January 21, 2024
Yesterday was Super Saturday for D3 College Volleyball with an immense, packed, schedule of games. There are also some early season key matchups that will help us “rankers” start to get a feel for the landscape. These early markers can be super telling of what’s to come in 2024. InsideHitter.com is still at least 10 days away from having enough game play to be statistically significant in a computer ranking as many teams have yet to touch the floor by mid-January. So we plan to issue a hybrid ranking this weekend before the algorithm takes over in February.
Congratulations to Cal Wickens, the head coach of Nazareth, who picked up his 400th career win for the Golden Flyers yesterday. His son Owen has contributed to a number of those wins, especially in the past few years. Great milestone Coach!!!
Shouting out Head Coach Tom Peterson of Southern Virginia for achieving his 500th career win this past week. SVU has yet to lose a set so far in 2024 and the Knights appear poised for another great season.
There were over 60 matches on Saturday’s schedule so our weekend blog will be more “bullet-point” oriented to get in as much content as possible… We may limit ourselves to one sentence to describe each match or achievement. And yes, some will be run-on sentences so apologies to all grammar freaks out there…
The landscape is already changing from preseason predictions and game results starting to roll in. Here are some defining moments from yesterday…
Wentworth defeats defending champion and #1 in the preseason rankings Steven’s Institute of Technology. The added pieces to an already potent offense featuring Jacob LaBouliere, were evident in the Leopards close 5 set win.
Misericordia outlasted Juniata over 5 sets to stay undefeated on the season with Jared “The Giant” Piontowski ripping 32 kills, 4 blocks, and a .542 hit percentage to power the Cougars upset win. Juniata already has two losses after falling to St. John Fisher this weekend as well.
Southern Virginia has opened the season at 5-0 and have yet to lose a set.
A fantastic showing this weekend and last week by Cal Lutheran who downed UCSC twice, Carthage, and Vassar.
Nazareth has opened up 5-0 with come back wins against Randolph Macon and Roanoke last week and a convincing win over Lasell this weekend.
A great start this weekend by NYU as they defeat UCSC and Carthage. They are playing Cal Lutheran right now as we write this blog.
Lasell has dropped three matches already on the young season, all to top quality opponents,
Buffalo State took a set from Baldwin Wallace. This new team looks to be firing on all cylinders as a brand new squad. Virginia Wesleyan also took a set from Roanoke and then beat Eastern. These two new teams along with Hobart are already making a positive presence.
Top Statistical Performances on Saturday