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Post by bbg95 on Mar 12, 2021 17:51:43 GMT -5
Since BYU's matches this weekend have been canceled, I thought I'd talk about BYU recruiting a bit.
From what I can gather, BYU has a top 10 class in 2021 that includes the following:
Elyse Stowell, a 6'1 outside hitter from Southern California Zayna Meyer, a 6'1 setter/opposite from Illinois Brianne Albright, a 6'3 middle blocker from Southern California Alyssa Montoya, a 6'0 outside hitter/opposite from Arizona
The information I saw was from November, so I'm not sure if it's changed, but Stowell appears to be a top 10 recruit, Meyer is around 40th, and Albright is around 50th. I've seen those three talked about on VT a bit, but I hadn't heard of Montoya until I stumbled upon her name on a recruiting site. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHgPsrqHz7N In addition to the 2021 class, Eden Bower verbally committed for 2022, and Claire Little verbally committed for 2023. Both are 6'2-6'3 outside hitters that are highly regarded. Bower is the younger sister of Whitney and Morgan Bower, and Little was the PrepVolleyball National Freshman of the Year.
I found a couple of articles that have been written about some of these recruits:
Darnell Dickson of the Provo Herald wrote a feature about Claire Little in October. Brandon Walton of the Idaho Press wrote a feature about Eden Bower in September.
mintonetteman , you seem to be pretty knowledgeable about BYU recruits. Do you (or anyone else) have any thoughts on these players? |
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Post by pelagius on Mar 12, 2021 18:08:06 GMT -5
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Post by pelagius on Mar 12, 2021 19:45:25 GMT -5
To summarize in a table:
Returning from a Mission:
name year position height
Heather Gneiting Jr MB 6-4
Recruits:
name year position height
Brianne Albright 2021 MB, RS 6-3
Zayna Meyer 2021 S, RS 6-1
Alyssa Montoya 2021 OH, RS 6-0
Elyse Stowell 2021 OH 6-1
Hannah Billeter 2022 OH, DS 5-11
Eden Bower 2022 OH 6-3
Nataly Moravec 2022 OH, RS 6-1
Kate Prior 2022 MB 6-5
Claire Little 2023 OH 6-2
Couple of notes: * It will be interesting to see what Gneiting does. She only has like 1-2 months to get in game shape. That's no easy thing for returned missionaries. Wonder if she redshirts or if she tries to play her way into shape. * I would imagine Olmstead wants to add a DS to the 2021 group. Wonder if we will see a Jr college DS signing. |
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 12, 2021 19:50:39 GMT -5
To summarize in a table:
Returning from a Mission:
name year position height
Heather Gneiting Jr MB 6-4
Recruits:
name year position height
Brianne Albright 2021 MB, RS 6-3
Zayna Meyer 2021 S, RS 6-1
Alyssa Montoya 2021 OH, RS 6-0
Elyse Stowell 2021 OH 6-1
Hannah Billeter 2022 OH, DS 5-11
Eden Bower 2022 OH 6-3
Nataly Moravec 2022 OH, RS 6-1
Kate Prior 2022 MB 6-5
Claire Little 2023 OH 6-2
Couple of notes: * It will be interesting to see what Gneiting does. She only has like 1-2 months to get in game shape. That's no easy thing for returned missionaries. Wonder if she redshirts or if she tries to play her way into shape. * I would imagine Olmstead wants to add a DS to the 2021 group. Wonder if we will see a Jr college DS signing. Yeah, Gneiting's situation is interesting. I think if anyone can jump right back in, it would be her. If she were to redshirt, then she would be a senior at the same time that Bower, Grimmer, Livingston, et al. would also be seniors. I think the 2022 and 2023 teams will be pretty loaded either way. |
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Post by pelagius on Mar 15, 2021 17:19:21 GMT -5
BYU just posted all the 2021 signings on instagram. My table earlier missed Sophia Callahan: http://instagr.am/p/CMdI6l1jNPd So here is the updated table:
Returning from a Mission:
name year position height
Heather Gneiting Jr MB 6-4
Recruits:
name year position height
Brianne Albright 2021 MB, RS 6-3
Sophia Callahan 2021 OH 6-1
Zayna Meyer 2021 S, RS 6-1
Alyssa Montoya 2021 OH, RS 6-0
Elyse Stowell 2021 OH 6-1
Hannah Billeter 2022 OH, DS 5-11
Eden Bower 2022 OH 6-3
Nataly Moravec 2022 OH, RS 6-1
Kate Prior 2022 MB 6-5
Claire Little 2023 OH 6-2
Press Release with bios: byucougars.com/story/w-volleyball/1295828/womens-volleyball-announces-five-signees |
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Mar 15, 2021 17:22:51 GMT -5
Are any of the current players going to be embarking on a mission?
