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Post by beachvball on Nov 21, 2006 2:34:08 GMT -5
Men's Volleyball Inks Four for 2008
November 20, 2006
LONG BEACH, CA -- Long Beach State men’s volleyball Head Coach Alan Knipe announced that four players -- Kyle Friend (Boca Raton, FL/Spanish River HS), Michael Klipsch (St. Louis, MO/Vianney HS), Srdjan Nadazdin (Los Alamitos/Los Alamitos HS), and Rory Prager (Cypress/Servite HS) have all signed National Letters-of-Intent to enroll at LBSU for the 2008 season.
“We’re happy with the guys that we signed,” said Knipe. “We feel they fit into our style of play here at Long Beach State. All four guys are good athletes and solid competitors.”
Friend (6-5, OH) was selected as the 2006 Florida Dairy Farmers Boys‚ Volleyball Player of the Year, and finished the season with 364 kills, 43 blocks and 360 digs, while leading his team to the state title. He also earned Player of the Year honors for Palm Beach County as announced by the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. Friend was a member of the 17-U U.S. Youth National Indoor team, which qualified for the World Championships. “He’s a talented athlete that can pass, jump, and hit from the outside,” said Knipe.
Klipsch (6-4, OH/S) is a member of the High Performance club team where he played with his brother Steven, who is currently a sophomore for the 49ers. “He’s a master of all trades,” said Knipe. “He can set and play outside hitter. He will be a talented athlete in our program.”
Nadazdin (6-8, OPP), a member of The LBC Volleyball Club team, earned all-tournament honors in the 16-U open division at JO‚s in 2006. He also earned all-tournament honors in 2005 in the 15-U division. “A real big physical kid,” said Knipe. “He is a really, really good competitor.”
Prager (6-6, OH) was a first team All-Serra League selection in 2006. He finished his junior campaign with 310 kills, 36 blocks and a .442 hitting percentage. Prager was also selected to the all-tournament team at the Redondo Invitational. “A big, tall, outside hitter with a good arm and good jump serve,” said Knipe.
Long Beach State begins its regular season competition in January.
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Post by swingaway on Nov 21, 2006 9:57:16 GMT -5
From santa Barbara News Press
Menzel signs with UCSB volleyball
MARK PATTON, NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER
November 21, 2006 12:00 AM
Jeff Menzel, a three-sport star at San Marcos High School, has decided to stick with volleyball and sign a national letter of intent with UCSB.
The 6-foot-5 senior is a two-time All-CIF outside hitter for the Royals, as well as an All-Channel League forward in basketball and big-play receiver in football.
Gaucho coach Ken Preston also announced the signing of three other big hitters: 6-6 Ben Douglas from Mountain View High, 6-4 Blaine Nielsen of Corona del Mar High, and 6-2 Jake Scalise of Mission Hills High from San Marcos.
Preston is projecting Menzel as an opposite-side hitter at UCSB.
"Jeff is very gifted athletically," he said. "I think he is a natural to fill the void that will be left by Evan Patak's graduation.
"Jeff has the potential to dominate at the net and follow some of the great opposites we've had like Evan and Donny Harris. His future is unlimited."
Menzel played football at San Marcos for the first time this fall. His raw athleticism intrigued the coaches at UCLA and BYU, who both offered full scholarships if he made their teams as a wide receiver.
"I wanted to play football really, really badly," he conceded, "but there were too many ifs involved. I knew I would be able to play volleyball at UCSB. They offered me a lot of (scholarship) money, and there's not a lot out there in the sport.
"Besides, I've known coach Preston for a very long time -- his daughter (Courtney) played with my sister (Erica) -- and having that kind of good relationship with my coach is really big for me."
Erica Menzel played women's volleyball at UCSB from 2000 to 2003, making the All-Big West Conference first team twice and the NCAA All-Region team once.
Jeff Menzel played for a Club Santa Barbara team that made the Sweet 16 at last year's Junior Olympics and which is expected to contend for a medal this year.
"We took third in our first tournament, and we're still missing some of our big players," he said. "It's our last year and of course we want to win gold. With the talent that we have, with Carson (Clark) and a few other guys from Santa Barbara High, it should be pretty exciting once we get rolling."
Preston is excited about his own incoming class. Douglas has been playing for Mountain View High's varsity since his freshman year and is a fourth-year player for the Bay to Bay Volleyball Club.
"Ben has been hurt for a year and is just now becoming healthy," Preston said. "He is a good jumper with solid size and he has tremendous potential. I believe he has a bright future."
