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Post by nellakwah21 on Apr 16, 2005 15:46:03 GMT -5
The final four for the Divison I Championships are:
Illinois Oshkosh Marquette Lakeland
Illinois defeated Cal in an unbelievable match. Illinois' passing and attacking were just awesome. Both teams are great. Lakeland also took down very "confident" Arizona. I am not sure yet who MU and Oshkosh took out. As I said before, the MIVA and Midwest were catching up, and it looks like this year these 4 are the best when it matters most. Great job Midwest.
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Post by star035 on Apr 17, 2005 17:00:18 GMT -5
Marquette over Oshkosh in two for the championship! Solid team play for Marquette. Marquette knocked out conference opponent Lakeland in two in the semi's while Oshkosh won a tough three-game match over Illinois.
The quarters were interesting with four midwest teams against four west teams ...and the midwest won all four. What are the odds of that? Illinois had the big upset over Cal, followed closely by Lakeland's upset of Arizona. Oshkosh took out UCLA while Marquette beat SD State.
Edit for typos, but then to add: Penn State, hey, you really gotta start winning your day one pool! You keep getting stuck in a killer championship pool on day two (with the #1 seed and another top ten team). Tough luck.
Marquette's path was rather favorable - 43rd seed Penn (not Penn St!) in the round of 16, then SD State and conference opponents Lakeland and then Oshkosh. Cal had a hard round-of-sixteen match with Cal POLY before facing Illinois. The whole gold division set-up came out strange with eight west teams in the pool, but all facing each other.
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Post by vball710 on Apr 17, 2005 17:43:53 GMT -5
I would have to say that the midwest did a great job representing the amount of talent that is there, not only in D1, with all of the final 4 teams being from the midwest, but also in D2, with with 3 out of the 4 teams being from the midwest. From what i saw, there were a lot of great games this weekend at every level, including some big upsets like Illinois over Cal. Congrats to Marquette for winning the D1 championship.
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Post by vball710 on Apr 18, 2005 0:51:17 GMT -5
One other thing that i failed to mention is how good a job the photographers did of capturing the action on the court. There are game photos at Clubvolleyballphotos.com, and from whats up there so far, they did a great job. This is a nice little addition to the NIRSA Championships as it gives the players a chance that few have to have some very high quality pictures taken of themselves in action. Overall, I have to say that i was very satisfied with the tournament, and hope that next year is just as good, if not better.
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Post by Onceabigblocker on Apr 18, 2005 12:19:29 GMT -5
One other thing that i failed to mention is how good a job the photographers did of capturing the action on the court. There are game photos at Clubvolleyballphotos.com, and from whats up there so far, they did a great job. Its funny you say that, as from what I have seen of the pics, I thought they did a poor job. I realize they were trying to get pics of individuals. But if I were a player, I'd want the pics to include a sense of the match, who we were playing against etc... It would appear to me, these guys were professional photographers, but It did not appear they were volleyball photographers! Where were the guys hitting against blocks? Its obvious the photographers sat in the center of the court, nera the centerline and took the pics from the sidelines. To be honest, half ( or more ) of the pics appear as if they could have been taken during warmups . Just one guys opinion though.
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Post by Onceabigblocker on Apr 18, 2005 12:30:36 GMT -5
Marquette over Oshkosh in two for the championship! Solid team play for Marquette. Marquette knocked out conference opponent Lakeland in two in the semi's while Oshkosh won a tough three-game match over Illinois. The quarters were interesting with four midwest teams against four west teams ...and the midwest won all four. What are the odds of that? Illinois had the big upset over Cal, followed closely by Lakeland's upset of Arizona. Oshkosh took out UCLA while Marquette beat SD State. Edit for typos, but then to add: Penn State, hey, you really gotta start winning your day one pool! You keep getting stuck in a killer championship pool on day two (with the #1 seed and another top ten team). Tough luck. Marquette's path was rather favorable - 43rd seed Penn (not Penn St!) in the round of 16, then SD State and conference opponents Lakeland and then Oshkosh. Cal had a hard round-of-sixteen match with Cal POLY before facing Illinois. The whole gold division set-up came out strange with eight west teams in the pool, but all facing each other. I agree with most you write here. I am not an apologist for Cal, but their road as a Number 1 seed was quite tough. Go back to their Power Pool, likely the toughest of them all ( Penn State AND Santa Clara), althought I though Arizona had a tough power pool to. I think that if NIRSA could seed the final 16 themselves, they would have chosen completely different matchups. This is to take NOTHING