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Post by pelagius on Mar 15, 2021 17:36:06 GMT -5
Are any of the current players going to be embarking on a mission?
Not that I've heard, but I am only likely to hear something like that from one of my kids who know/are friends with a player or two. They mentioned a player that was considering it, but was probably a no.
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 15, 2021 19:23:06 GMT -5
Seems like Callahan may have been a fairly late commit. Here's her announcement from February 25. |
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Post by oldnewbie on Mar 15, 2021 19:35:26 GMT -5
Seems like Callahan may have been a fairly late commit. I found her announcement via her club's Facebook page dated March 1. Club teammate of Madi Allen last year. |
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 17, 2021 11:12:00 GMT -5
It's been a great week for BYU athletics. Both the men's and women's basketball teams got into the NCAA Tournament, the latter as one of the last teams in. The women's cross country team won their fifth national championship and first since 2002. The men's cross country team produced the individual champion, and the women's track team won two titles (DMR and 3K) at the indoor nationals meet. We'll see if the women's volleyball team can keep it going. There is a match thread here. |
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 18, 2021 18:10:11 GMT -5
BYU put up some short introductory videos on their incoming recruits on their Twitter page.
Zayna Meyer
Sophia Callahan Bri Albright Elyse Stowell Alyssa Montoya
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 22, 2021 16:32:08 GMT -5
Highlights from the sweep over San Diego. The music choice here is interesting. It sounds very 90s video game.
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Post by pelagius on Mar 22, 2021 17:02:21 GMT -5
One adjustment I really liked from the first to the second match with USD is that Madi Allen was aggressive in the passing lane seems between her and Ballard-Nixon and Grimmer (in the one rotation where Grimmer is usually in serve-receive). She not only was taking a bigger portion of the court but was aggressively stepping in front of stuff. Sure, it would be better if she didn't have to do that. Still, it's good to Olmstead is confident enough in her to let her do that, and then she was able to execute it pretty well.
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Post by pelagius on Mar 22, 2021 20:50:10 GMT -5
Just wanted to take a quick look at how well Dodson has performed as MB1 since switching from OH. So I redid the stats taking out the first three matches. Technically, she doesn't take over as MB until the second set against Gonzaga, but I am not going to that level of effort so I just treated that whole match as if she was at MB: | name | team | SP | HPCT | K/S | BLK/S |
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| Dodson | BYU | 45 | 0.288 | 1.978 | 0.778 | | Dodson (MB) | BYU | 35 | 0.343 | 1.886 | 0.886 |
I knew she had been good, but did realized she had been this good statistically on the hitting side (and those numbers at MB include four matches against USD and Pepp). Those are really nice hitting numbers. It would be nice to see her blocks per set get up above one, but she's really come in and become a legit threat on the slide (a big share of the credit goes to Bower for figuring things out with Dodson so quickly).
And Dodson is a really good server at this point in the season (SAPS = 0.27). I thought Dodson and Bower were the best servers against USD.
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 24, 2021 13:12:43 GMT -5
Congratulations to Whitney Bower and Kennedy Eschenberg for their WCC player of the week honors.
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