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Post by FreeBall on Sept 24, 2006 19:15:30 GMT -5
Hastings College played this weekend in the St. Francis Best of the Best Tournament in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They had another good weekend with wins over the #8 and #11 teams and a close five-game loss to #7 ranked Columbia (MO) College. The following blurbs are from the Hastings College website:
Sept. 22---The Hastings College Lady Broncos went 2-0 in their first day of competition at “The Best of the Best Tournament” at Saint Francis Univ. in Fort Wayne, IN. The first opponent of the day was Roberts Wesleyan University who Hastings beat 3-0 (30-15, 30-20, 30-20). Tina Dimmitt had 10 kills and 4 blocks in the match and Jill Whalen contributed 8 kills. Hastings went on to beat NAIA #8 Savannah College of Art & Design in a hard fought, five-game, match (28-30, 30-24, 30-19, 17-30, 15-3). Alyssa Montgomery was a driving force in the match with 14 kills and 9 blocks. Renee Faimon held up the defense with 33 digs. The Broncos came out of day one of the tournament rated #1 in their pool.
Sept. 23---The #10 Hastings College volleyball team finished 1-1 in the final day of the St. Francis Best of the Best tournament in Fort Wayne, IN to go 3-1 in the tournament. The Broncos ran up against a tough #7 Columbia College team losing 3-2 (25-30, 30-25, 14-30, 30-21, and 13-15) and then winning against #11 Cedarville (OH) (30-28, 30-25, 26-30, and 30-25). Improving their record to 18-2.
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Post by learning on Sept 25, 2006 13:40:27 GMT -5
does anyone know the results of the NAIA tournament in Sious City?
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Post by FreeBall on Sept 25, 2006 14:04:43 GMT -5
does anyone know the results of the NAIA tournament in Sious City? I didn't find anything about a tournament in Sioux City this past weekend. However, Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa did host a tournament. Here is a link to the Dordt website page that shows the results: www.dordt.edu/cgi-bin/news/get_news.pl?id=1936
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Post by FreeBall on Oct 5, 2006 19:47:40 GMT -5
The following article will be in Friday's print edition of the Omaha World-Herald. It was posted online earlier today.
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Hastings Volleyball Surprises Foes, Own Coaches
Hastings volleyball coach Fred Aubuchon did something this season he's never done before.
He set no goals for the Broncos, who lost six starters from last year's 35-6 squad. Nothing was said about winning the Great Plains Athletic Conference or qualifying for nationals.
"We thought we'd be struggling at the beginning, and we were hoping to be better than .500 after the first two weeks," he said. "Starting 9-0 was a complete shock. We pretty much stayed unconscious and never woke up from it."
The Broncos raced to a 14-0 start and now are 22-2 and ranked seventh in the NAIA Top 25. Their only losses have been to top-ranked National American (S.D.) and No. 6 Columbia (Mo.). They've beaten six top 20 teams.
"We've played way too many top-ranked teams to have this kind of record," Aubuchon said.
He'll take it, though. He said every win is crucial while competing for a home berth in the playoffs in a tough GPAC that includes ranked Northwestern College (17th) and Doane College (19th). The Broncos are tied for first at 7-0 with the Red Raiders and Briar Cliff.
The Broncos face a tough stretch starting with 7:30 home matches tonight and Saturday against Dordt and Morningside, followed by a match Wednesday at College of St. Mary. Then it's back to league play at Doane (Oct. 17) and Northwestern (Oct. 20).
"There is no easy matches coming up," Aubuchon said. "All the easy matches are behind us."
There are no secrets to how the Broncos have been so successful, Aubuchon said. He credited tough offseason workouts and team depth.
Plus, he said, the Broncos have one of the best liberos in the country in Renee Faimon. The senior from Lawrence-Nelson has been named the Region III libero of the week three times and earned the national honor once.
She's broken the school record for digs in a match (46), leads the GPAC with 7.28 digs per game and has a wicked jump serve.
"She's having the most amazing season," he said. "She anchors our back row, and she's a very solid serve receive passer. Defensively, no ball hits the ground around her."
He also praised setter Lyndi Rouzee of Grand Island Northwest, the first true freshman to start on varsity. "She's really stepped up and had a great season for us," he said.
Although they didn't set any preseason goals, the Broncos are now treating every match as a playoff contest as they position themselves for the postseason, Aubuchon said.
"I never expected this team would step right up and face every challenge and achieve success with every challenge," he said. "This has been one of the most surprising seasons I've ever had."
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Post by ohiovb on Oct 6, 2006 14:03:05 GMT -5
Congrats to Hastings on their terrific season. I hope they're able to finish it off and make it to Missouri.
Walsh will be in an interesting three-way on Saturday, taking on Mt. Vernon Nazerene and Urbana, both important conference matches. Walsh should take both of them, but they've had a history of occasionally struggling against Mt. V. even when they're the better team. The following Saturday is the big one, the first matchup against Cedarville, which will reveal if Walsh is truly a contender or just a pretender. Luckily, it's on a neutral court (Tiffin) which is much better than a true road match at Cedarville where everybody within 20 miles shows up (nothing much to do in that part of the state). These interesting matchups come after a stretch of mismatches that are the staple of this monstrous and very unbalanced league that is the AMC.
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Post by ohiovb on Oct 8, 2006 11:06:52 GMT -5
In what was a big surprise to me, Walsh struggled in their matches yesterday, forced to go to five games to finally put away Urbana then falling in four to Mt. Vernon Nazerene.
Walsh has some problems, a few of which should be relatively easy fixes, but one tough one.
The easier ones first. One (and this is related to the tough problem), after initially spreading the ball around very well, as time goes on in the match they tend to go away from that. They especially forget to set their right side who is as good a weapon as any they have (are you listening Jillian? :-)).
Secondly, they just don't cover their hitters very well. They arrive too late, it's often just one player, and they aren't down and ready to play the ball. This can be fixed, but it takes work and knowing what to do. I'm convinced that if they did this effectively they'd have turned around enough points to win yesterday's match against Mt. V.
Then there's the real problem. Walsh is a fine, quick starting team. Out of the box, they almost always play well, usually jumping to a good lead and maintaining it for a first game win. But then at the start of game two, they almost always come out lax, maybe subconsciously overconfident. The other team, whoever it might be, almost always amps up their level of play after their first game loss, and this, combined with Walsh's mediocre play, is a serious problem. Suddenly, the opponent gains confidence, believes they can play with Walsh, and a dogfight ensues. This happened again yesterday, in both matchs. Walsh escaped with the win once, but not against Mt. V.
This is by no means a problem unique to Walsh. After two decades of playing, coaching, and watching this game I've seen tons of teams afflicted with this "letdown disease". In teams that I've coached, I've had very little success in finding a cure, and believe me I've tried.
Six or seven years ago, I was at a University of Akron match, sitting close behind the Akron bench. They'd done the same thing, winning game one against an inferior opponent handily, then slacking off in game two. Coach Mike Schweitzer called timeout and lit into them, telling them exactly like it was, that they'd now given the opponent confidence, a belief that they could be in the match, whereas if Akron had gotten off to a good start in the second game the match would probably have been all but over. He was right, it turned into a donnybrook, and Akron lost.
Somehow, some way, Walsh needs to get past this affliction. They have an easy match at Ohio Dominican this week, but 12th ranked Cedarville, now the only undefeated team in the AMC, looms on the horizon this coming Saturday. Walsh can play with them, but needs to be at or near their peak for the whole match, something that they've not often done.
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Post by Chance on Oct 8, 2006 14:39:00 GMT -5
Even if you think no one cares, you should post anyway. I don't understand the lurker mentality. People come to this forum (and other forums) to read and they complain no one discusses this-that-and-the-other. Then they leave. Well, it doesn't work that way. This forum grows with the posters and the subject matter they post about. From 1997-2000, I used to frequent a gamer's forum on the NCAA College Football series. I was the ONLY fan of the Univ. of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. I was the ONLY one who posted game scores (mostly losses, btw). I was the ONLY one playing with Hawaii on that PlayStation game. I was the ONLY one suffering through a boring WAC season. I posted my dynasty seasons, the scores, the highlights, the lowlights. Not only that, I was one of the few playing the game in Coach Mode. Yes, in the beginning, it was very lonely. But did it stop me? Does anything stop me? No! But over time, people cared. Yes they did! *sniff* was that utopia?
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Post by ohiovb on Oct 14, 2006 21:55:22 GMT -5
A big day for the Walsh Cavaliers, as they went out to Tiffin and swept both 12th-ranked Cedarville and the host school. Two tough matches, despite not losing a game. Walsh is now in the driver's seat in the AMC South with only one loss. Tough matches still to go though, but both at home against Mt. Vernon and Cedarville. Even a split in those would probably mean Walsh hosts the regional tourney which would be a huge step towards gaining a spot in the nationals. Columbia, Missouri, I never thought I'd ever want to visit your town...
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Oct 15, 2006 9:39:05 GMT -5
This is a good spot to advertise that there are NAIA Pablo rankings now for the first time.
NAIA (and D3, for that matter) are hard because there are so many inter-association matches (more than 500, right now). That is like 1/4 of all NAIA matches against non-NAIA teams. So what I did was to put all the NAIA and D3 teams together and create one master ranking. The NAIA rankings listed are how the NAIA teams came out in that approach.
Note that Pablo has Walsh at #6, well ahead of Cedarville (#12), and that win is predicted. Good for them.
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Post by ohiovb on Oct 19, 2006 13:54:33 GMT -5
Walsh dominated Mt. Vernon Nazarene on Tuesday night, sweeping 30-25, 30-18, and 30-18. With that win and their victories over Tiffin and Cedarville this past weekend, Walsh jumped six spots in the NAIA poll, up to 17th. The AMC South standings now stand like this:
Walsh 10-1 (26-2) Tiffin 8-2 Cedarville 8-3 Mt. Vernon 8-4
Walsh has swept Tiffin and split with Mt. Vernon. They have the one win over Cedarville and will play them once more at Walsh a week from Saturday. Their only other possibly tough match will be their last one of the season, at 7-5 (23-10) Urbana. The way I see it, it would take Walsh losing two more AMC South matches to lose out on hosting the NAIA regional. They've played some terrific volleyball in the last week, realizing the potential that they only occasionally revealed earlier. Let's hope they're peaking and ready to make a run to nationals.
