March 1, 2024
A rather lighter than normal night for a Friday night schedule for D3 Men’s Volleyball. Just 14 matches on the schedule for Friday and bit over 60 for this upcoming Saturday. Before we jump into observations on tonight’s matches, we will start out with a player announcement.
Penn State Behrend senior Owen Wienczkowski has accepted an offer to play overseas at the prestigious Durham University while getting his master’s in data science. He will play for the University team in the BUCS league and the open club team in the National Volleyball League (NVL) in the United Kingdom. The master’s program is one year so we will see what opportunities arise from this experience. Congratulations Owen!!!
Tonight’s schedule featured a few feature matchups. We will start there.
Southern Virginia continued its Northern visit to Rochester with a variety of top opponents on the slate to prove it belongs in the IH #1 position in the country. Thursday night, the ripped Nazareth in straight sets. The Knights have yet to lose a set all season. Hobart was eager to show off their talent against SVU, but like every other team that Southern Virginia has faced, fell in three sets. Hobart had ripped through Buffalo State 3-0 in a battle of newbies for 2024. The Statesmen have been the feature new kid on the block and have pressed their way into the top 20 powered by the skill of Andrew Kim. Kim did a number on Buffalo State slashing 15 kills and adding 3 aces. Freshman Dan Sappia also excelled on the floor with 10 kills and a .467 hit percentage. But their second match against SVU did not yield the preferred result. The Knights limited Kim to 9 kills and outscored the Statesmen 75-51 with Jeremy Brown posting 12 kills, 9 digs, and 2 blocks while Christian Sheaffer had 11 kills, 4 digs and 2 blocks. Tyler Sheaffer had 32 assists and dug 13. SVU had a strong punch from the right side tonight as well with 6’8″ Kyler Evans getting 8 kills on 8 attempts and Sam Candland hitting .545 with 6 kills. Saturday’s schedule will feature 3 great matchups with a round-robin tri-match between St. John Fisher, Vassar, and SVU.
MIT shutdown the high-flying SUNY New Paltz Hawks in straight sets at the Nest. Not the best of night’s for MIT’s outstanding leader Nick Gustafson who got shutdown by the Hawk front line. But like with any great team, MIT had 2 players step up with big performances to pick up the slack as the offense came from up the middle rather than the pins. Both middles Mike Rini and Phillip Johnson had extraordinary nights posting 12 kills each. Rini had zero attack errors and hit .750 while Johnson was 12 of 15 attempts and hit .733. Kevin Windisch led the defense with 15 digs. MIT improved to 9-5 and NP fell to 13-8. Pat Wing had 16 kills for the Hawks.
Lancaster Bible stacked their early season schedule with top competition such as Vassar, Stevens, Marymount 2x, Cal Lutheran, Messiah, and Arcadia. So, their record is not directly indicative of their ability. Tonight, they faced a Rutgers team at the Golden Dome that sports 5 first year to the program starters including 3 freshmen. The Scarlet Raiders in their rebuilt form have shown signs of being a top 15 team but have had some heartbreaking losses that we chalk up to inexperience playing together. We had them figured for a top 3 spot in the CVC, but they may be scrambling to qualify for the tournament after losing to Randolph Macon and Juniata in their first 2 conference matchups. Lucas Blanco has been a standout for the Raiders and posted 17 kills and hit .364 for his night’s work against LBC. Freshman middle Vincent Lopez is hitting .435 for the season with 64 kills to date and has been a solid contributor in his first year. He had 8 more kills tonight and hit .583 against the Chargers. Fernando Parades lifted 15 digs for the winners. Jordan Yoder led LBC with 17 kills and 8 digs. The freshman was impressive and despite his size at 5′ 10″, played an outstanding outside hitter role and made super smart decisions on the attack and defensively.
Jacob Kim continued his onslaught on Vassar opponents in the new 6-2 setup and led the Brewers to 3-0 win over Nazareth. Kim posted 17 assists, 2 aces, 9 kills, and 2 blocks in the win while Payne Lounsbery slammed 8 kills. Naz is trying to adjust after losing Owen Wickens to injury and Max Stuver, Josh Weaver, and Alex Bertino are all stepping up, but it does present some monster size shoes to fill with #4 out of the lineup.
Player of the Night
We award tonight’s POTN to Jack McClure of Mount Union. Jack slugged 27 kills over 4 sets to help down Olivet. A big 29-point night performance by the 6′ 4″ senior. Way to go Jack!!!
