A couple of significant stories to tell today with IH’s two top rated teams in the country, Let’s start with #2 Loras. The DuHawks visited Carthage tonight and put their undefeated record on the line against the Firebirds. The first set was wild with several back-and-forth exchanges as the teams went to extra time to resolve a 26-24 Loras win. But the rest was all Carthage as they drove their home crowd energy to 3 straight set wins over the DuHawks and a 3-1 win. The DuHawks get their normal output from the thrilling pin duo of Dorian Fiorenza and Corey Mayotte who combined for 37 kills. But Owen Otto and David Markes put an offensive show on of their own in the Gene McNulty led offense tallying 16 and 13 kills respectively. McNulty had 43 assists, 5 digs and an ace while Ryan Cholewinski, David Markes, and Owen Otto combined for 15 blocks. Loras hit just .174 compared to .367 of the Firebirds. Both teams are now 7-1 in the CCIW and first seed will be hyper important with each time having one game left and home arena advantage on the table. Carthage has not lost at home all season at Tarble and the DuHawks remain undefeated on their home court at Lillis. Carthage still has North Park and Augustana to play next week in CCIW action and Loras has Augustana and North Central. Loras holds the tiebreaker in head-to-head as they swept Carthage earlier in the season.
The CVC schedule is winding down and #1 Southern Virginia entered their match with Rutgers at the Golden Dome in Newark with just one set loss all season against 69 set wins and an astonishing 23-0 record. Rutgers has new talent developing after losing a ton to graduation last season. They have been fielding 3 freshman starters most of the season and despite having a winning record, they were a few matches away from being in the top 20 after being reverse swept by Nichols and Baruch, two matches they had well in hand. Today, they went into the match without their outstanding outside hitter Lucas Blanco who joined the squad this season as a grad student after playing at St. Frances D1 in 2023. SVU started the match without their brilliant freshman right side Sam Candland as both teams are feeling the physical effect of the long season. The start of the match went as expected with SVU pulling away from the Raiders to gain a 25-19 first set win. Freshman RS Alex Kolodziej and junior OH Aidan Apito stepped up for the Raiders and propelled Rutgers to wins in set 2 and set 3 doubling the SVU loss output of sets from the entire season. Rutgers held a 13-8 lead in set 4 as they worked to close the Knights out, but Candland came off the bench and delivered immediate attack impact to help the Knights fight back and win the set. The lefty threw down some big bombs that ignited the Knights emotionally and reset the room for a SVU comeback. Candland put down 9 kills in the late 4th and 5th to secure the SVU victory. Christian Sheaffer led all Knights with 19 kills. Apito and Kolodziej tallied 10 kills for the Raiders while sophomore Sean Spring added 9. Jeremy Brown also had 9 kills for SVU while Tyler Sheaffer posted 40 assists. Martin Chromulak was a standout at middle with 7 blocks for the Raiders while freshman Quinn Shumway led the Knights with 4. Rutgers will face Marymount in the first round of the CVC tournament. If they can win, they will once again see the Knights in Virginia for a rematch.
Koby Sherman (12 kills) and Percy Bickford (9 kills) were lights out on the attack as Stevens swept Vassar for their 25th straight win. Both players hit over .400 for the match. Stevens has won their last 22 sets and seems primed for the MAC playoffs. It was Vassar’s 6th loss of the season and may require them to win the UVC tournament to gain access to the NCAA Championship tournament. They still have a tough road ahead with games against Springfield, SUNY New Paltz, and Hunter. Steven’s will gain access to the tourney even if they lose the MAC tourney as the defending champions season resume’ speaks for itself at 28-1.
MIT knocked off St. John Fisher last night in 4 sets, handing the Cardinals their 4th loss of the season. The Engineers were not able to take advantage of that momentum and fell to Nazareth today in 5 sets. Naz is healthy again and primed to deliver some upsets in the UVC tournament coming up if they can win over NYU and New Paltz this week. The battle for the last spot in the tourney will be hot and heavy. Vassar, St. John Fisher, and MIT have locked down spots thus far. The UVC continues to be a wonderland of talent and the field seems wide open come tournament time despite differences in the rankings.
Some notable accolades form this past week…
Edgewood College junior right side Gavin Patterson has surpassed 500 kills for his career. He also posted 20 kills against St. Norbert marking the first time in program history an Edgewood player accomplished that feat in a single match.
Tyler Goldsborough of Juniata is now a member of the 1,000 career kill club. The 6’5″ senior has been a force this season with over 300 kills and a .331 hit percentage.
Valley Forge setter Isaiah Brown has reached 1,000 career assists. The senior has 456 so far this season for the Patriots and recently tallied 51 assists against Wilson on 3/26 in a winning effort. Spectacular!
Juniata setter Reese Ganter has reached 3,000 assists for his career. Reese has 819 so far this season and is averaging 10.78 assists per set, near the top in the country.
Baldwin Wallace senior setter Brandon Long surpassed 3,000 assists for his career. Three times this year he had over 50 assists in a match and 11 times he had over 40 assists in a match. Another outstanding season for this solid Yellow Jacket.
Ben Schultz from Augustana has broken the school record for block in a career with 176. The 6’6″ senior middle blocker also has 400 kills for his career and has been a amazing presence on the Augustana front row.
Carthage senior Gene McNulty shot past 3,000 assists for his career. Gene has over 500 assists this year to gain the mark. McNulty posted 907 in his sophomore year. Such an impressive resume’ for the senior. Congrats Gene!
6′ 4″ Freshman Ty Heater of Augustana broke two school records this week. Ty registered his 25th solo block of the season and also ran his season total to 71 total blocks. Both are new milestones for the Augies.
James Mion is now the all-time leading solo block leader at SUNY Poly. The senior middle blocker picked up 2 solo blocks against rival SUNY Potsdam to give him 67 for his career. Awesome James!!!
New rankings and another shot at Bracketology update coming.
Happy Holidays!