AWAY from Marquette and Oshkosh, but could there have been a worse matchup in the final than 2 teams from the same league that have played each other some 8 times previously. Perhaps Cal versus SLO would have been equally as bad. Just kinda a non-interesting matchup, thats all. Cal versus Marquette, or Oshkosh vs Arizona wold have been nice. Even the semis were a drag cuz they are all teams from the Midwest. From what I heard Illinois played a perfect match againts Cal, and that it was a true barnburner. Also the Lakeland-AZ match seemed like a great one. UCLA walked into the quarters without facing any tough teams (outside there initial pool play), and did Marquette play any top 15 teams prior to Lakeland in the semis? I am just curious Anyways, congrats to Marquette, the WVC and the midwest in general for stepping up on the big stage. We all knew its was a wide open field this year and they won when it mattered. I still think if you played this tourney again, you likely get a different winner (I think Cal, Arizona, Marquette, Oshkosh and Lakeland, and perhaps Illinois are the only teams who cold win) , but thats not the case. Good job Golden Eagles (thats Marquette's mascot, right?? )
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Post by TrailMix on Apr 18, 2005 13:48:12 GMT -5
Just wanted to say i agree on your post about the pictures taken at the tournament. I think it is a great idea, but looking at a few of the galleries, i'm not sure i see a single pic i would buy if it were me. I'm lucky that I play for a team now where the local paper has photographers who know how to photograph athletic events. None of them played vball or anything, but they know what a good athletic photo is. Most of the photos taken there could have been done by any teammate or parent on the side. As Onceabigblocker suggests, a little court perspective would be nice. If anything, a few photos of an assembled block would be decent and easy to take. Anyways, in my opinion, it was a good idea, but poorly executed.
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Post by palo on Apr 18, 2005 14:00:15 GMT -5
Just wanted to give big ups to my boys - Illinois for representing. And congrats to Marquette for pulling it off. Hope they didn'y have any of those MATC guys on that team. ;D Nice job Warner and co.
Anybody have any details about that Illinois-Cal match? Who played well? It sounds like it was a fun time.
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Post by star035 on Apr 18, 2005 14:13:32 GMT -5
Anybody have any details about that Illinois-Cal match? Who played well? It sounds like it was a fun time. I saw the match, and it was awesome...huge crowd watching (biggest crowd of the tourney, except for the finals and maybe Cal-Cal POLY?). Illinois was digging well and passing great. They were able to get enough touches on Glitz so that he didn't take over the match, and their own hitters did well enough. The match-ups of big middles probably went to Illinois. What did others see?
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Post by star035 on Apr 18, 2005 14:14:52 GMT -5
I am not an apologist for Cal, but their road as a Number 1 seed was quite tough. Go back to their Power Pool, likely the toughest of them all ( Penn State AND Santa Clara), althought I though Arizona had a tough power pool to. Agreed. Not just their power pool, but then facing Cal POLY in the round of sixteen before matching up against Illinois. That's a tough road. For all that, Cal didn't lose a game until they played Illinois.
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Post by nellakwah21 on Apr 18, 2005 15:54:51 GMT -5
I agree with the pictures too. Great idea, poor execution. I wanted to see blocks and hits together, not people standing their ready to pass, or swinging against nothing. The photographers were all standing next to the refs. I would not buy them. TIP: for those of you who havent figured it outyet, you can get around the java disabling saving the pictures by highlighting the pic then right clicking "save image as.." or highlighting and copy then paste into MSPaint or another program.
I was sitting front and center for the Cal/Illinois match, and it was an awesome match. Everyone on their team is good, but Rob Turpuritis OPP and Colin Johnson OH were the keys to me for Illinois. Everyone around the Midwest knows Rob is good, but Colin just played out of his mind. His cut shots were great. Funny that he wasn't even starting till a few tourneys ago, but should have the entire year. Illinois' big middle is a great blocker who moves so fast.
I had never seen Cal play this year but I was impressed with Al Glitz after finally getting to see him play. Not the smoothest approach, but does he hit a heavy ball. Cal as a team was very smooth. Their opposite was also solid, but I don't think their middle Rod had a very good match. He got blocked a few times and then didn't seem into it after that.
It was anticlimactic that all midwest teams were in the final four, but also good for the MIVA. I was also happy to see the midwest do well because the guy from Arizona "jumpman1" on this board seemed to think the West and his team more specifically were going to "dominate nationals." But I don't believe the parity equaled a lack of talent this year. Even DI-AA was much stronger as a whole than last year. Great tournament, and I can't wait for Salt Lake 2006!
