Posted by: Aly Edge | 21 May 2013

Gearing up for NCAA women’s season – Southwestern Athletic Conference

SWAC attack!

Time to mash this one out before my attention turns to Argentina for the bulk of this week. It hasn’t been that long since the first piece, but in the interests of total continuity, the rundown:

America East Conference
Southwestern Athletic Conference
Patriot League
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Big Sky Conference
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
Northeast Conference
Big South Conference
Colonial Athletic Association
Ohio Valley Conference
Horizon League
Western Athletic Conference
Southland Conference
Conference USA
The Summit League
Atlantic Sun Conference
American Athletic Conference
Ivy League
Southern Conference
Mid-American Conference
Sun Belt Conference
Atlantic 10 Conference
Big West Conference
Mountain West Conference
Big East Conference
Missouri Valley Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
Southeastern Conference
Big 12 Conference
West Coast Conference
Big Ten Conference
Pac-12 Conference

The SWAC, having as they do a unifying theme to their member institutions, do not experience a change ahead of the 2013 academic year. Their last change in membership was in 1999, when Alabama A&M joined, though I’ll admit that even that was well more recent than I was expecting. Of the league’s ten members, seven have been there and stayed since the 1960′s (and in a couple of cases, some decades before that). I’ve always thought this was a bit of an odd name for a conference whose members are in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. South Central Athletic Conference more like, no?

The SWAC tournament champions a year ago were the regular-season champions Jackson State, and they managed to be a fair bit more competitive in their matchup against a team that badly outmatched them than were the America East’s Binghamton, putting up a borderline-respectable (25-10, 25-17, 25-10) effort against second-ranked Stanford. The Lady Tigers really dominated the league a year ago. Here’s how the standings looked at year’s end:

East Division
1. Jackson State 8-0 (24-12)
2. Alabama A&M 6-2 (12-20)
3. Mississippi Valley State 3-5 (10-15)
4. Alabama State 3-5 (9-27)
5. Alcorn State 0-8 (1-28)

West Division
1. Prairie View A&M 7-1 (14-21)
2. Texas Southern 6-2 (15-15)
3. Arkansas-Pine Bluff 5-3 (10-18)
4. Southern 1-7 (4-25)
5. Grambling State 1-7 (3-19)

It may look like a ridiculous number of non-conference versus conference matches, but in the SWAC, the only matches that count as conference play are the traditional home-and-away double-round robin against only teams in your same division. In contrast to basically every other conference (if not literally every conference) these teams will play invitationals amongst themselves. For example, the only SWAC team Jackson State didn’t play last year was Texas Southern, despite only the matches with their East Division foes counting as SWAC conference play. And counting invitationals, regular season play, and the SWAC tournament, they managed to face Alabama State five different times. I’m sure it’s par for the course of being part of a conference where tradition is so important, a fair sight more so than in other conferences.

Jackson State were the clear class of the SWAC in 2012. After a 2-12 start, the Lady Tigers rattled off an impressive 22 straight wins prior to their loss in the NCAA tournament. Yeah, yeah, weak competition, whatever….not losing a match for two months is impressive. Period. The Lady Tigers were statistically the nation’s very best serving team a season ago, averaging 2.2 aces per set, the only team over 2. They suffer a pretty major departure with the graduation of outside hitter Christine Edwards, who led the nation in aces per set individually (only the Stanford match knocked her under a full ace per set average on the year, which led the nation by a substantial margin). She also had over twice as many kills as anyone on the team, leading the conference in that area to be named SWAC Player of the Year. Middle blocker Paige Williams joined Edwards on the first team All-SWAC squad a year ago, and is another pretty profound loss as she averaged well over a block per set. Dana Yoshimura, a libero-stroke-DS (she filled both roles) also departs the team ahead of 2013, as does Kameron Boggan, an offensive all-round player who started as regularly as anyone. The foremost returner is sophomore middle blocker Mikayla Rolle, who was second team all-SWAC in 2012, but other than her, the cupboard is a little bare. The Lady Tigers did go undefeated in 2013 spring play, but it remains to be seen just how much this means. There’s a lot of gaps to fill.

The Alabama A&M Lady Bulldogs had the same number of all-conference players in 2012 as did Jackson State — two — but the difference is both of them return. Senior-to-be Clairissa Moore led the team in scoring with just under 4 kills per set, and did it on a .302 efficiency — the only hitter in the conference above .300 on the season. Setter Ashley Forman, a junior in 2013, was likewise first team all-conference, though her setting numbers aren’t particularly impressive, checking in at only a touch over 9 assists per set. It’s not always all about statistics, of course. While outside hitter Mariah Brown departs via graduation, there are two further players who appeared in every match last season for the Lady Bulldogs, middle blocker Leslie Epke and regular libero Rebecca Cortez, senior and sophomore respectively. Like Jackson State, Alabama A&M started off really slowly in 2012, winning just one of their first 12 matches. The responding run was solid rather than dominant, leading to their 10-19 final mark. Returning a more solid core means they have a very good chance to displace two-time defending conference champions Jackson State n 2013.

The Mississippi Valley State Devilettes had a rough start to their 2012 season just like Jackson State and Alabama A&M, but theirs was perhaps doubly so. Winning just one of their first eight matches included losses to Tougaloo College, Union University, and Arkansas-Monticello. If you’ve never heard of any of those institutions, don’t worry — that’s, respectively, an NAIA school and two NCAA Division II teams. That’s not a good run for any Division I team. They went a little over .500 the rest of the way, including SWAC conference play. Ultimately though, you’d have to say they did reasonably well for a team with such a small roster — only ten players. Except for outside hitter Ilaisha Hale, all of them played in every match last year. Setter April Brown, outside hitter Brychana Williams, and libero Jane Peterson depart via graduation, and to replace them, MVSU have signed a six-player incoming class. These number three freshmen recruits out of high school and three transfers from small colleges. The incoming class targets the middle blocker position, which was a notable weakness for the Devilettes as they were out-blocked by 75 total blocks in 2012. Joining sophomore returner Halle Gayten are juco transfer Taylor Littleton and freshman Cynthia Richardson, who will slot in as the team’s two tallest players and figure to be likely to get consistent playing time this season. The Devilettes ran a 6-2 last season with Brown and Alexandria Garland. The addition of freshman setter Athena Abary gives them the opportunity to stay in that formation, but Abary’s slight frame (just 5-foot-3) makes it a tad questionable. Juco transfer Kayondra Wood probably will be Peterson’s replacement at libero, as the team did not have any other dedicated back-row specialist in 2012. This is a team in a bit of flux, as all teams are, but it looks likely that they’ll be better in 2013 than they were in 2012.’

Alabama State are called the Hornets (strictly, the Lady Hornets — most SWAC teams modify the nickname slightly for women’s sports), but I’m terrified of bees, and their athletic logo is just a little too nail-on-the-head (they even have a buzzing/flying version on their athletics website), so you get the university logo. Deal with it :P Despite a pretty motley 2012 record, the Hornets did place a player on the first team all-SWAC, that being Brazilian import (a phrase I wasn’t expecting to use in this piece) Luiza Griz. By virtue of this honour, she was also named SWAC Libero of the Year. Middle hitter Myla Marshall made second team all-conference. Setter Brooke Beasley was named SWAC Newcomer of the Year. You may have noticed I haven’t said anything about players departing via graduation. That’s because there aren’t any — Alabama State’s entire 15-player roster a year ago was made up of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. That’s not to say they’ll all come back — there are always transfers, especially in conferences of modest repute such as this one — and coupling a reasonably large roster with a four-player incoming class certainly suggest some have departed. That incoming class includes setter Ellyn Jones, who was part of IUPUI’s regular 6-2 a year ago as the Jaguars captured the Summit League regular season championship. Serbian middle blocker Dragana Cvoric, a junior college transfer, adds to the team’s international flavour. The team’s immense experience will likely pay dividends for them in 2013. Curiously, Alabama State had a decided home-court disadvantage — they won just one of 15 home matches a year ago. I’d certainly expect that to improve this coming season.

The Alcorn State Lady Braves had quite a rough time of it in 2012, winning just a single match — against a Division III school called Rust College. If their website can be believed, they didn’t win a single set in any other match, losing their 28 losses in sweeps. The stats link on their site doesn’t work, and I’m not entirely convinced it’s a programming mistake. Alcorn State had a 13-player roster in 2012, none of them seniors, but with their immense struggles it remains to be seen which of them are on the roster this season. With so little information available, I’m afraid I can’t really say much of anything about this team. I have to call into question just a little the university’s commitment to the sport, as after running under an interim head coach in 2012, the team will be led in 2013 by Jessica Harris, who splits her attention between the Alcorn State volleyball and softball teams. I’m sure she’s a dedicated, capable woman, but a coach really should keep his or her efforts on one single sport. NCAA Division I is not some rec league where simple leadership is all that’s needed to be an effective coach — I’m not convinced a coach can have the level of expertise needed to be simultaneously proficient in two sports as he or she would be in one. I’m not expecting much of this team.

