Patriot League 2024

[dvd]

Last Year’s Results:

School	PL	Pct.	Overall	Ovr. Pct.
Colgate	13-3	0.812	22-8	0.733
Army	11-5	0.688	14-12	0.538
American	11-5	0.688	20-11	0.645
Bucknell	11-5	0.688	15-11	0.577
Navy	9-7	0.562	18-9	0.667
Loyola Maryland	6-10	0.375	11-16	0.407
Lehigh	5-11	0.312	13-14	0.481
Lafayette	5-11	0.312	9-15	0.375
Holy Cross	1-15	0.062	4-21	0.160

Story Lines:
Colgate is going for their 4th straight Conference Championship.
Army and Navy graduated a bunch of starters, making way for new names to have the spotlight in the star match.
American graduated player of the year Zeynep Uzen, but bring in 7 freshman and return setter of the year and first team all-conference Esma Sipahi.

Bucknell returns with libero of the year Jordan Hardy, and the last two reigning rookie of the years with Sydney Shaffer and Bri Frazilus, as they continue to improve year over year.

Lehigh and Lafayette knocking at the door for post season birth, can this be the year they return to the playoffs?

    Returning All-Conference Players
From First Team:
    Esma Sipahi, American, Sr., S *SOTY*
    Jordan Hardy, Bucknell, Sr., L *LOTY*
    Abby Shadwick, Colgate, Sr., OH
    Gillian Hauschild, Colgate, Gr., RS

    Megan Schulte, Lehigh, Sr., OH

From Second Team:
    Sidney Shaffer, Bucknell, So., MB *ROTY*
    Sydney Jones, Colgate, Sr., S

    Lauren Link, Loyola Maryland, Gr., OH

Preseason poll and awards.

[trojansc]

Let's go Jordan Hardy!

[socalvbhomer]

I think the ‘Gate should be able to give some unsuspecting teams in OOC a run for their money

[dvd]

Patriot League Weekly Awards

Gracie Reisman wins first player of the week award of the year. She lead the league with a 0.451 hitting percentage over the weekend and tallied 43 kills. The last time a Holy Cross player won this award was the 20-21 COVID shortened year, and 2016 before that.

Zedo Yilmaz wins rookie of the week after a 4-0 weekend with American University. The 6-rotation Freshman from Turkey had double digit kills in all four matches and was two digs away from having a double-double in each of those matches.

Current Records

American 4-0
Lafayette 3-1
Army West Point 2-1
Bucknell 2-1
Lehigh 2-1
Holy Cross 1-2
Loyola Maryland 1-2
Colgate 0-3
Navy 0-3

[dvd]

The patriot league is wrapping up league play this weekend, each team has one match remaining except Bucknell with 2. Here's how the teams stand going into the final matches.

School	PL	Pct	Overall	Ovr Pct
Colgate	13-2	.867	16-10	.615
Bucknell	12-2	.857	20-3	.870
American (3)	10-5	.667	20-7	.741
Army (4)	9-6	.600	13-11	.542
Loyola Md (5)	8-7	.533	10-14	.417
Lehigh (6)	7-8	.467	14-11	.560
Navy	6-9	.400	6-18	.250
Lafayette	2-13	.133	7-17	.292
Holy Cross	0-15	.000	2-22	.083

Remaining Matches:

Friday 11/15/2024
Bucknell @ Loyola Maryland    7:00 P.M.

Saturday 11/16/2024
Lehigh @ American    2:00 P.M.

Holy Cross @ Navy    4:00 P.M.

Colgate @ Bucknell     4:00 P.M.
Lafayette @ Army     4:00 P.M.

With the 3-6 seeds set for the tournament, the Colgate @ Bucknell match will determine the regular season champion, and host the Patriot League Tournament semis and finals next week.

Bucknell will be playing for their first Regular season title since 2000.

Colgate will be playing for their 4th consecutive regular season title, they split in '19, not declared in covid so is it 5th?

Bucknell has been competing with a pretty consistent lineup featuring POTY candidate Bri Frazilus on the OH, reigning LOTY Jordan Hardy, and Reigning ROTY Sidney Shaffer.  This team is undefeated at home for good reason, only dropping 2 sets all season in Davis Gym.

Colgate has two former first team players in Abby Shadwick and Gillian Hauschild, along with Milan Bayless who is hitting .304 as an outside against conference foes this season. Colgate has swept their last 4 opponents (Army, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh) but have been stifled on the road losing @ Army and @ American this year. 

When these two teams faced off earlier this season @ Colgate, Bucknell took the first set 25-15 before Colgate won the next 3 25-20, 25-14, 25-14 to win 3-1 on their home court. Bri Frazilus had 16Ks for Bucknell hitting .195, Bucknell as a team hit .134 struggling with Colgate's 14 total blocks.  Colgate's rookie RS Tiana Owens had 13Ks to lead the Raiders, while Bucknell held Abby Shadwick to just .056 hitting on 8Ks.

Hopefully this match-up is a good taste of championship volleyball before the tournaments start to happen.

[dvd]

The Patriot League Tournament is already underway with the first round seeing #6 Lehigh upset #3 American in 5 sets and #4 Army sweeping #5 Loyola Md.

The Semi Finals are set to take place Friday in Hamilton, NY @ #1 seed Colgate.  Where Lehigh will take on the hosts, and Army will battle #2 seed Bucknell.

Semi Previews:

#4 Army vs #2 Bucknell

Season series: split 1-1, both teams won at home.  Bucknell beat Army in 4 @ Bucknell, Army swept Bucknell @ Army. That was the only sweep loss of the season for Bucknell.

Bucknell seems to have better experience lately in Hamilton, beating Colgate last year, and taking a set this year.

Army doesn't exactly have fond memories in Hamilton since their title win in '20-'21 during COVID. They were swept this year, and swept in the playoffs last year as well.

Bucknell made the playoffs last year but were plagued by injuries and fell short of making it to the semi-finals.  It has been an historically successful year for the Bison, matching their program best in conference wins and falling 2 points shy of winning their first regular season title since 2000.

First serve is set for 2:30pm Friday at Colgate.

#6 Lehigh vs #1 Colgate

Season series: Colgate took both, 3-0 at home, and 3-1 on the road.

Lehigh's conference best blocking has been on display lately coming up with 35 (what?!?) blocks in their last two matches. Lehigh is coming off of their first conference tournament win since 2014.

Colgate's riding high off of their comeback win over Bucknell on the road last weekend and probably happy to be home to try to defend the title.

First serve is set for 5:30pm Friday at Colgate.