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Lew8ftln
Sophomore
Tweet? Follow team updates @oshkoshmvball or myself @bigfire8
Posts: 163
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Post by Lew8ftln on Apr 18, 2005 17:13:15 GMT -5
It was anticlimactic that all midwest teams were in the final four, but also good for the MIVA. I was also happy to see the midwest do well because the guy from Arizona "jumpman1" on this board seemed to think the West and his team more specifically were going to "dominate nationals." But I don't believe the parity equaled a lack of talent this year. Even DI-AA was much stronger as a whole than last year. Great tournament, and I can't wait for Salt Lake 2006! I agree that the final four and final may have been anticlimatic since those teams have played each other several times this year....but don't be so quick to hold MIVA up as the shining winner of this whole thing. MIVA is made up of three conferences in the Midwest, including Midwest 10, Big Ten, and GMMVC. In Gold, the only non-Midwest 10 member was ILL from MIVA. This was the coming out year for the WVC, and I guess next year will tell if the real hot spot for volleyball has moved to the Great White North, or if the stars all magically alligned for one year in KC. Note to Marquette: Make sure there is as much publicity in Mil-town in the News about bringing a legitimate national championship back to Wisconsin as there was negative publicity last year about the Cheaters.
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Post by Madlib7 on Apr 18, 2005 18:50:03 GMT -5
I was also happy to see the midwest do well because the guy from Arizona "jumpman1" on this board seemed to think the West and his team more specifically were going to "dominate nationals." But I don't believe the parity equaled a lack of talent this year. After talking to the Lakeland setter, I found it kinda funny that jumpman1 (#1, mb, from AZ) was talking trash through most of the game saying "that slide was GAY", especially since Arizona seemed to have a very tough time stopping the slides run by the LC middles. They ran the slides like they specialized in them, very well played by Lakeland, it was a great third game to watch, (all i saw, was busy finishing our own game) unbelievable. From the quick glances I got from the IL - Cal game, it was very well played too. Illinois also seemed to bring their best against Oshkosh, almost beating them as well. I wasn't able to get to see too much of Cal after watching several of their games on the first day in pool play, during which they looked very solid, with Al Glitz playing as well as expected. Also, just curious on how Rod Benson played following that first day, he ripped a few in hitting lines, but didnt seem to be an incredible factor when it came to gametime. I heard some guys saying he was on during the third day, can anyone attest to that? As for what Lewin was saying: "Note to Marquette: Make sure there is as much publicity in Mil-town in the News about bringing a legitimate national championship back to Wisconsin as there was negative publicity last year about the Cheaters." I wish that we could. Honestly, there are very few people in Mil and on campus that even know that MU has a guys volleyball team. Even on big home game days, like those against Oshkosh or LC, there are as many visiting fans as our own. I'm always impressed playing LC or Oshkosh at their places with the number of people they manage to get out to the games. Oh well, we'll deal with it.
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Post by nellakwah21 on Apr 18, 2005 20:07:21 GMT -5
....but don't be so quick to hold MIVA up as the shining winner of this whole thing. MIVA is made up of three conferences in the Midwest, including Midwest 10, Big Ten, and GMMVC. In Gold, the only non-Midwest 10 member was ILL from MIVA. This was the coming out year for the WVC, and I guess next year will tell if the real hot spot for volleyball has moved to the Great White North, or if the stars all magically alligned for one year in KC. Hold on a minute, I'm not holding up the MIVA as the "shining winner" of the whole thing. I am aware of the different conferences, being that I play in the MW-10. I know the MW-10 shined, and more specifically the WVC. I just enjoyed the great show of camarderie between teams, especially from the MIVA. I met a bunch of guys I had not previously gotten to know, and its cool that everyone was getting to know each other. I also admire the Wisconsin Volleyball Conference. The system run there is top notch, its like a close group of friends in an even bigger group of friends (MIVA). The teams make each other better, and the idea of a state champ is awesome. I would like to look into the feasibility of starting something like that in Illinois. It's something to think about because it has shown itself to bring results to the teams participating.
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Post by vbfan430 on Apr 18, 2005 20:35:58 GMT -5
I also admire the Wisconsin Volleyball Conference. The system run there is top notch, its like a close group of friends in an even bigger group of friends (MIVA). The teams make each other better, and the idea of a state champ is awesome. I would like to look into the feasibility of starting something like that in Illinois. It's something to think about because it has shown itself to bring results to the teams participating. Actually, Illinois had a state championship in Division II. Both Dominican (River Forest) and Augustana (Rock Island) are in the MCVA and also met for the conference championship two weeks before Nationals.
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