Prairie View A&M won the SWAC West last season, and did it without a first team all-conference player. Opposite hitter Breanna McNeil departs through graduation, but libero Shanice Faison and setter Kelsey Espinosa will return. Opposite hitter Bruna Menezes, another Brazilian import, is the team’s leading scorer among those returning. Middle blocker Amelia Velez, opposite hitter (lots of RS’s listed on the roster) Rachel Owens, and DS LaKeisha Allen round out the team’s regular core from 2012, and they all return this season. With the exception of McNeil’s departure, the team look to be mostly stable from last year to this, and coming off a victory in the SWAC West means that’s bound to be good news. That said, though, the Lady Panthers were at a stark disadvantage a season ago in blocking, suffering more than 2 opposing blocks per set last year while notching less than 1 of their own. PVAMU are also one of the few teams to have already announced their full 2013 schedule — they’ll begin their season on 30 August at an invitational hosted by Texas State.

Texas Southern placed two players on last year’s first team all-conference team last year, just as Jackson State and Alabama State. Junior outside hitter Mona Reed is one of the conference’s few 6-footers, and may just be the only one not to play the middle blocker position. Middle blocker Veronica Azubuike is the other first-team player from 2012. Outside hitter Robyn Shannon was the conference Freshman of the Year (they did have separate awards for Freshman and Newcomer of the Year) and was one of only four players who played in every match for the Tigers last year, along with Azubuike and now-departed outside hitters Gabrielle Gray and Kierra Whittaker. But they did spread their options quite a bit — all 14 players played in at least seven matches, eleven of them played at least 13 matches, and ten of them played 18 matches. Certainly lays the groundwork for a well-rounded cast of characters. The Tigers ran a 6-2 much of last season with Jyra Churchill and Sarah Wooten setting in more than 20 of the team’s matches last season. With both returning, I’d expect them to run the same formation this year. The Tigers were probably the best blocking team in the SWAC last year, one of the only squads to out-block their opposition on the season.

Fierce mascot. Arkansas-Pine Bluff are known as the Lady Lions (Golden Lions). Despite a decent conference showing a season ago, they had just a single second-team all-conference selection, namely outside hitter Alicia Campbell, who returns. Middle-stroke-right side Audrey Sherles led the team in total kills while narrowly missing out to Campbell on attack percentage. The Lady Lions also ran a 6-2 in 2012, with half of that equation Alexis Lowe departing via graduation. Jordan Foyer returns, and may well be joined by sophomore Eleni-James Becton, who got occasional 2012 playing time, this year to reform the 6-2.

Southern’s Lady Jaguars had a tough time in 2012, having to their name just a 9-player roster last year. You saw me express disbelief in the America East piece that Providence had just 10 last year, so nine strikes me as an immense hardship. You can’t really maximise your players’ skills and faculties if you’re forced to spread them so thin. None of the nine are lost to graduation. Middle-stroke-outside Jacquia Bell was the team’s top scorer a season ago. Amber Shelly, of similar positional listing, was next-best. Surprisingly, even with such a slender roster, Chandra Journet did the statistical lion’s share (jaguar’s share?) of the setting rather than splitting duties with Keya Bennett, likewise listed as setter. Bennett mostly served as a defence specialist in 2012. Adding to the team’s hardships in 2012 were an unexpected number of medical redshirts (not that any are ever really ‘expected’), meaning the team will be at least somewhat more deep in 2013. For their sake, I’m glad.

Grambling State end the story of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. They had a difficult season in 2012 and look like they’ll be in line for another, as after a 3-win 2012 campaign they lose their leading scorer Dorothy Brown as well as 6-foot-2 starting middle blocker April Johnson. Opposite hitter Tiara McIver is the leading scorer among the returners, and middle-stroke-outside Briliante Osborne (great name) posted genuinely good blocking numbers, as the Tigers (sure are a lot of fierce cats in this conference) out-blocked their opponents on the season. With that said, Grambling State struggled mightily in all other phases of the game, not least service reception. The Tigers allowed a downright gruesome 3.14 service aces per set to the opposition. National records aren’t kept for that statistic, but I’d be surprised if that wasn’t worst in the country. It’s something they definitely need to work on. They also allowed a .262 attack percentage while attaining just .107 as a team themselves while being outscored by more than 5 points per set, but those tend to be “you have it or you don’t” areas. The Tigers ran perhaps the conference’s most robust 6-2, with both Breonna Loud and Tori Wilson playing every match and set, though statistically they have tremendous room to improve. With Southern returning players from long-term injuries, it’s tough to see this team getting out of the cellar.

The verdict

Again, it’s unlikely that anyone from this conference will be of any great consequence, but this league is definitely more robust for volleyball than you might have guessed, and certainly is more so than the America East. I look for a changing of the guard at the top of the ranks with two-time defending league champions Jackson State losing a lot of their players.

TNS SWAG:

East Division
1. Alabama A&M
2. Mississippi Valley State
3. Alabama State
4. Jackson State
5. Alcorn State

West Division
1. Prairie View A&M
2. Texas Southern
3. Southern
4. Arkansas-Pine Bluff
5. Grambling State

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 20 May 2013

Gearing up for World League – Team Germany

Schnell volleyball!

We’re almost there, everybody. Here’s the rundown:

Egypt Portugal
Japan
Iran
Netherlands
South Korea
Finland
Canada
Italy
Argentina
Serbia
Russia
France
Brazil
Germany
Bulgaria
Cuba
USA
Poland

Germany’s history on the world stage is a bit tangled. Remember how I mentioned that Russia are the inheritors of the USSR and CIS teams’ records, and Serbia of the Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro records? It’s not quite so obvious with Germany. I often have to remind myself that the reunification of Germany is an event that took place in my lifetime (though I was only 4 when the wall came down). It’s easy, at least for me, to conceive of it as something out of distant history.

International volleyball really only came into being around about the same time separate East and West German republics did. Therefore, records for a team called simply ‘Germany’ only go back to 1990. And in that time their record has mostly been pretty modest. Last summer in London was their second Olympic appearance, after a downright dismal showing in Beijing, and it amounted to 5th rank (loss in the first round of the knockout phase — same as USA). They’ve been off-again, on-again in their attendances at the World League, and last year’s 5th place there was by far their best showing. Of the six world championships that have taken place since reunification, they’ve played three, with 8th their high water mark. They’ve missed a couple of CEV European Championship over that span and hold 5th as their best placing in that event. Germany will return for the 2013 championship. The only event where they have any hardware is the European League, having won it back in 2009 (they haven’t played it since). If you want to give them East Germany’s history, they can claim a 1972 Olympic silver and golds at the 1969 World Cup and 1970 World Championship, but no matter how you slice it, that’s far too long ago to be directly relevant.

The sport is not especially robust in Germany. They do have a Bundesliga (you think of the soccer league when you hear the name, but all that word actually means is “Federal league”) for it, but it really doesn’t compare in esteem to the other European leagues. About a third of the players on Germany’s World League roster play at home, with others heading to France, Italy, Russia, Poland, all over the map really. And also, the United States — JP Marks (apparently the JP stands for Jan-Philipp) will, presuming he sees at least some action, make his senior national team debut in World League competition this year. I’m still uneasy about the sourcing, but being that the whole matter is ultimately rather harmless, I’ll just lay out that Marks’ college career came to a premature end shortly before the end of this past season because he signed a pro contract. He never intended to return to UH after this past season, and assumed that since the contract was for this coming fall, it would not impact his eligibility in the spring (the MPSF tournament). Evidently he thought wrong. If you’ve been reading, you know I dearly loved being a fan of the UH team this past season, but I can’t begrudge JP one bit for moving on to green pastures (not greener, green) when he could, rather than complete college. Who among us would have done differently?

(The only people who should have their hands in the air are the ones whose chosen field outright requires a college degree {doctor or something})

There are, of course, lots of experienced players ahead of Marks on the depth chart. The floor captain for the ’13 World League is all-round player Jochen Schöps, veteran of the team’s last two Olympics and World Championship appearances. The team have experienced a fair bit of turnover just since London, with near 7-foot middle blocker Marcus Böhme, with experience only at the last Olympics and World Championship, the next most senior team member. I’d keep one eye on outside hitter Denys Kaliberda as well, who is only 23 but has experience at the Olympics and at Worlds. He also plays club in Italy, and that means something. Two other players have World Championship experience, libero Ferdinand Tille (sounds like a good volleyball name) and setter Patrick Steuerwald. A couple of others have national team experience at lesser events, but for the most part, the remainder are a squad of rookies.

