January 12, 2025
We have our first Sunday with games scheduled on opening weekend of the D3 Men’s Volleyball season. It’s been an interesting first week as we match up early performances to expected and predicted results from pre-season ratings and rankings. And we have certainly had quite a few surprises in the short amount of games played.
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We are continuing to post pre-season reports for D3 volleyball teams through Wednesday of this week. Today, we launched a report on the #2 Stevens Ducks. CLICK HERE to see that report.
The first game on today’s schedule was #14 Hobart vs. #18 Lasell. Both teams were undefeated entering the match. Andrew Kim continues to prove he is just unstoppable as he posts another near flawless performance for the Statesmen. With just 2 hitting errors on 45 attempts, he smacked 24 kills over three sets and hit .489. Kim also added 7 digs and a block. Zack Farren added 22 assists and Gavin Meador led Hobart with 8 digs on defense. Alain Malcolm and Josh Reilly both hit .667 from the floor with 7 and 4 kills respectively. Lasell’s twin towers of Jordan Shinaut and Theo Zaharewicz were spectacular on the attack once again with both players hitting .400 and combining for 30 kills in total. We thought Lasell was going to make things really interesting when they went up by one and had set point in the third, but Kim and Company fought back to gain the 27-25 win in overtime.
Steven’s had their first match today against a solid St. Joe’s Long Island team. This one however was not that close as the Ducks rolled 13 players and came away with a 3-0 sweep. Koby Sherman was outstanding for Steven’s as he laid down 13 kills and hit .591 without an error. He also added 3 blocks and two service aces to his opening portfolio. Phil Bone had 7 kills and three Ducks added 5 (Hoke, Weirick, and Schmid). Sebastien Huyke had 18 assists for Stevens and Kevin Herbst added 13. The Ducks defense limited the Golden Eagles to a .040 hit percentage over the first two sets. Grad student Will Kropp took over the reigns as playmaker for SJLI and had 27 assists.
How great has the brand-new program Westminster been thus far? The Blue Jays won three of their first 4 games at the SUNY Poly Tournament this weekend. One of those wins was against Misericordia, a top 30 team in the rankings. They also pushed Nazareth to 20 points in all three sets before dropping their only loss. Westminster is chocked with freshman but let’s see where the production came from… Freshman MB Luke Rohrbach was exceptional through the 4 matches. He notched 22 blocks, 18 kills, and a hitting percentage of .471. Not too shabby! Freshman Aidan Ortmann had 42 kills and freshman Dalio Taouil had 33. Junior setter Jake Schawo-McAlister notched 119 assists and 14 blocks for the weekend. Taouil received 73 serves without an error and Sophomore Ryan Rhodes led the team with 39 digs. Are we ready to compare the Blue Jays to first year program Hobart from last season? Well, not quite yet. But this was just an awesome start for Westminster and the D3 world should take notice. Kudos to Head Coach Dalton Tucker!
Here is an up-to-date scoreboard from the first week of play…
Some great match-ups to watch out for this week:
Tuesday: Marymount vs. Randolph Macon
Thursday: Dominican vs. UC Santa Cruz
Friday: Nazareth vs. Misericordia, Rutgers vs. Lasell, Juniata vs. D2 UPR Rio, Stevens vs. Nichols, Wittenberg vs. St. John Fisher, Cal Lutheran vs. UC Santa Cruz, Springfield vs. Concordia Irvine, Mount Union vs. Messiah, and SUNY New Paltz vs. Carthage.
Saturday: Baldwin Wallace vs. Messiah, Randolph Macon vs. Mount Union, Wentworth vs. Nichols, Mount Union vs. Misericordia, Nazareth vs. Randolph Macon, Dominican vs. Cal Lutheran, Carthage vs. UC Santa Cruz,
Sunday: Carthage vs. Cal Lutheran, SUNY New Paltz vs. UC Santa Cruz.
Pics from the day:
