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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Mar 21, 2020 20:41:22 GMT -5
After a third place RMAC finish in 2019, the Trailblazers move up to D1 this year to play in the WAC. NMSU rules the roost in that conference of course, but the next best WAC team last year was Grand Canyon St. I surmise that Dixie St can best their new cross-canyon conference rival right out of the gate and take over the two-spot in the WAC in 2020. North Rim has the high ground.
The good news is that the Rebels only graduate two of their players. The bad news is that it was two of their top players who were both among the team leaders in every major statistical category. Nevertheless, the Red Storm will burst onto the WAC scene as one of the top teams, right out of the gate.
This much is certain. St George will soon be overtaking Provo as the epicenter of women's collegiate volleyball in the State of Utah.
The schedule isn't out yet. But they are one of the few teams that did get a spring Scrimmage in, against nearby SUU from the Big Sky on March 7. Results unknown. They were supposed to play against each other again in April, but it of course got canceled. But the Thunderbirds are going down this fall. They will get their beaks Trailblazed.
Soon DSU will be a household name in volleyball circles. The Red Aggies will finally have a worthy WAC adversary. It will be glorious.
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jcvb
Sophomore
Posts: 155
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Post by jcvb on Mar 22, 2020 7:22:44 GMT -5
Appreciate your enthusiasm and optimism for your team. Best of luck to them as they start their first D1 season. My guess is that they’ll be much farther down the WAC standings than you seem to think. But only time will tell.
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Post by n00b on Mar 22, 2020 14:48:06 GMT -5
Dixie State is one of four teams moving up to D1 in the fall. All four are actually pretty similarly ranked in last year's Pablo:
UC San Diego Tritons 18-9, 12-5 California Collegiate Athletic Association, Lost in NCAA Rd of 64 Massey #39, Pablo #34 Final Ranking: #4 West Region Senior MB Jessica Rieble - 2nd Team All-American, CCAA 1st Team Sophomore OH Trinity Castaneda - CCAA 1st Team Junior S Isabella Dobra - CCAA 2nd Team 2020: Big West Conference
Tarleton State TexAnns 22-12, 12-6 Lone Star Conference, Lost in NCAA Rd of 64 #45 Massey, #40 Pablo Final Ranking: #7 South Central Region Senior OPP Tatyana Tuialii-Umi - All-Region 2nd Team, LSC 1st Team Senior OH Adriana Darthuy - LSC 1st Team Sophomore OPP Lauren Kersey - LSC 2nd Team Senior MB Sofia Tonga - LSC Honorable Mention 2020: Western Athletic Conference
Dixie State Trailblazers 20-8, 14-4 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, Lost in Conference Semifinals #44 Massey, #44 Pablo Final Ranking: #9 South Central Region Senior MB Lauren Gammell - All-Region 2nd Team, RMAC Defensive POY, RMAC 1st Team Senior MB/OH To'a Faleao - All-Region 2nd Team, RMAC 1st Team Junior OH/S Megan Treanor - RMAC 1st Team Junior S Jordyn Nelson - RMAC Honorable Mention Freshman L Mykenna Nelson - RMAC Honorable Mention 2020: Western Athletic Conference
Bellarmine Knights 20-11, 10-5 Great Lakes Valley Conference, Lost in conference Quarterfinals Final Ranking: #10, Midwest Region #72 Massey, #67 Pablo Freshman OH Jayme Scott - GLVC and Region Freshman of the Year, GLVC 1st Team Junior S Kristen O'Toole - GLVC 2nd Team 2020: Atlantic Sun Conference
It'll be interesting to see which of these programs has the most success in their first D1 season. Bellarmine was lowest ranked last year but returns both all-conference players and gets conference matches against NJIT, North Alabama and Jacksonville. UCSD was best (and the only team to make the D2 NCAA tournament) but jumping into the Big West is a lot tougher.
Dixie State and Tarleton State will be joining the WAC together. Both had decent 2019s but lose their two best players. They'll have opportunities for wins against each other along with Chicago State.
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bluepenquin
Hall of Fame
4-Time VolleyTalk Poster of the Year (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016), All-VolleyTalk 1st Team (2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016)
Posts: 12,381
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Post by bluepenquin on Mar 25, 2020 9:06:45 GMT -5
After a third place RMAC finish, the Trailblazers move up to D1 this year to play in the WAC. NMSU rules the roost in that conference of course, but the next best WAC team last year was Grand Canyon St. I surmise that Dixie St can best their new cross-canyon conference rival right out of the gate and take over the two-spot in the WAC in 2020. North Rim has the high ground. The good news is that the Rebels only graduate two of their players. The bad news is that it was two of their top players who were both among the team leaders in every major statistical category. Nevertheless, the Red Storm will burst onto the WAC scene as one of the top teams, right out of the gate. This much is certain. St George will soon be overtaking Provo as the epicenter of women's collegiate volleyball in the State of Utah. The schedule isn't out yet. But they are one of the few teams that did get a spring Scrimmage in, against nearby SUU from the Big Sky on March 7. Results unknown. They were supposed to play against each other again in April, but it of course got canceled. But the Thunderbirds are going down this fall. They will get their beaks Trailblazed. Soon DSU will be a household name in volleyball circles. The Red Aggies will finally have a worthy WAC adversary. It will be glorious. Grand Canyon returns 6 of their 7 starters including all conference MB Kaira Moss along with 2nd team and Freshman of the year (WAC) setter Klaire Mitchell and SO Kubinski. Grand Canyon was #91 in Pablo last year compared to #74 for New Mexico State. NMSU returns 6 of their 9 starters. They bring back 2 1st team all conference players - but lose player of the year Megan Hart. I haven't looked to see these two had/have any defections - on the surface, these two teams look to be pretty even going into 2020 and it will be challenging for Dixie to finish in the top 2.