The coaching position has been a revolving door ever since Romania’s Stelian Moculescu left the post after a decade in service, after the 2008 Olympics. Argentina’s Raúl Lozano followed him for three years, with Belgian Vital Heynen guiding the team through last year’s Olympiad. He remains in the post for 2013, though it’s not clear for how long he’s signed.

So are we looking at a winner?

Nah. They prospered last year with nations bringing their B- and C-squads. That’s not gonna happen this time around. I’ll be on the lookout for Marks, but otherwise this isn’t a team that greatly interests me. They’re in Pool B, and from there, Russia and Italy can book their tickets to Argentina right now. Then it’s a dogfight between Cuba and Serbia (one which may have become more interesting with recent events, which I’ll touch on in the Cuba piece). Germany are gonna be on the outside looking in.

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 19 May 2013

Projecting Corrientes

Never done this before, a beach volleyball preview. Let’s see how it goes.

The first thing to note is who are here and who aren’t. On the men’s side, we still will not see the likely two best teams in the world go head-to-head, nor participate in the same event. While Brazil’s Alison & Emanuel will make their 2013 World Tour debuts in Argentina, Fuzhou Open champions Phil Dalhausser and Sean Rosenthal of the USA are sitting this event out because Dalhausser’s wife Jennifer is due to give birth to their son any day now. Family always comes first. Their withdrawal affords a place in the qualifier to Stafford Slick and Casey Jennings (if Phil and ‘Rosie’ played, it would have put the USA over the limit of 4 teams per nation, and Slick/Jennings would have been the odd boys out). That same opportunity now goes by the wayside for Brazil’s Evandro and Vitor Felipe, who effectively took Alison and Emanuel’s place in the two China tourneys.

On the women’s side, the American entries are somewhat fascinating. They’ve got 5 teams registered, but the fifth on points is the team of Whitney Pavlik and Jenny Kropp, a team better known for their performances on the American circuit. They’re also a team that suddenly and, by the looks of it, at least slightly acrimoniously, split in the time since the Shanghai Grand Slam. So their being fifth doesn’t really matter. Nicole Branagh is not present at this tournament, and being that she has more FIVB points herself than some of the lower-ranked teams do together, you have to figure that’s a decision she made rather than being left odd-woman-out. After the obvious Kessy/Ross, it’s Fendrick/Hochevar, Fopma/Sweat, and Day/S. Ross, the latter two of whom will likely have to play the qualifier. Corrientes is also the first major beach tournament for one Sarah Pavan. Once the captain of the Canadian women’s indoor team, she’s taking it to the beach now in the hopes of making the 2016 Olympics (she probably has better odds that way). She joins forces with Heather Bansley, and Elizabeth Maloney is not present. The Brazilians have five teams registered, and the one that will be left out have got more points than a great deal of teams from other nations in the qualifier — probably even a few in the main draw. The Americans aren’t the only ones playing musical partners, as Italy’s Greta Cicolari will take to the sand this week with Viktoria Orsi Toth, a player with whom I must admit I’m not the least bit familiar. Cicolari’s regular partner Marta Menegatti is on the start list for the Hague event in a few weeks, so it must just be a scheduling conflict.

There aren’t any especially noteworthy teams ticketed to the qualifier on either side. Nothing like Shanghai where Todd Rogers and Ryan Doherty wound up there. The biggest names in the qualifier on the men’s side are probably the top two Austrian teams, Doppler/Horst and Huber/Seidl, which both have FIVB hardware to their respective credits. For the women, Shanghai bronze medallists Maria Clara and Carolina from Brazil appear to be bound for the qualifier again, though they’ve actually got more points than Shanghai silver medallists Schwaiger/Schwaiger. I don’t know. It strictly speaking is predictable, but you’d need a law degree to wade through the language regulating it.

Same goes for pool composition, though that of course also depends at least a little bit on exactly whom emerge from the qualifier. I’ll be expecting a strong showing from Alison and Emanuel, but, honestly, it being their first tournament of the year and with Alison coming off a hand injury, I won’t be floored if they fall short. Still somewhat conspicuous by her absence is their compatriot Juliana, though she is registered for the Hague Grand Slam next month, in the partnership that was reported in the offseason (Juliana/Maria). It will again be Agatha/Maria for Corrientes.

If not Alison/Emanuel on the men’s side, there’s a good chance it will be the Americans with a third straight gold. But if it’s not them either, another possibly unexpected nation to keep your eye on is Germany. Sebastian Fuchs looks to be settling in with Julius Brink, Markus Böckermann and Mischa Urbatzka were actually the team who knocked Doherty/Rogers out of the Shanghai qualifier, and then there’s a team I’ve written almost nothing about but realistically do bear mention. Sebastian Dollinger and Stefan Windscheif have been teaming together since 2008 (the beginning of Windscheif’s career) and regularly since 2010, and have to their credit an FIVB bronze from back in 2008 (the first FIVB tournament of Windscheif’s career). They took a few scalps in Fuzhou en route to fifth (losing to eventual bronze medallsits Ricardo/Alvaro) and were ninth in Shanghai (losing to eventual champions Gibb/Patterson). This is a team that seems poised for a breakout. Dollinger being 29 and Windscheif 25 doesn’t really hurt that either. I look for a strong showing from them.

Six of the seven teams who played on Sunday (the Dutch team of Meppelink/Van Gestel repeated as 4th place finishers….that’s gotta suck) on the women’s side in China are again on hand in Corrientes. The ones not present are Fuzhou champions Xue and Zhang — there are no Chinese teams in the event on either side. I’m hoping for a bounce-back from Jen Kessy and April Ross. They’re quite a likeable team, and I’d like to see them playing on the tournament’s final day once more. I’ve rebuffed the notion that Kessy is, in one manner or another, finished, but a third straight early exit would make that talk a little harder to diminish.

One last team that catch my eye as I browse the starting list is a Paraguayan tandem, Patricia Carolina Caballero Peña and Michelle Sharon Valiente Amarilla. The tandem name is apparently Pati/Michelle (saves syllables and keystrokes, certainly). I’m sure they’re here under some special exemption with the South American federation, though there are a few teams that have fewer points than they do. The remarkable thing about this team is that Michelle is just 15 years old — and newly 15 at that, if the FIVB website can be trusted. I’ve never heard of someone so young playing a fully professional, senior event before. Nina Betschart played the FIVB Bangsaen last year as a 17 year old (she actually celebrated her birthday during the tournament), and even that made my eyes go wide. The team don’t figure to be too likely to make it through the qualifier, so I’ll be on the lookout for them while it’s ongoing.

Put up or shut up time? How about I make four picks (same as the number of semifinalists) on each side in descending order of confidence….

Men

1. Alison/Emanuel
2. Gibb/Patterson
3. Ricardo/Alvaro
4. Brink/Fuchs

I’m gonna hold off on picking Nicolai/Lupo until I see Lupo serving like a sane person again.

Women

1. Talita/Taiana
2. Meppelink/Van Gestel
3. Holtwick/Semmler
4. Kessy/Ross

The women’s side seems a bit more wide open, as it probably will be all season.

Now the fun part — getting to see how spectacularly wrong I was :D Can’t wait.

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 18 May 2013

Gearing up for NCAA women’s season – America East Conference

Leading off

(I’m not sure where I got ‘gearing up,’ but I’m sticking with it. It works)

A note, first. On the suggestion of another, I tried reaching out to coaches for a sound-bite or two about their teams, just a few quick insights that might not be so apparent from browsing stat sheets and recruit reports. I reached out to the head coaches of each program in this league, but got only one response (who actually asked that I phone….and then I lost the use of my computer, losing that coach’s phone number in the process, then I got a stomach bug….it just didn’t work out).

So I’m gonna scrap that approach. It might yet be too early, too long before the season, for those coaches to be up on things like this. I don’t doubt I’d get a higher hit-rate if I started these in a couple of months, but that would mean either clustering them all together or narrowing the scope, neither of which I want to do.

So let’s roll up our sleeves and dive in. The rundown, as you’ll recall:

America East Conference
Southwestern Athletic Conference
Patriot League
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Big Sky Conference
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
Northeast Conference
Big South Conference
Colonial Athletic Association
Ohio Valley Conference
Horizon League
Western Athletic Conference
Southland Conference
Conference USA
The Summit League
Atlantic Sun Conference
American Athletic Conference
Ivy League
Southern Conference
Mid-American Conference
Sun Belt Conference
Atlantic 10 Conference
Big West Conference
Mountain West Conference
Big East Conference
Missouri Valley Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
Southeastern Conference
Big 12 Conference
West Coast Conference
Big Ten Conference
Pac-12 Conference

And it is, to be sure, humble beginnings. The America East is not a bastion of volleyball. Its member institutions tend to do best at sports like lacrosse and ice hockey (not sponsored by the America East itself, but most of its member institutions do field teams). Only one America East team finished their season above. 500 last year, and the conference was represented by Binghamton in the NCAA tournament, who lost to top-seeded Penn State by a rather ugly (25-11, 25-3, 25-9) count. But I’m sure they were happy just to make it that far, as they were only the #3 seed in the America East conference tournament and had to turn a couple of minor upsets just to make the NCAA tourney.

