January 23, 2024
After a great weekend of telling data, and amazing volleyball, we move on to week three of the NCAA D3 men’s volleyball season. If you had told us that we would still be in January and Carthage, UCSC, Lasell, Juniata, MIT, and Dominican would have multiple losses and that Stevens, Springfield, North Central, and Vassar would have losses already is quite surprising. But early success and fast starts from Wentworth, Southern Virginia, Cal Lutheran, St. John Fisher, and Nazareth have positioned them well for the rest of the season. NYU has a lot of new, talented players and of course our defending champion Ducks, with probably the deepest talent pool of any team in the nation, will be settling near the top of the rankings despite their loss this week to Wentworth.
Week three started tonight and let’s take a look at some of the action:
Misericordia has had a fantastic start to their season and faced a very good Lancaster Bible team tonight at home. It was Anthony DePalma’s night to show off his talents as the senior outside had no errors on 22 attempts, pounding 14 kills and an ace to go along with 6 digs. The Cougars needed every bit of that effort to fend off the Chargers in 4 sets. The teams split the first two sets, and after settling in at 26-26 in the third, it took a big DePalma kill and an ace to end the set in the Cougars favor. LBC jumped out to a 14-11 lead in set 4, but lost 8 of the next 9 points as the Cougars took set four, 25-20. Gannon DeFrain potted 33 assists for the winners and Zane Martin bombed 8 kills, hitting .583. Jared Piontowski added 11 kills for the Cougars.
Stevens improved to 5-1 with a typically solid performance tonight, taking 3 of 4 sets from Baruch. The surprise tonight was a rather dominating performance by Baruch in set 3, taking care of the Ducks 25-17, which included an 8-point run powered by multiple kills by Peter Gavroff. But the consistent play of Percy Bickford, Connor Feulner, Tyler Hoke, and Chris Varseveld, all of which did not have an attack error tonight helped fuel the win. Koby Sherman led the Ducks attack with 11 kills and Nathan Lancia had 9.
IH totally expected Loras to take a step back this season, but they have shown no signs of weakness and improved to 2-0 with a straight set win over MSOE. Joe Horn had 31 assists, 7 digs and a kill to lead the victory. Dorian Fiorenza popped in 11 kills while Corey Mayotte added 10. Brady Oberfoell, with an outstanding defensive game, lifted 15 digs over the three sets.
Wilson outlasted Mount Aloysius over 5 sets to gain their first win of the season. Xavier Webber notched 18 kills while hitting .341. Andrew Sviben was the go-to, getting 50 attack opportunities and yielded 16 kills. Sviben also added 20 assists, 4 aces, 2 blocks, and 14 digs in the contest. MAC received 23 kills from Matthew Franz and 40 assists from Evan Schmidt in the loss.
There were two postponements tonight on the schedule: Hiram against Wittenberg and Bard vs. Lehman.
Penn State Behrend eased to a straight set win tonight over Houghton. Kudos to Owen Wienczkowski who had 9 kills on 10 attempts with no errors along with pushing back 6 blocks. Logan Hering hit .583 while jamming 7 kills of his own. Josh Elegeer led the defense with 11 digs.
Illinois Institute of Technology picked up their first win of the season with a straight set win over North Park. IIT hit over .400 as a team powered by Bryan Evans (8 kills, .889), Jackson Van Engen (8 kills, .429, 6 blocks) and Dave Singer (7 kills, .316). IIT will put on their traveling shoes this weekend as they head to Virginia to take on RMC, SVU, Roanoke, and a scrimmage against Liberty (Club).
Illinois Wesleyan dropped Rockford in 4 sets to improve to 3-0 on the young season. They will visit Benedictine next Monday to test just how good this team is. But for now, it’s been a great month with wins over Olivet, Lakeland and now Rockford. Mike Eastman threw down 12 kills, Jace Milka lifted 8 digs, and Brendan Reutter had 22 assists for the winner. IWU rolled 19 players on their roster. Isaiah Dixon had 14 kills for Rockford in a losing effort.
Mount Saint Joseph stayed close with D2 Thomas More tonight despite losing in a sweep. Two sets were within 2 points. Wittenberg next this week for the Lions.
Another nice showing by brand new Wisconsin-Steven’s Point. The Setters had good success on the attack tonight with Zach Meyers poking 16 kills, Kyle Smith hitting .385, and a great performance by Wren Dietz who did not have an error with 9 kills. Andy Sanchez held down the back row with 14 digs and Josh Brogren had 34 helpers for the winners.
Tomorrow’s schedule has a dozen games with a couple of feature matches:
Rutgers will visit New Paltz for the Hawks Opener. Both teams are in the IH Top 25. New Paltz spent time in the Dominican Republic to get ready for the season. Here is the live game feed link 7PM EST SUNY New Paltz – Home (stretchinternet.com)
Arcadia travels to Manhattan to take on Hunter. We expect Hunter to be a team vastly improved by infusions of new talent. Being at home will help the Hawks make their opening statement to the season. Here is the live game feed link 6PM EST (To be added).https://www.huntercollegeathletics.com/sports/mens-volleyball/schedule
NJCU starts their season with state rival Kean at Harwood. These two teams are always competitive, especially with each other. Watch out for the Gothic Knights new outside phenom Marcus Pardasie to make a splash. This is a NJAC league game. Kean does an amazing job with broadcast that you won’t want to miss.7PM EST LIVE LINK
And tonight’s “Player of the Night” goes to Anthony DePalma for his outstanding performance for Misericordia against Lancaster Bible. Kudos to the Wide Receiver!!!
IH