Nielsen, an All-Pacific Coast League selection, led Corona del Mar to a runnerup finish in CIF Division 2 last year and to the championship as a junior. He also captained the Balboa Bay club team to Junior Olympic bronze medals during each of the last two years.
"Blaine comes from several winning programs and is an outstanding player and a perfect fit for UCSB," Preston said. "He is a born leader that will add a lot of energy and production to our team."
Scalise was a San Diego All-Section selection for Mission Hills, and he's also a two-time pick on the Valley League's All-Academic Team.
"Jake has an unbelievable ability to jump," Preston said. "He needs to work on his passing and arm swing, but with his athleticism, I think he will be a tremendous asset. He is an excellent student and is a great fit for our program."
UCSB, which will open its season in January, will return all but two players from a team that went 9-13 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and 13-16 overall last year.
e-mail: mpatton@newspress.com
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Post by BearClause on Nov 21, 2006 12:24:23 GMT -5
I think....you don't sign a letter of intent unless you are getting some money, even books count and you sign a NLI. If you are a walk on, I think....the college team can't announce you as coming until you are officially accepted as a student.....often in the spring. The NLI must come along with a formal offer of athletics financial aid. In men's VB, the 4.5 equivalent scholarships can be sliced and diced as many ways as the athletic dept wants. An athletic dept can also publicly comment if a recruit signs a formal offer of financial aid or signs an offer of admission. The one thing I have noticed is that coaches are almost always tight-lipped about who may be a recruit. There's nothing illegal about mentioning names of recruits, but there's almost nothing that a coach is allowed to say beyond "we're recruiting player A". I remember once time Ty Willingham at Washington mentioned the name (but little else) of a football recruit on his radio program. Someone people started going off on him like he'd violated some NCAA rule. He didn't, but it's so rare that a coach would make a name of a recruit public that most people assumed it was an NCAA violation of some sort. |
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Post by Heinrich Schliemann III on Nov 22, 2006 14:29:25 GMT -5
It is a violation to publicize who you are recruiting.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 22, 2006 15:53:16 GMT -5
It is a violation to publicize who you are recruiting. No it is not. I know this rule down pat. However - there are limits to what can be said, so most coaches choose not to say anything. |
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Post by Heinrich Schliemann III on Nov 22, 2006 19:45:33 GMT -5
I know NCAA bylaws as well. The key words are, from your post "mentioning names" and from 13.10.2 "confirming".
"a member institution may comment publicly only to the extent of confirming its recruitment of the prospective student-athlete" is answering or acknowleging "are you recruiting _____", not dropping names.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 22, 2006 20:27:27 GMT -5
I know NCAA bylaws as well. The key words are, from your post "mentioning names" and from 13.10.2 "confirming". "a member institution may comment publicly only to the extent of confirming its recruitment of the prospective student-athlete" is answering or acknowleging "are you recruiting _____", not dropping names. Depends on what the deal is and what you mean by "publicize". I'm thinking of "comment publicly" when perhaps a reporter shoves a mike in front of a coach asking him about recruiting. If there are rumors circulating about player X and the coach simply volunteers (without being asked directly by a reporter) that player X is a recruiting target, is that an NCAA violation? I tend to think not. There are already NCAA rulings on the legality of buying billboard space to impress a recruit or putting a recruit on a video board during a recruiting visit. I would think naming a recruit in a media release might be along the same lines, but volunteering a name to a reporter or on a phone-in show isn't. I referenced the Ty Willingham problem, and it seems that it was self-reported as an NCAA violation. It wasn't so much that he mentioned two recruits by name, but that he gave the names along with an assessment of where they would stand in his team. seattlepi.nwsource.com/huskies/246781_ubok02.htmlThe irony of this is that Montgomery backed out of his commitment and signed his NLI with Cal. |
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Post by baywatcher on Nov 23, 2006 3:06:55 GMT -5
Are the Stanford recruits good? Or, hopefully, excellent? Live in the Bay Area so I can only go to Stanford or Pacific for men's vball; both are a good hour and a half away, and kind of a bummer to drive that far, then watch the home team get pummeled. Hard t tell how good the other team is when contests are so one-sided. Hope Stanford and Pacific can get competitive in the next few years. (Have a daughter playing club, so hard to travel down south on weekends to see the really good matches.) Will check Pacific website to see if they announced any players.
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Post by cbrown1709 on Nov 23, 2006 3:52:52 GMT -5
Stanford did sign the #1 recruit for next year.