Like just about every conference, the America East experience a change in membership ahead of the 2013-2014 year. They lose Boston University to the Patriot League. This has only an indirect effect on volleyball — BU do not sponsor the sport, but the Terriers’ de-facto replacements, the UMass Lowell River Hawks, do. UML begin their transition from NCAA Division II this year, and will not be postseason-eligible until 2017. It’s curious to me how schools transitioning from NAIA status are postseason-ineligible for just their first year (like California Baptist and Lindenwood in men’s volleyball, notably), but schools changing NCAA Divisions have to sit out 4 seasons of postseason play. I get that it’s to disincentivise such movements, by ‘locking’ schools out of a chance to make the basketball tournaments (and get some of that sweet, sweet revenue), but it still seems a little excessive, especially in that it applies to all sports. But, those are the rules.

The River Hawks join six of the America East’s remaining full-time members and associate members Providence College to form the conference. This will likely be Providence’s final season in the America East. The new Big East is expected to draw up bylaws requiring member institutions to participate in Big East play if they sponsor the sport in question (lots of conferences have such a bylaw). That bylaw process will probably span the 2013-2014 college season, meaning they’ll have to join their primary conference for volleyball play come season after this coming. I’m honestly not sure how Providence wound up in the America East to begin with, but it looks like it’ll ultimately be a temporary arrangement.

Here’s how the conference standings looked at the end of last season:

1. Albany 10-2 (14-15)
2. UMBC 8-4 (15-15)
3. Binghamton 8-4 (13-18)
4. New Hampshire 7-5 (15-14)
5. Stony Brook 6-6 (11-14)
6. Hartford 3-9 (9-19)
7. Providence 0-12 (1-30)

And some observations on each team (class listings are for the upcoming season, not the past season)

The Great Danes look to return a pretty solid core, having lost only two seniors off last year’s squad. Traci Vandegrift was third on the team in kills per set, which is nice, but probably replaceable. Gabby Whitworth was listed as middle blocker-stroke-opposite but actually led the team in set assists, so that strikes me as a skillset that’s a little harder to replace (no real standout numbers in any area, but solid contributions all around). Albany have signed three players for 2013, the foremost of whom would appear to be 6-foot-2 middle blocker Chavi St. Hill, who is expected to compete for a starting position this year. Among the returners are junior outside hitter Sara Pope, who led the team in scoring last year, and regular libero Viktoriia Stroilo, the only player to play in every match and set for the Great Danes. Setter looks to be something of a question mark, as there were four setters listed on the roster last year and only one got anything near what I would call significant playing time (that being Sofia Furlong), but it really was the now-departed Whitworth who ran the offence as setter most of the season. Someone will have to step up there.

The Retrievers of Maryland-Baltimore County likewise return a lot of their roster from a year ago, graduating two seniors who respectively played in 23 and 12 of the team’s 30 matches in 2012. They boast a pair of European imports for the 2012 season –  Ivana Kostic from Serbia, a 6-foot-2 middle-stroke-right side, and Zoya Trendafilova from Bulgaria, who has played all ‘offensive’ positions. Both have extensive European club experience, something head coach Ian Blanchard notes as a factor that will help enhance those around them. The team’s foremost returner is probably junior outside hitter Hannah Schmidt, who played in every match for the Retrievers a year ago, leading the team in total kills, service aces, and digs. Senior middle blocker Emily Witsaman posted more than a block a set in slightly limited playing time (don’t know if maybe she had an injury) to lead the conference, working alongside sophomore middle Krystal Mlemchukwu. The Retrievers led the conference in blocks as a team. Along with Schmidt, two other players played every match and set for the Retrievers in 2012, namely senior outside hitter Hallie Carter and Ali Goc, a senior-to-be who is likewise listed at outside hitter, but played at libero in 2012. Senior setter Mallory McIntyre led the conference in assists per set a year ago.

The America East’s erstwhile 2012 NCAA tournament representatives, who seemed to anticipate their fate, graduated two seniors of their 2012 roster just as Albany and UMBC. These, however, were two players who played (started, in fact) in every match and every set in 2012. So I think it’s a little bit more of a hit. Iva Partaleva led the conference in total kills a year ago, and Alex Roland was second in the conference in attack percentage. So those are important pieces to replace, and are also reason to be bearish (no pun intended) on the team’s fortunes going forward. They’ve got four incoming freshmen, three of whom figure to eventually settle in as back-row specialists while 6-foot-1 middle blocker Bianca Anderson immediately slots in as the team’s tallest player. The foremost returner for the Bearcats is junior setter Amanda Dettmann, the America East Setter of the Year for 2012 who led the conference in total set assists and only narrowly missed top honours in assists per set. The top returning scorer is junior outside hitter Kristin Hovie, whose younger sister Allison is one of the aforementioned incoming freshmen. Binghamton were statistically the conference’s best hitting team a year ago, but they look to be in a bit of flux going into 2013.

UNH were the fourth and final playoff team from the America East a year ago. Following the theme, they graduate — you guessed it! — two seniors off their 2012 roster, setter Jansan Falcusan and libero Jessie Schnepp. Schnepp was a starter the whole season and will need to be replaced, but Falcusan was only a regular for around a third of the year, missing some time with injuries. The bulk of the setting was done by junior-to-be Taylor Dunklau, who managed fourth in the conference in assists per set (right in line with the team’s ranking). Senior opposite Morgan Thatcher, the Wildcats’ 2012 MVP, led the team in scoring and was second in blocking a year ago, and will look to improve even more on her counting stats in 2013. Sophomores Cassidy Croci and Abigail Brinkman have led the team in spring play. Opposite hitter Destiny Tolliver and outside hitter Victoria Forrest, senior and sophomore respectively, round out the count of players who were in every match last season. This looks to be a team on the rise. Libero is probably the position that’s the easiest to replace, at least from a statistical standpoint, and with junior Sam Henke playing every match and set in 2012 as a DS, the Wildcats are probably covered there just fine.

The Stony Brook Seawolves ran a pretty stifling defence in 2012, leading the conference in hitting percentage against at just .174. They had just one senior a year ago (combo breaker!), though two players have left the team. This is surely at least indirectly attributable to a change in head coaching, as Coley Pawlikowski assumes the reigns (and, interestingly, her husband Dan is an assistant coach….bet their meeting story involves the game!) as first-year head coach. Any overview of Stony Brook volleyball has to start with sophomore outside hitter Melissa Rigo, who led the conference in kills per set a year ago. And it wasn’t close. She was nearly a full kill per set better than Iva Partaleva, and in fact had only 5 fewer total kills despite playing 25 fewer sets (Stony Brook played 25 fewer sets than Binghamton). Middle blocker Evann Slaughter finished second in the league in blocks per set a year ago, and eighth in kills. The setter position is well-manned (womanned?), with Nicole Vogel returning from her freshman campaign a year ago. The team tout Cailyn Hart, a back-row specialist, as their prized recruit, but chances are she redshirts this year. Three upperclassmen — Hailee Herc, Nicole Parkas, and Laura Hathaway, the first two of whom got regular 2012 playing time — look to be ahead of her on the ol’ depth chart. Along with Rigo and Slaughter, 6-foot-2 sophomore middle blocker Stephanie McFadden also played every match for the Seawolves a year ago, returning with experience that will no doubt prove valuable.

Hartford will have the most experienced team in the league in 2013, that is beyond question. With just one departing senior, outside hitter Kami Nethersole (sounds like a name Tolkien would come up with), the Hawks will have a whopping six seniors on their 2013 team. Of the six, four look to be likely starters — libero Saara Carissimi (yes, I know liberos aren’t actually starters, shut up), outside hitter Dionna Kirton, outside hitter Taylor McCreery (curiously listed at OH/DS, but her 5’11″ frame probably pencils her into the offensive role) and middle blocker Lindsay Anderson. All played either 27 or all 28 of Hartford’s matches a year ago. Kami’s younger sister Sareeta Nethersole will probably fill her shoes to some degree. She’s listed at ‘UH,’ which I guess means Utility Hitter. Never seen that before. The Nethersoles’ high school teammate Jackie Tamburri will run the offence as setter.

