1/16/25
The calm before the storm on the Thursday night schedule leading into a huge weekend of D3 men’s volleyball to signal the official opening of the season. Today, InsideHitter.com launched an analysis of each conference on how we rate them on overall strength. That article can be seen at this link: CLICK HERE
Although there were just 6 matches on tonight’s schedule, we were really looking forward to watching Dominican kick off their season in California vs. the 3-1 Banana Slugs of UC Santa Cruz. The Stars and the Slugs appeared pretty evenly matched through point 15 of each set, then it would turn into the Riley Norman show and UCSC would pull away. Dominican battled back in set 2 and we thought they might even the match after losing the first set 25-22. But after tying the score at 23, Polster and Ownbey each slammed kills to put the Stars away. Norman ended the match with 13 kills and a .409 hit percentage. Kyle Ownbey had 10 kills and hit .643. Dominican was able to stay in the game using their block. They tallied 7 compared to just 2 from UCSC. Each team had 5 aces. UCSC improved to 4-1 while Dominican fell to 0-1.
Stevenson got a great performance by Ryan Thenell as the Mustangs went into DC and swept Marymount on their home floor. Thenell hit .524, smashed 12 kills, had just 1 hit error, and added 5 block assists and 9 digs. Doug Hines had 30 assists over 3 sets while Anthony Pezzino and Tim Flanagan posted 10 and 9 kills respectively. Marymount is now 0-2.
Edgewood could not get their attack rolling tonight against Augustana. The Vikings had 8 blocks and 26 digs as they shut down the Eagles in three straight sets. Augustana posted a .243 hitting percentage with 31 kills overall. Sean Carlson led with nine kills, three aces, and three blocks. Cole Clarke added six kills, Tom Lamb had five blocks, and Colin Schaefer recorded 24 assists and nine digs. Edgewood had a negative hit percentage for the match.
Derek Chiang and Jackson Deubner combined for 28 kills and Matt Albano had 37 assists as Hiram dropped Adrian in 4 sets. Adrian won the first set 25-21, but it was all Hiram after that as the Terriers outscored the Bulldogs 75-60 in the last three sessions. Hiram out blocked Adrian 11-5. Hiram improved to 2-1.
Ryan Myers had a big night for Illinois Wesleyan in their 4-set win over Concordia Wisconsin. Myers hit .458 and smoked a game high 14 kills while adding 5 digs and 3 blocks. The match was indicative of first games for both teams as they combined for 47 hit errors and 32 service errors so both teams have great opportunity to improve as the season progresses.
Some great match-ups to watch out for this weekend:
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:
