January 17, 2024
Just two games on the schedule tonight as we gear up for a big weekend of action as many teams start up their seasons.
Tonight, we will focus on Virginia Wesleyan vs. Roanoke and Thiel vs. St. Norbert.
Virginia Wesleyan, in their first D3 match of their existence, showed they can compete and are probably much better than anticipated. They took the first set from an improved Roanoke team before dropping the match in 4 sets. Roanoke received a powerful performance from Michael Cummings tonight. Cummings hit .467 with 17 kills and just 3 errors while adding 8 digs and three blocks. Pierce Faulcon also excelled for the Maroons as he committed just one error on the night with 14 kills and a .520 hit percentage. Kaeden Noble had 13 digs for Roanoke, leading both teams in that category. Nice job by Davin Stevenson who had 32 assists, 2 aces, 5 digs, and 2 blocks.
We spoke with Maroons libero Kaeden Noble after today’s match. He shared “We started the match off slow and we had to fight back and show some resiliency. Our serving got better as the match progressed and we forced them to be out of system mostly in sets two through four.” Roanoke looked much better defensively than 2023. Kaeden has picked up a high level of back row responsibility. He also shared “Our blocking looked exponentially better than last season (12 total blocks recorded tonight). I am so excited about the rest of the season!”
Virginia Wesleyan unveiled Landon Brinkley as their go-to player on the attack. Brinkley had 30 attacks and Matt Sheppard had 35. Landon excelled tonight, posting 15 kills and hitting .300. Wesleyan had assists from multiple players, so permanent setter responsibility looks up for grabs after game one.
St. Norbert proved to be too much for Thiel to handle tonight as the Green Knights pick up their first win of the season with a straight set victory on Thiel’s home court. Like many teams in the first few weeks of the season, Thiel struggled with their passing tonight and could just not sustain any solid runs of points. They played from behind the majority of the match as St. Norbert continued to apply pressure on the attack. Jackson Corcoran, Owen Knezevich, and Barry Applewhite powered the attack for the Green Knights with Michael Whitney potting 30 assists for the match. Applewhite led the team with a .600 hitting percentage. Knezevich and Kaden Kornhaus lifted 10 digs each for the winners. Kaleb Proudfoot electrified the Tomcats on several occasions with monster kills from the middle, but Thiel’s attack lacked the consistency to stay close, especially in the third set. Kaleb also had 3 blocks and James Cromwell-Young added 6 blocks and 4 kills.
Tonight, and on many future nights, we will award a “Player of the Night”. It was close but we will give tonight’s honor to 6′ 7″ sophomore Pierce Faulcon of Roanoke for his near perfect performance for the Maroons. Congrats Pierce!!!
Last week’s IH Awards can be seen at this link… Weekly IH Awards – InsideHitter.com
We are attempting to provide easy looks at conference standings, scoreboard and ratings, rather than combing multiple sites to review this information daily or weekly. All feedback welcome at insidehitter@gmail.com.
The Preseason ratings took their first loss of the season as we favored Thiel over St. Norbert. We continue to provide validity of our system thus far with one loss through thirty-six D3 matches (.972).
IH