The Providence Friars had a rough go of it in 2012. There’s no getting around it, and if that’s not the polite way of saying it, then there is no polite way of saying it. Part of their problem was their roster, as they had only ten girls on their team a year ago (can you imagine a football or baseball team playing with only four over the bare minimum needed to field a team at all?). Even with such a compact team photo, they do still lose one player to graduation, that being libero Cassie Muzzonigro. To their credit, the Friars have added a five-person incoming recruit class, and it’s possible they’ll all see solid playing time in 2013. I hesitate to say anything in particular about this team, because hardly anything at all went their way in 2012 (Colleen McCollom‘s fifth in the conference in service aces is about the only even remotely bright spot on their 2012 stat sheet), and a lot of that can surely be traced directly back to the small roster. Which probably has its own causes. This is a team that needs to build some confidence, and they may just get the opportunity this year.

The River Hawks did play in a fairly good conference for Division II volleyball last year. The Northeast 10 (who are sorta like the Atlantic 10 at the D-I level, they’ve got 16 members) got three NCAA tournament bids. But still, UML went 11-14 and 6-9 in league (10th of 16) against Division II competition, meaning you can’t figure them to make a great deal of noise in their first Division I campaign this coming season. They return a lot of their roster, graduating a setter and a DS (their stat book is very difficult to read and makes it hard to tell exactly who was a starter a season ago), but there can be no mistaking that the first year at a new level will make for a challenging season.

The verdict?

It’s not like the national champion is all of a sudden going to come out of this conference, but I’m happy to spend a little time discussing these teams. TNS’ scientific-wild-ass-guess (hereafter, SWAG):

1. UMBC
2. New Hampshire
3. Albany
4. Stony Brook
5. Binghamton
6. Hartford
7. Providence
8. UMass Lowell

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 16 May 2013

Quick set: The Warrior Games

I’m not the type to get misty-eyed about soldiers. I respect the sacrifices they’re forced to make, or at least I’m pretty sure I do, but all too often I find the endless praise and attempts at ingratiation to be a little tiresome. I don’t want to wax too political, so just suffice it to say, it’s a little complicated.

This week, wounded, ill and injured (ill?) veterans of the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Special Forces, and the British Armed Forces have gathered in Colorado Springs, Colorado for the fourth annual Warrior Games. Competitions are held in seven sports — archery, cycling, shooting, swimming, track and field athletics, wheelchair basketball, and of course, sitting volleyball. I do like seeing disabled sport get coverage (I wish the London Paralympics had been more widely available) and ESPN provided webcasts for the final matches of the basketball and volleyball competitions. Incidentally, both featured the same two teams, Army and Marine Corps.

A few of the same competitors took part in both the volleyball and basketball matches, held on the same night. Beach volleyball great Misty May-Treanor was on hand to serve and spike a few herself and meet with the teams earlier in the tournament. Also present were fellow London Olympian Missy Franklin, and Britain’s Prince Harry, who is himself a member of the British army. Misty and Harry even played a little sitting volleyball against each other in an exhibition match, as the USA sitting volleyball federation encourage (men to play with women, the able-bodied to join disabled teammates). On one rally, Harry succeeded at doing what few ever could on the beach — finding the floor against Misty.

The final match of the tournament went to the Marine Corps team by a count of (25-21, 25-21). They played best two sets of three rather than three of five (three of five is customary in sitting volleyball just as it is in standing — in this match, had a third set been necessary, it would have gone to 15). In both sets, the Army team took an early lead only to have it whittled away. Likewise in both sets, the Marine Corps reached set point pretty early on and withstood a 3 or 4 point Army run to make the set closer than it may have appeared. The Marine Corps team finished the event having won all six of their matches. The Army got their win back later that night by winning the basketball final 34-32.

It’s interesting to watch, to see how the game generally resembles ‘standing’ volleyball but it certainly has its own nuances as well. The biggest difference between the two, aside from the blindingly obvious, is that front-row players are allowed to block serves. That makes the pace of the game a bit more herky-jerky. There are still those occasional rallies that last a good solid minute, but there are also some that are quite literally over before they even begin. There are also some offensive sets you’d never see in standing volleyball, such as attack attempts on one from the back row. The playing area being so compact and, at the risk of stating the obvious, everything happening so close to the ground makes the game deceptively fast-paced and a real physical test.

I quite agree with Harry, who said

“I don’t see how it wouldn’t be possible to fill a stadium with 80,000 people, not to watch Olympics, not to watch Paralympics but to watch wounded servicemen fight it out amongst each other – not on a battlefield but in a stadium.”

It would be great to see disabled sport gain more widespread coverage, and if this helps that, all the better. Congratulations to the sport champions and to all the disabled veterans who took part in the event (I can’t deny that doing so takes a little courage). This is one event I’ll look for next year.

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 15 May 2013

Gearing up for World League – Team Brazil

Order and progress, and really really good volleyball

Once more into the breech, dear friends. Here’s the rundown as last we left it:

Egypt Portugal
Japan
Iran
Netherlands
South Korea
Finland
Canada
Italy
Argentina
Serbia
Russia
France
Brazil
Germany
Bulgaria
Cuba
USA
Poland

And so the post-Giba era begins.

Gilberto Amauri de Godoy Filho, better known simply as Giba, was the outgoing captain of the Brazil team. His career ended at last summer’s London Olympics, in what had to be staggeringly disappointing fashion as the Brazilians lost a remarkable match to Russia in five sets, after winning the first two. They had gold medal point in the third, at 24-23, and turned to Giba as a serving sub, a decision that could charitably be described as puzzling. The 35-year old, tired, injured legend (and make no mistake, Giba absolutely deserves the mantle of ‘legend’) was, sadly, the face of the team as they faded from surefire gold to the bitter pill that was silver.

But this is Brazil we’re talking about. Losing perhaps the world’s most famous volleyball player is barely a blip on the radar for a program this strong. Giba’s captaincy now passes to setter Bruno Rezende (Bruno), son of head coach Bernardo ‘Bernardinho’ Rezende.

Bernardinho’s playing career was one of surprisingly modest hardware, as he boasts a 1984 Olympic silver medal but little else. He coached Brazil’s women’s national team for seven years, and this will make his 13th season at the helm of the men’s national team. He is one of the most decorated coaches ever, guiding the Brazilian women to two Olympic bronzes, a world championship silver, and medals from all six (they skipped a year) participations at the World Grand Prix.

This all says nothing of the recent successes of Brazil’s men under Bernardinho. They’re three-time defending world champions, they’ve won the World League 8 of the first 12 seasons under Bernardinho, and a host of other medals in lesser events that would take an entire article to list. Silver in London was a huge disappointment — let’s just put it that way. Now with that said, it might bear pointing out that Brazil last tasted gold at a major international event in 2010 — eternity for them. Since winning the World League and the world championships 3 years ago, silver in London and at the 2011 World League has been the high water mark. Their sixth place last season was as low as they’ve been in a very long time, but falling as it did on an Olympiad, I doubt it’s predictive (they likewise failed to medal in ’08).

Giba isn’t the only one who has departed the team following the London Olympics. Veteran middle blocker Rodrigo Santana (Rodrigão) left the national team after the Olympics as well, and left indoor volleyball altogether following last year’s club world championship in order to pursue a beach volleyball career. Pin hitter Murilo Endres (Murilo) hasn’t stepped down from the team, but he’s not available for the World League tournament after finally opting for surgery to fix a nagging injury in his right shoulder. Longtime libero Sérgio Santos (Sérgio) has also departed the team. It’s not crystal clear why, but he is 38 — it’s likely he simply retired, just as Giba.

Of course, some big names and heavy hitters return from last summer. The foremost on both counts might be Lucas Saatkamp (Lucão), a towering middle blocker and powerful server. Fellow middle blocker Leandro Vissotto (Leandro) gives them an intimidating 1-2 punch up the middle, as both near 7 feet in height. Another middle blocker, Sidnei dos Santos (Sidão) didn’t get a great deal of playing time in London, but probably will at least early on in World League play. Pin hitter Wallace de Souza (Wallace) is a returning starter from London but is actually still pretty new to the senior national team, this being his third year at that level. Another pin hitter, Thiago Soares Alves (who seems to be known simply as Thiago, so take care not to confuse him with beach player Thiago Barbosa) is likewise a London alumnus. We’ll see a little of the new faces on the team as well. If the pre-tournament measurables are reliable, I’m very interested to get a look at 23-year old Renan Buiatti (Renan), a 7-footer. Likewise it will be intriguing to see rank rookie Mauricio Souza (Mauricio), who similarly touches the sky on his block and spike.

Brazil’s players are good enough to play anywhere in the world, but when the league in your backyard is the envy of the world (except for Italy), why leave home. Most of the Brazil national team play in the 12-team Brazilian Superliga. The Superliga graduates four teams to the South American club championship, where Brazilian teams have never failed to make the championship match. It’s been Italian teams who’ve dominated the world club championships, but even so, the Brazilian league has every bit the esteem the Italian league does, and arguably more. Volleyball is probably no more popular anywhere than it is in Brazil (it’s a very close second to soccer, which is as always king) and that level of cultural involvement in the sport will pretty much ensure that the Brazil national teams are always competitive.

So are we looking at a winner?

I mean, it’s freaking Brazil. They’re not exactly gonna get swept out of pool play. They’ll be in Argentina for the medal round, no doubt. But with that said, this is definitely a team in transition. I suppose everyone is, to an extent, but this tournament will be important for Brazil to again find their identity as a national team. I don’t imagine it’ll be too hard for them, but it’s still something that needs doing. The world’s #1 ranked team will of course be serious contenders, but as I’ve said before, I favour Russia to win the whole tournament. It wouldn’t really surprise me if the final turned out to be the same matchup as last summer in London, and if it is, that’ll tell us a great deal about this team and the whole world.

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 15 May 2013

The best volleyball team you’ve never heard of, v2.0

How 'bout it?

How ’bout it?

No, this isn’t a new post about Concordia-St. Paul, but rather a new take on the concept, and a profile for a team that may be even more deserving of the moniker than the Golden Lions. Though, of course, it all depends on your own frame of reference.

The University of British Columbia Thunderbirds are one of the most dominant and decorated sides in all of Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), and  not least in CIS women’s volleyball. At just over a billion dollars, they’ve got the second-largest endowment of any of CIS’ 54 members, so it certainly stands to reason. The school claim 92 championships between CIS and the NAIA. A few years back, there was talk that they may be in line to join NCAA Division I. At the time, that would have made them trailblazers. Simon Fraser hadn’t yet joined Division II (indeed, they had tried and failed). At the time Canadian schools joining the NCAA was specifically disallowed by their bylaws, though this rule was soon abolished. As you well know from reading, Simon Fraser have indeed joined, but it seems like UBC are in no hurry to follow suit now. There hasn’t been much, if any, word on the matter since 2009.

Thunderbird women’s volleyball has had two ‘Golden Ages.’ The first was in the 1970′s, when they won four national championships in the course of six years. Interestingly, in one of the gap years, 1976, the school claimed a men’s volleyball national championship. The second Golden Age is, of course, ongoing.

It started a bit humbly. In 2008, the Thunderbirds entered the CIS playoff tournament as the fourth seed of eight, coming just third in the Canada West (conference) playoffs. This was also their return to the tournament after missing it altogether in 2007. In the semifinals of that tournament, against top-ranked defending champions Alberta, the Thunderbirds staged a remarkable comeback, coming back from down 0-2 in sets and starting the 5th set decider in a 6-1 deficit. But you sure wouldn’t know it by the linescore — (23-25, 18-25, 25-23, 25-11, 15-7). That’s a 14-1 run to close out the match, kids. A night later, in the national championship match, the T-Birds again went the distance, defeating second-ranked Montreal (21-25, 25-21, 20-25, 28-26, 20-18). I can only imagine what those final two sets must have been like.

Fast forward 12 months, and the Thunderbirds were able to enter the CIS national playoffs as Canada West champions time, carrying the #2 overall seed. They entered as winners of 12 straight matches, and didn’t have to have that streak soured. Once again going the distance, this time against the Calgary Dinos, the Thunderbirds took their second straight national championship and sixth overall by a (25-20, 22-25, 29-27, 20-25, 15-9) count. This season also brought about the arrival of a young lady named Shanice Marcelle, a 6-foot outside hitter filling something of a support role in this season. Keep her name in mind.

More detailed records are available starting from the 2009-2010 season (the seasons do span both calendar years, as matches usually aren’t played in the month of December, except for when the first falls on a weekend). These records paint a stark picture. In this season, the Thunderbirds cast aside any bourgeois notions of competitiveness, running the table to win 27 straight matches and another national title, last defeating the Manitoba Bisons in 4 sets to claim the championship. They lost only 14 sets the entire season. It’s affectionately known as the Golden Season. Outside hitter Liz Cordonier won the program’s first-ever Mary Lyons Award, essentially the equivalent to the AVCA Player of the Year award in NCAA volleyball, battling through some difficult injuries to do it. But it would not be the last.

To say the team came back to earth in 2010-2011 would be something of an understatement. After winning their first match, the team weren’t again on the better side of .500 until their 13th match made them 7-6. And there was no major injury to explain things away, the team were simply dogged by inconsistent play. A 40-match conference winning streak came to an end on the team’s first Canada West match of the season. And if you’ve clicked any of the links in this paragraph, you’ve noticed that Shanice Marcelle is the first name mentioned in all of them. It was in this season that she really came into her own and became the team’s leader. By season’s end, she led the team in every statistic other than blocks (and, well, set assists, but that hardly counts).

The team eventually got themselves straight, winning 15 of 16 and six straight in advance of that year’s postseason. They won the Canada West tournament, taking a five-set final over the Trinity Western team that had swept them to begin the conference season. The hot streak afforded them the top seed in the CIS playoffs once again, and once more that seedline held up. Setting aside tournament hosts Laval University in three dominant sets made them the first team ever to win eight CIS women’s volleyball championships. Marcelle was named the tournament MVP and later added first-team All-Canadian and Mary Lyons Award honours. And time marched on.

In the 2011-2012 season, the team found an undeniable nemesis in Alberta. The Thunderbirds took their first win of the season against the Pandas in a non-conference encounter, in five grueling sets. Later, in conference play, the Pandas, ranked #2 at the time to UBC’s #1, won the first of two matches in five sets before the T-Birds won in four the next night. The same two teams met in the Canada West finals, with Alberta denying UBC the four-peat there with another tight five-set win. The win afforded Alberta the #1 seed in the national tournament, but UBC entered at #2 and you sort of had the feeling that it was still their show.

You couldn’t have scripted it any better — the same two teams met again, for the fifth time on the season, with UBC claiming their fifth straight national championship in — well, what else? — five sets. This time it was Kyla Richey taking player of the year honours, with Marcelle joining her to again be named first-team All-Canadian.

That brings us to this past season. It’s undeniable who entered the year as the heavy favourites to win it all once more. The Thunderbirds began their season in Hawaii (nice place to begin a year), playing three strong NCAA Division II teams in a preseason invitational — Augustana, site hosts Hawaii-Hilo, and major powerhouses Nebraska-Kearney. The team posted wins against the first two, but lost to the NKU Lopers. No matter — they lost only twice again in the remainder of the season, both to local rivals Trinity Western. Eyeing the 6-peat, the Thunderbirds were given the top seed in the national tournament, and after defeating Trinity Western in the semis, UBC made history. By defeating Alberta the next night in three straight sets, the Thunderbirds tied the all-time record with their sixth straight national title.

You could say the torch was passed. Marcelle finished her career as a 5-time national champion, and again was statistically strong all over, but the big hitter in the finals match and the team’s statistically best scorer on the year was third-year outside hitter Lisa Barclay. Nonetheless, Marcelle took home some more impressive honours at year’s end, including the BLG Award (you can view the presentation here), which named her as not only the top athlete in CIS volleyball, but in the entire nation (there are separate men’s and women’s awards). Given that the Canada women’s national team really isn’t all that and a bag of chips, I’m definitely curious what the future may hold for Shanice. Another of the team’s brightest stars, Sarah Pavan, has announced a switch in focus over to the beach, in the hopes of making the Olympics that way. Shanice certainly has the two-way skills to make such a transition herself. It’ll be intriguing to see what path she takes.

And, much as I mentioned in the Concordia-St. Paul piece, the story may not yet be done for UBC either, as they’ve added a top recruit (if you can’t recruit at a top level as six-time defending champs, something’s wrong!) for 2013 and look well set with Barclay running the show next season and the one after. It’s one of those cases where until someone knocks them off, they’re queens of the mountain.

Now, I can hear a few voices of cynicism. There are some of you out there saying that those who play in Canada are those who can’t play in the States. And in some cases that’s certainly true. It wasn’t Kevin Tillie‘s first choice to spend two years in Canada. Jennifer Cross doesn’t play for a Canadian school, nor did the aforementioned Sarah Pavan. And I’m sure there’s lots more examples. Would UBC have romped like this as members of NCAA? The answer is quite likely no. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t good volleyball being played elsewhere than may be easiest to find. And just as it is for Concordia-St. Paul, six straight national championships is an achievement to boast about.

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 14 May 2013

No further blackouts

This one wasn’t as long as the last — perhaps no one really even noticed — but I’m now back after being without a computer again for some time. What happened last time was the power plug snapped. I ordered a new computer (this one I’m currently using) on eBay, because there were a lot of things wrong with my old comp. Keys didn’t work, the screen was coming unhinged, the keyboard was half-popped out. It needed to be replaced.

It took 6 weeks for me to get this computer, for reasons that are mostly my fault but are still quite annoying. About 2 weeks into that stretch, I bought a replacement power cable for my old computer, and I was back on. Three nights ago, I was working on a new post — one that should be up tonight sometime — and the screen on that computer just blacked out. The ghost was given up.

So, I needed to track down this computer. Thankfully I finally did, and here I am. I lost nothing from the old computer. I loaded everything I needed from it onto an external hard drive, so all is well.

And I’ll never drop off the map again :)

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 10 May 2013

On volleyball’s long-term future in North America

Grow the game.

We say that a lot, don’t we? Grow the game. We who love volleyball want nothing more than to see it join the upper echelon of the North American sport pantheon, with the likes of baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.

It’s a really nice idea. Wouldn’t it be great if young girls (and yes, young boys, too) had more sporting icons to look up to? Sports aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’d be obtuse to suggest they aren’t a huge part of the culture. For many of us, perhaps any of you who will read this, we grew up with posters on our walls of men (yes, probably just men) who captured our imaginations, our very hearts and minds, for weeks and months at a time. It was appointment television to watch them play whenever possible. There were trips to stadiums, no less than yearly, to experience the magic in person.

For me, it was baseball first. My team? The Seattle Mariners. When I was a kid, they issued these poster-sized season schedules, in addition to the pocket schedules that are (surprisingly) still commonplace. I got one for the 1995 season. I had just turned nine a few months prior, and wasn’t yet aware of why exactly the season started so late in April (indeed, I recall asking my father, himself a sports fan, when the season would have ended if not for the strike, rather than when it would have begun). It was all a perfect storm for me as the ’95 Mariners had one of the most incredible seasons in the history of the sport (making the playoffs after trailing in the standings by more than 10 games in late August, finishing two wins shy of making the World Series), and I became a fan for life. Listening on the radio, the rare opportunity (as it was back then) to see a game here and there on TV, it was one of my most treasured formative experiences.

It’s a human experience, one that resonates all over the world. No city, country, or region owns sport. The heroes I grew up idolising surely have their analogues elsewhere. Different cultures will produce different icons, and aside from the blindingly obvious (“why doesn’t anyone play beach volleyball in Iceland?”) I’ll safely leave it to someone smarter than me to determine why. I got schedule-posters again in ’96 and ’97, and then I’m fairly sure they stopped making them. I had those first three for years after those seasons ended. I wish I still did.

Experiences like that are not limited to youth. They may be harder to come by as people age, get more jaded, and stop believing in magic so much. But I’ve had them myself again and again as the years went on. These days, my second-favourite sport to follow is pro bicycling, as I’ve mentioned here a time or two. In 2009, I happened to watch the Tour of Italy race for the first time. In amongst a few teams I knew from having watched the Tour de France before was the Cervélo TestTeam, a squad that had just formed that year. They won four stages in the race, and I was thrilled and enchanted each time. I can still remember Carlos Sastre’s grimace of effort as he flew up Mount Petrano, his lucky necklace flapping with the wind resistance. I was on my feet and cheering. And I continued to follow and support the team as that year and the next went on. Despite pro bicycling teams folding being a disturbingly common phenomenon, I don’t mind telling you that I actually shed a tear or two when the TestTeam did after 2010. That’s how much they meant to me.

And if you’ve been reading, you know it’s happened for me in volleyball, too. I was taken in by the Wichita State Shockers’ postseason run in last women’s season, and likewise captivated the Hawaii Warriors team this past men’s season. It’s something that almost can’t be described in words, though as you may recall I did try. I think it’s something that happens for everyone. I hope it’s something that happens for everyone, because, gosh, it’s one of the best feelings there is.

It’ll never be quite the same, though, with volleyball. The reason? The transience of college sport. Those Wichita State and Hawaii teams that so took my breath away? Even now, neither exist exactly as they did at those times. After the next season on each side, it will be even more so. And that’s actually probably a good thing. I do feel slightly silly being such a sappy fan of persons of several years younger than me (although within the next decade, it’ll be that way with the pro sports too). Though alumni are often fond of saying they’re a “<<insert team nickname here>> for life,” the truth is you see them for four ultimately very short years, and then they’re gone. At a maximum. Most players won’t be in the limelight for that long before they’re forced to depart.

But why can we not have these amazing moments in volleyball?

As you may or may not know, domestic pro volleyball in the United States has been tried. The United States Pro Volleyball League, or USPV (don’t know where the L went) came into existence in 2002. It was, from all appearances, a pretty dismal failure. After one season with all of four teams playing, there was an attempt for a second season with eight. Even though the league did not expect to make money in its first few seasons, the financial situation was so dire that no 2003 season took place at all. Organisers tried to return in 2004, but all we can really say for sure is that they didn’t.

Why did the league fail? Well, I think a big part of the reason is that in the United States, volleyball is considered a game for girls. It’s something I’ve reflected on before, in one of TNS’ all-time most-viewed posts (if not the most-viewed). Quick aside — while I tar the whole continent with the same brush in the title and open, I do have to give some credit to Canada here. Of the 54 members of Canadian Interuniversity Sport, 37 of them sponsor women’s volleyball, and of those 37, 28 also sponsor men’s. That’s the very same number of NCAA Division I/II schools that sponsor it in the States, with only about one-sixth as many member institutions overall. It’s nice to see, and TNS will make an effort in coming seasons to provide some measure of coverage for CIS volleyball.

But as said, volleyball is considered a game for girls in the United States. That put the USPV on par with leagues such as the WNBA, which receives extensive subsidies from its ‘brother’ league and even still operates at a loss. And that’s at a very-best case scenario. Another women’s league, the Women’s United Soccer Association, with the catchy acronym WUSA, folded at about the same time as the USPV despite being two years older. Soccer wasn’t yet as popular in the USA as it is even now, just a decade later, but at the time that league’s failure (and the myriad struggles of the WNBA) were attributed to a lack of cultural interest and a lack of history of women and girls buying tickets to pro sporting events (maybe my experience isn’t so common as I first thought). If volleyball were also a niche sport propped up by fledgling female fans, the future can’t have been much more promising.

Now, with Major League Soccer taking its place as a ‘major’ league along with the NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB, women’s soccer is trying again, with the eight-team National Women’s Soccer League. The failure of the WUSA never meant that the idea was dead forever, and I hope to see this league succeed.

Around the world, soccer is far and away the most popular sport, at any level you can think of — professional, age group, pickup, men’s, women’s, collegiate, all of the above. Why is that? The most common idea I’ve seen is that it boils down to the simplicity of the equipment — all you need are a ball and some friends, and you’re good to go. Contrast that with hockey and baseball, both of which require a lot of specialised (and expensive) equipment. Even basketball, if you mean to play anything remotely resembling the actual game, needs to be played with specific goal-areas (though admittedly it’s easier than baseball or hockey). But in soccer (or football if you’d rather), all you need is a ball, a field, and agreement on what the goal is.

Is any of that impossible with volleyball?

Sure, a volleyball net isn’t something you’re going to find on playgrounds like a basketball hoop, but those billions of children the world over who grow up playing soccer don’t all do it on a regulation pitch. If you’ve got a ball (and not necessarily even a volleyball), some grass or some sand, and some friends to draw boundaries and pass the ball with, how’s the game of bump sets and diving digs any harder to stage than the game of headers and corner kicks? At least this way you get to use your hands, kids!

Have there been any significant grassroots initiatives to introduce volleyball to young children? I don’t think I ever even heard of the game until I was 13 or 14. I played a bastardised version of it in health class called Newcomb, which, yeah it was fun, but it wasn’t volleyball. It was volleyball for the dodgeball crowd, and when’s the last time you ever heard of pro dodgeball? (No, that stupid movie doesn’t count) Is it volleyball’s own fault? Does the game itself bear some irrevocable flaw or flaws impeding popularity?

The people in charge of the sport seem to think so. That’s why in 1999, the change was made from sideout scoring to rally scoring, with USA Volleyball’s rules mirroring those used at the world level, as they do now. The choice was controversial at the time and even now some people still stand opposed. Matches under the old system were interminably (and, just as important, unpredictably) long. Three of the four coaches in the following year’s NCAA women’s final four spoke up in firm opposition to rally scoring, believing no change was really necessary. But in 2001, women’s volleyball adopted rally scoring and it’s become an inextricable part of the game. They will never change back.

The larger fact, though, is that volleyball matches are still of unpredictable lengths. Every baseball game will last 9 innings. Every basketball game lasts 4 quarters, likewise football. Every hockey game has 3 periods. Overtime exists in all of these sports, and in some cases the overtime can get to nutty extremes, but those are the exceptions and not the rule. A volleyball match might last 3 sets, or it might last 5. Each set could be 25-5, or it could be 52-50. Substitute more realistic extremes if you must, but it’s definitely different from the four dominant sports in this regard. None of them allow for the game to be of varying lengths as a fundamental aspect of the game itself.

