February 12, 2024
It’s been a very busy past few days with updates to the website across the board. New team rankings, standings, team recaps, and individual player evaluators with more looks posted tonight. Check them out when you can and take a peek at this year’s top performers so far, at least according to the stats.
Let’s start with some accolades from this past week:
Trace Larobardiere of St. John Fisher surpassed 400 career digs in his school career. He slots in at #4 on the Cardinals all-time list. Way to go #12.
Connor Garvey of Wells notched his 500th career kill this past week. The 6′ 3″ senior outside hitter is having a great season for the Express. Congrats to Connor.
Light schedule the last couple of nights with 4 games on Sunday and 4 games on Monday.
Penn State Altoona came up with 2 wins on Sunday. Mason Grover posted 56 assists and Willem Del Priore and Avery Farabaugh combined for 42 kills in The Lions 3-2 win over St. Vincent. Avery and Xavier Vang also supplied 18 digs each in the win with Farabaugh adding 5 aces. This match was tighter than an old pickle jar with the final set going 17-15 in favor of the Lions. The third set finished 31-29. Shawn McSwiggen punched 31 kills in a losing cause for Saint Vincent.
Altoona had a much easier time taking down Mount Aloysius in their second match of the day. PSU recorded a sweep with Avery Farabaugh cracking 13 kills, 10 digs, and 3 aces. Connor Ebersole, Jared Kish, and Xavier Vang were perfect on the attack with no errors. Grover added 32 assists in this one.
Saint Vincent took down Mount Aloysius in the third leg of the tri-match in straight sets. It was Zebadiah Wyant’s chance to lead the Lions as he crushed 15 kills, hit .583, and added 10 digs. Matt Minkin added 8 kills for the Bearcats with no attack errors.
US Santa Cruz cruised past NAIA’s UC Merced in straight sets. Riley Norman had 14 kills and Andrew Pak supplied 34 assists. UCSC are still one short of hitting the .500 mark at 6-7 on the season.
Monday night, we saw 4 sweeps. Nichols blew past Fisher tonight, allowing only 27 points and 5 kills over three sets. Dylan Knapp and Nick Martin led the Bison with 9 and 8 kills respectively. Jack Normandin sat out most of the match as we got to see what some of the Bison reserves can bring to the table. #10 Nichols is now 13-1
Cairn surprised Valley Forge with a sweep, gaining their first win of the season. Joe Poirier and Sam Poirier had 7 kills each to drive the Cairn win.
Thiel dumped Chatham tonight 3-0. Caleb Proudfoot with a big night for Thiel, crunching 10 kills and hitting .533. Caleb also had 2 blocks. Ben Lowell posted 33 assists in the win.
Pratt defeated winless Yeshiva tonight driven by a 9 kills performance from Max Wang and 23 assists from Brooks Reid. Jason Raymond slammed 6 aces for the winners,
Sunday Player of the Night
Avery Farabaugh from Penn State takes the Sunday honors. Avery has had a tremendous season thus far in 2024 and that was certainly on display in two matches. Nice job Avery!
Monday Player of the Night
Monday night honors goes to Caleb Proudfoot of Thiel. the 6′ 9″ middle had another emotional and passionate performance to drive his team to victory. Keep it up big man!!
