romping in set 4, 25-18 for the win. Casey Goss continued his hot start to the season clubbing 21 kills, 9 digs, 4 blocks and hitting .333 for the match. Jarod Hess and Aaron Mars combined for 25 kills and Owen Morrow had 47 assists for the Stars. We caught up to Casey after the match and picked his brain about the upcoming season and Dominican’s play today. “Today I feel like we picked up right where we left off with last season’s hot streak. We know we have a lot to prove this year after coming up short in the NACC final last April and we’ve added a lot of guys to help us get to where we want to be” said Goss. He added “Today we showed anyone that touches the court can and will add value. It was a big revenge game in our eyes after getting swept by Fontbonne in our home opener last year, so it definitely felt good get them back. We have them again in two weeks in our gym so that will definitely be another fight. As a team we know we still haven’t found our full potential but each day we have every intention of taking a step forward. Roll Stars!” The Stars are 1-0 in D3 matches. Three players from Fontbonne had 10 kills each. Cameron Graves, Sam McAlister and Logan Irby led the attack with Irby only having 1 error on the attack and hitting .409. Ryan Rhodes dug 12 for Fontbonne.
US Santa Cruz took down Adrian in straight sets to gain their first victory of the year. The opening California tourney has not been kind to the Banana Slugs who are currently 1-2 on the season after dropping games to Cal Lutheran last night and Vassar today.
Lots more to come tomorrow on the first week of NCAA D3 men’s volleyball…
IH
ALSO…
See this link to an IH article posted tonight… it appears we have selected every winner thus far this season per our rating system… 32-0. https://insidehitter.com/2024/01/14/the-power-of-math-ih-starts-season-32-0/