That makes the sport something less than TV-friendly, which, reflecting back to the open, is part of what makes sport so big a part of our lives and formative years. Everybody wants to be on TV. It’s really the reason why the FIVB went to rally scoring, why the NCAA reduced from 30-point sets to 25′s, why the 2008 ball-handling directive happened, why the FIVB may now be experimenting with 21 point sets — it’s all in the name of making the game easier to understand at a glance. In the name of making the game more accessible for, god-forbid, the casual fan.

I’ve never been one to be dogmatically opposed to change. I’m not a fan of the 21-point sets idea, but that’s really only because I like more volleyball, not less. I didn’t care for the switch from 30 to 25, either, and I wouldn’t at all mind going back to 30 (not that that’ll ever happen). I don’t really understand why some fans are so up in arms about things like rally-scoring and double-hit calls being loosened up. If it makes someone stroll into the gymnasium and find the game easier to follow….why would anyone be opposed to that? Tradition? Balderdash. Take action, or inaction, because it’s the right thing to do, not because change is scary.

Here now is where I have to throw Canada out with the bathwater again. Canadian sport fans are just as invested, emotionally and literally, in the four dominant sport leagues in North America as their neighbours to the south. Three of the four major leagues have Canadian franchises, and while gridiron football is often thought worldwide to be America’s folly, there are NFL games staged in Canada every year. Likewise, Canadian football isn’t exactly as distant from American as American is from, say, Gaelic football. In any case, is it really so controversial to suggest that Canadian popular culture has immense ties to American? With that said, pro volleyball in Canada would be every bit the non-starter that it is in the States. Every member of the Canadian men’s national team who plays professionally does so overseas.

(Clearly, because there’s no domestic league)

I think of just about every World League or World Grand Prix piece I’ve written so far, and almost all of them include mention of a robust professional league in the country, even Iran. The sporting pantheons are different, with all of them having soccer at the top of the mountain rather than rolling a rock up it like Sisyphus, but what other difference is there? Really. Watch just a few moments of a clip like this one

and try to picture the same thing with North American athletes and fans. It seems impossible, but, is there any real reason for that, other than that it is? What, the ads on the jerseys? Pssh. We already have sportsmen who are nothing but walking billboards. They’re called race car drivers (and race cars). No, for me, the most unlikely feature is that it’s a crowd of people (in albeit a small arena) who have paid to watch women’s sport. We’re still pretty patriarchal when it comes to our sports, and trying to showcase a bunch of men playing a “girl’s game” wouldn’t make it any easier.

The USPV was a brave step, but to bite the head (or would it be the tail?) off this self-fulfilling prophecy is going to require that bitter pill — change — be swallowed. Because the game as it is now, for good reasons or bad, is just never going to be appointment television. It doesn’t all boil down to that — nothing mentioned in this article is the sole reason why volleyball is a “’til you’re 22, then once every four years” sport in North America. But it probably is the biggest piece to the puzzle. Even now, with the women’s volleyball coverage ESPN does provide, it’s either on their not-widely-available ESPNU channel, or their not-widely-known (but absolutely awesome) WatchESPN online app. Only later matches in the NCAA tournament make ESPN itself. So there’s definitely growth to be had there, too.

We’ve got work to do, work that doesn’t end with a twitter hashtag. We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work if we really do want to grow the game. Introduce children, boys and girls, who have an affinity for sport to volleyball when they’re introduced to baseball, basketball, hockey, and all the rest. Put up a net and a grass or sand court at your local park. Get out there and pass and hit a little yourself. It’s gonna take time, and god-forbid money, but anything worth the fight does. New traditions will start simply because someone starts them (which was what the USPV was going for).

If we want to forge a greater place for our game in the North American sport pantheon, we have to make it happen. You and me. I don’t know what the odds are. They’re probably not that great, not for ourselves anyway. But that’s never meant a fight wasn’t worth fighting. Make just one new person into a fan, and you’ve made a difference. If all of us do that — what a difference it will be. There are no easy answers, but we must give it a try.

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Posted by: Aly Edge | 8 May 2013

Gearing up for World League: Team France

On fait du volley?

I’ve gotten way behind on these, so I’ll need to start clustering them together again. For now, he’s the rundown:

Egypt Portugal
Japan
Iran
Netherlands
South Korea
Finland
Canada
Italy
Argentina
Serbia
Russia
France
Brazil
Germany
Bulgaria
Cuba
USA
Poland

France is not exactly the first country I’d have thought of as a quote-unquote “volleyball nation.” Certainly the teams below them on the rundown have more of a history in the sport at the international level, and so do a few of the teams above them. But they’re not Iran, nor Portugal, neither the first-timers nor the time-honoured punching bags. They’ve participated at the Olympics three times, last at the Athens Games of 2004. They’ve been frequent challengers at the world championships, playing all but three of the tournaments and claiming a bronze medal back in 2002. They’ve played all but one CEV European Championship as well and have four silvers from that event. They’ll return for the next edition later this year, in addition to playing the World League.

This year’s World League tournament will be France’s 15th consecutive participation, and 18th overall. Last year, they profited a little by drawing Italy in their pool. Ordinarily that would be ten kinds of bad news, but Italy didn’t bring their A-squad to last year’s World League, instead holding them back for the London Olympics. France were still hoping to qualify for London at that point, qualification they only just missed. A great deal of the same players played World League and Olympic qualification for France last year, so it looks like they took the approach Poland did, by bringing their best players to World League.

And….they were successful. She says cautiously. They won all four matches against an outmatched Korea team that won only once, against Italy’s C-team. They took 3 of 4 from the Italians (the one miss was in the first week, when Italy played a few more of their regulars). They split the 4 matches with the USA team, and the Americans were not sitting their regulars. They and the Americans were both 9-3, and with the Americans playing fewer 5-set matches, they won the pool (even though France had a better points ratio). They also missed out on the lucky runner-up slot, with that going to Brazil despite the Brazilians having only won 8 matches. With 6 teams in last year’s finals round and the French coming seventh-from-last in this rundown….yeah, they just missed out. It had to be especially disappointing knowing that 2012 was probably going to be one of the strongest years for them.

The head coach of the French national team is Laurent Tillie. That name had better sound familiar to you — yes, he’s Kevin’s dad. He played on two of France’s Olympic volleyball teams, in ’88 and ’92 (shortly before and shortly after Kevin’s birth, incidentally). He is a very well-respected coach worldwide, and as of last year ascended to probably the most significant job of his career. He leads a club mixed with veterans and youngsters. I was moderately surprised to see the team’s roster does include Kevin — surprised not because I thought him undeserving (far from it), but because it seems difficult to be at one’s physical best for as long as Kevin has. He played last year’s NCAA season, senior international play including the World League over the summer and fall, and this past NCAA season, all without really stopping. I know he’s only 22 (though he’s over a year older than the youngest man on the roster, middle blocker Nicolas Le Goff) but that’s a tall ask of even a young, fit person. The floor captain for the French is also a young man, setter Benjamin Toniutti. The team’s most experienced player is back-row specialist Jean-François Exiga, a seven-year veteran of the national team with 121 ‘caps’ to his credit. Outside hitter Antonin Rouzier actually has more match experience than Exiga, but hasn’t been around for as many years.

Most of the players on the national team are members of teams in France’s own Pro A league, a solidly-respected competition that sends teams to the CEV Champions League (though French teams have won that event or its antecedent only twice). A few play abroad. Rouzier is one, playing for a team based in Poland. Outside hitter Earvin Ngapeth, the only other player besides Le Goff to be younger than Kevin Tillie, plays for Bre Banca Cuneo in Italy, this year’s Champions League runners-up. Utility player Samuele Tuia plays for a team based out of Russia, and outside hitter Guillaume Quesque earns his paycheque in Italy. One happy side effect of my falling behind on these is that the rosters are now set in stone, and it’s not based off half-guesswork or early announcements. France’s roster for the 2013 World League can be found here.

So are we looking at a winner?

They seem pretty likely due for a downturn. They are in the brutally difficult Pool A with Brazil, Poland, USA, Bulgaria, and Argentina. They’ve got to be better than three of those teams, or two of them if one ahead of them is Argentina. That’s a pretty tall ask for anybody (this is a very strong pool), and it’s perhaps taller for the team that are ranked 15th in the current FIVB international standings. The other five teams are all in the top nine.

But of course, we’ll see. Someone’s bound to surprise. I’ll be very, very interested to see just how much Kevin Tillie does play. France’s road trips are to USA, Brazil, and Argentina. There’s every reason to believe we’ll see him in the two matches against USA. He played in the American round-robin last year, too (last year had a different format — each week was a round-robin against everybody in your pool, taking turns as host nation). They’re not clearly the better of anyone in their pool, and last year’s results, with the Olympics looming, aren’t predictive. So it’s a tough path to walk. But I do say bonne chance, mes amis.

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