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Post by kalena12 on Nov 24, 2006 4:26:43 GMT -5
i think stanford's recruits are legit. mclachlin is a solid all around player. arguably the #1 recruit in this class. connely has also proven himself on the big stage. stanford is definitely on his way up.
inafuku was not mentioned in the press release. i think he may have opted for another financial aid package rather than an athletic scholarship. he has commited to stanford rite? i mean, he is the #1 libero, and if he beat out brent asuka for the national team position, he's supposedly the best libero in the nation. the stanford recruiting class is a big time class if they got all three of these guys. if not, its still a big step up.
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Post by italianmattd on Nov 28, 2006 14:14:57 GMT -5
Gosh... where are the Warrior Recruits?!
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Post by bbk on Nov 28, 2006 14:43:35 GMT -5
pacific just keeps signing setters from Chicago and not much else. I also hear Huffman verballed to SC.
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Post by swingaway on Nov 30, 2006 9:42:48 GMT -5
CSUN: www.gomatadors.com/mvolleyball_details.php?news_id=0000003149Campbell Signs Five Players To Letters Of Intent Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball coach Jeff Campbell announced that he has signed Ari Feldman, Greg Kroneberger, Ian McKelvie, Tanner Nua and Matt Rice to National Letters of Intent to play for the Matadors. Feldman, a 6-8 middle blocker from Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, Calif., played for the Under-17 National Championship volleyball club team from Pacific Palisades. McKelvie, a 6-7 outside hitter from Millikan High School in Long Beach, Calif., spent the summer with the Youth National Training Team in 2006 and also competed for the Riptides Volleyball Club. Kroneberger, a 6-4 setter from Los Alamitos High School in Los Alamitos, Calif., selected Northridge over UC Irvine and Long Beach State. Rice, a 6-6 outside hitter from Foothill High School in Pleasanton, Calif., is the fourth recruit to sign with the Matadors during the early signing period. Rice was an All-East Bay Athletic League volleyball selection and helped lead his team to the North Coast Section Championship last season. Nua, a 6-8 outside hitter from Palmdale High School in Palmdale, Calif., is the first recruit to sign with the Matadors during the early signing period. Nua competes for the Santa Monica Beach Club and was a 16-under All-American at the USA Volleyball Junior Olympics in 2006. “This is one of the best and biggest classes we’ve ever had at Cal State Northridge,” said Campbell. “We feel all these guys will be able to play and contribute at the Division I level.“ 2007-08 CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE MEN’S VOLLEYBALL SIGNEES NAME, POS, HEIGHT, HOMETOWN, HIGH SCHOOL Ari Feldman, MB, 6-8, Santa Monica, CA, Santa Monica Greg Kroneberger, S, 6-4, Los Alamitos, CA, Los Alamitos Ian McKelvie, OH, 6-7, Long Beach, CA, Millikan Tanner Nua, OH, 6-8, Palmdale, CA, Palmdale Matt Rice, OH, 6-6, Pleasanton, CA, Foothill |
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Post by Mac on Nov 30, 2006 11:00:57 GMT -5
Kroneberger, a 6-4 setter from Los Alamitos High School in Los Alamitos, Calif., selected Northridge over UC Irvine and Long Beach State. Gee, do ya think the Kronberger's have spent a ton on college gear with daughters at LBS and UCLA, and now a son going to CSUN? 3 kids playing D-1 VB. Not bad.  |
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Post by cyberVBmidwest on Dec 3, 2006 14:37:24 GMT -5
pacifictigers.cstv.com/sports/m-volley/spec-rel/112906aaa.htmlPacific Men's Volleyball Signs One For 2007-08 USA Boys' Youth National Training Team member Kristaps Staks to join Pacific for 08 season. Nov. 29, 2006 Stockton, Calif. - Pacific men's volleyball head coach Joe Wortmann announced the signing of Kristaps Staks (Park Ridge, Ill.) during the early signing period, on November 8th, 2006. Staks is currently a senior at Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Ill., where he led them to a runner up performance in the state in '05 and the state title in '06. In the '06 title game, Kristaps recorded 24 assists and one kill. The 6'3" setter is currently a member of the 2006 USA Boys' Youth National Training Team. "Kristaps has proven his ability to be a winner at the high school and club level," said Pacific head coach Joe Wortmann. "What makes him an outstanding collegiate prospect at setter are his consistency, the great location of his sets, and the fact that he has the mind and heart of a winner."
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