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Post by ohiovb on Oct 30, 2006 20:21:06 GMT -5
Walsh now stands at 31-2 with only one regular season match to go, against Urbana on the road. However, they've already clinched the AMC South Division which means they'll be hosting the NAIA Region IX tournament. They've now got to be a heavy favorite to be that region's representative at Nationals.
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Post by FreeBall on Nov 20, 2006 22:58:05 GMT -5
Here are the pools for the NAIA Championship that starts in Columbia, MO on Wednesday, November 29, 2006. According to our local paper, the final selection came down to a choice among Walsh (OH), Berry (GA) and Hastings (NE), with Hastings College getting the bid. This is somewhat ironic since ohiovb started this thread and is a fan of Walsh, while I posted several times about Hastings College.
Missing out on the NAIA tournament had to be tough for Walsh, as I see that they finished 2nd in their Regional tournament. Hastings finished 4th in a very tough Region III tournament and the coach and team had serious doubts that they would get in. Hopefully they can make a good showing to justify the bid.
Pool A #1 National American (S.D.) #10 Columbia (Mo.) Azusa Pacific (Calif.) King (Tenn.)
Pool B #2 Fresno Pacific (Calif.) #9 Missouri Baptist Northwestern (Iowa) Georgetown (Ky.)
Pool C #3 Concordia (Calif.) #8 Houston Baptist (Texas) Hastings (Neb.) Olivet Nazarene (Ill.)
Pool D #4 California Baptist #7 Albertson (Idaho) Lee (Tenn.) Cedarville (Ohio)
Pool E #5 Dickinson State (N.D.) #6 Madonna (Mich.) St. Mary (Neb.) Savannah Art & Design (Ga.)
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Nov 21, 2006 7:58:19 GMT -5
I've added the end of the season Pablo rankings afterward. It was a shame about Walsh not getting in - Pablo liked them a lot.
These rankings do not take into account last weekend's results. I don't run Pablo during the tournament (a theme that will come up again soon)
Pool A #1 National American (S.D.) [1] #10 Columbia (Mo.) [6] Azusa Pacific (Calif.) [24] King (Tenn.) [33]
Pool B #2 Fresno Pacific (Calif.) [5] #9 Missouri Baptist [13] Northwestern (Iowa) [7] Georgetown (Ky.) [21]
Pool C #3 Concordia (Calif.) [2] #8 Houston Baptist (Texas) [17] Hastings (Neb.) [11] Olivet Nazarene (Ill.) [43]
Pool D #4 California Baptist [8] #7 Albertson (Idaho) [16] Lee (Tenn.) [20] Cedarville (Ohio) [15]
Pool E #5 Dickinson State (N.D.) [10] #6 Madonna (Mich.) [3] St. Mary (Neb.) [18] Savannah Art & Design (Ga.) [47]
Walsh and Martin Methodist are the two top 10 teams not in the finals.
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Post by ohiovb on Nov 22, 2006 18:50:28 GMT -5
The Walsh players and staff are surely disappointed about losing in their regional final to Cedarville. As much as I'm a fan of their team, though, I don't believe that they deserved an at-large bid. They came out very flat on the final day of the regional, and if you want to make the trip to nationals, that's unpardonable. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was overconfidence. No one will ever really know. But they left their "A" game somewhere else, and anything else was not going to be good enough.
In their semifinal match against Mt. Vernon they played well enough to win, but that's all. The solid ball control and consistency that had marked their second half play was missing. They won because they had far superior talent, but did not play to their potential. The second semifinal, between Cedarville and Tiffin, was played at a much higher level, Cedarville probably playing the best ball that they'd played in over a month. It was obvious to me that Walsh, who had defeated Cedarville three straight times, would have to amp up their game or they were going to have a problem in the final. They did not, and their season is history.
Walsh came into that final against Cedarville with a game plan that had succeeded three times running, that being to use their outsides rather than the middle, trying to avoid Cedarville's big blockers. But Cedarville adjusted, load blocking against Walsh's strongsides, and the Cavaliers were unable, or unwilling, to counter this. They rarely went to their middles, played right into Cedarville's hands, and were swept.
Hopefully, they've learned a lesson. They return everyone next year except very good outside hitter Jamie Herr. I hope they can come back and get another shot at a trip to Missouri, or wherever nationals are in 2007.
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kj18
Freshman
Posts: 52
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Post by kj18 on Nov 22, 2006 22:14:57 GMT -5
Hey p-dub, can you put the list of like the top 50 NAIA teams in the Pablo poll? That would be interesting to compare them to the NAIA rankings...which are even more crazy than the DI poll. Kinda funny Concordia is #2, even though they have lost both times to Fresno who is ranked #5. Also, the #4 ranked team in Pablo isn't even in the NAIA Tourney.
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