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zzyzx
Sophomore
Posts: 169
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Post by zzyzx on Mar 25, 2020 11:37:22 GMT -5
Adding Whittnee Nihipali to the roster should help Dixie State next season. NV Gatorade Player of the Year and has D1 experience from her time at Arizona.
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Post by karellen on Mar 26, 2020 11:15:06 GMT -5
Merrimack is also leaving DII for DI
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Post by n00b on Mar 26, 2020 11:24:50 GMT -5
Merrimack is also leaving DII for DI They were D1 this past year. 0-23 against D1 opponents. Won 3 sets. (They did win a match against D2 St. Michael's)
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Post by mikegarrison on Mar 26, 2020 11:47:32 GMT -5
Dixie State is one of four teams moving up to D1 in the fall. All four are actually pretty similarly ranked in last year's Pablo: UC San Diego TritonsMassey #39, Pablo #34 Tarleton State TexAnns#45 Massey, #40 Pablo Dixie State Trailblazers#44 Massey, #44 Pablo Bellarmine Knights#72 Massey, #67 Pablo It'll be interesting to see which of these programs has the most success in their first D1 season. Just for clarity, those pablo rankings are among D2 schools. All the schools in question would have been in the lower half of D1 according to pablo.
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Post by bucky415 on Mar 28, 2020 0:36:12 GMT -5
As a fan of irony, I like that Dixie State is in Utah, albeit the southwestern part of the state. I also had to point out the irony a few years back when we were watching the Sun Bowl from El Paso and it was snowing. Sadly, the people at a bowl in Dallas at the same time were wearing t shirts, and the clashing air masses led to severe storms in Texas.
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Mar 28, 2020 4:40:17 GMT -5
St George historically has been known as "Utah's Dixie"
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Post by azvb on Mar 28, 2020 11:22:12 GMT -5
Didn’t know Dave Richards was an asst. at Dixie.
I really like St. George. Nice place to retire.
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Mar 30, 2020 8:36:35 GMT -5
DIXIE STATE VOLLEYBALL RECORD BOOK (NCAA ERA - 2006-19)YEAR-BY-YEAR RECORDS
YEAR/COACH/RECORD/CONFERENCE/FINISH
DII Independent
2006 Jeff Parker 12-14 N/A N/A
Pacific West
2007 Jeff Parker 7-23 4-10* 6th 2008 Jason Stout 4-4 N/A N/A -Gregg Jensen 9-8 8-6* 3rd 2009 Gregg Jensen 18-7 12-4* 2nd 2010 Gregg Jensen 15-9 10-6* 4th 2011 Darice Pratt 13-11 8-8* 6th
2012 Robyn Felder 7-14 5-11* 9th 2013 Robyn Felder 17-10 14-6* 3rd 2014 Robyn Felder 22-9 17-3* 2nd 2015 Robyn Felder 19-11 15-5* 1st 2016 Robyn Felder 17-11 13-7* T-3rd 2017 Robyn Felder 13-15 11-9* T-6th
RMAC
2018 Robyn Felder 22-6 16-2 T-1st 2019 Robyn Felder 20-8 14-4 3rd
TOTALS 217-158 (.579) 30-6 (.833) (RMAC)* / 117-75 (.609) (Pacific West)
NCAA Tournament Appearances: 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2018
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Post by kimdc on Mar 30, 2020 10:21:38 GMT -5
Adding Whittnee Nihipali to the roster should help Dixie State next season. NV Gatorade Player of the Year and has D1 experience from her time at Arizona. Very, very little experience from her time at Arizona. Rubio never trusted her ability to handle pressure, so she rarely played unless they had injuries up to their necks. Before her freshman season, he talked about redshirting her. I don't know why that didn't happen. I think it might have helped her, but maybe she didn't want to. I have no idea. She's a very nice young woman and I hope she does great things at Dixie State. She just didn't have the confidence at the Pac-12 level or to play for a coach who's as tough as Rubio.
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zzyzx
Sophomore
Posts: 169
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Post by zzyzx on Mar 30, 2020 10:56:51 GMT -5
Adding Whittnee Nihipali to the roster should help Dixie State next season. NV Gatorade Player of the Year and has D1 experience from her time at Arizona. Very, very little experience from her time at Arizona. Rubio never trusted her ability to handle pressure, so she rarely played unless they had injuries up to their necks. Before her freshman season, he talked about redshirting her. I don't know why that didn't happen. I think it might have helped her, but maybe she didn't want to. I have no idea. She's a very nice young woman and I hope she does great things at Dixie State. She just didn't have the confidence at the Pac-12 level or to play for a coach who's as tough as Rubio. True, I'm glad she decided to keep playing. I think St George will be good for her.
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Post by vbfamily on Apr 23, 2020 22:05:44 GMT -5
Alright, after watching a handful of last year's games, I have a better bead on this team. They get the starting setter and libero back, and they are sisters, so the passing and setting should be all shored up. Treanor and Johnson are poised to be the top front row players. Treanor is already there as one of the top players on the team, and Johnson is ready to have a break out with her spring loaded wind up. Both can knock the ball out of its casing. The starting MB, Clark, got injured about halfway through the season. No idea if she will be back at full strength or not. The two graduating seniors will be sorely missed, as they were just blocking everything in the trenches, and could hit a ton. The team is well coached, and doesn't make many mistakes. They just grind teams into a pulp with fundamentals. Libero had a full ride to a PAC-12 school, decided she really wanted to play with her sister. Sister is a REALLY good setter with tremendous defensive ability (selected team MVP for 2019), just undersized. Excited to see what DSU can do in 2020!
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