Kolek planning to go pro
If anyone caught that National Championship game, you might have witnessed one of the greatest men's volleyball games ever. Took 5 sets and more for Loyola to repeat. Lewis was a very well rounded team, but Loyola just had a little too much fire power. So much power that McAndrews pretty much lost his spot due to the addition of two freshman over 6-10. Loyola only loses 1 senior starter, so a three peat is not unthinkable. Overall a great night for Midwest volleyball and volleyball in general.
I didnt realize that volleyball combined D-I and D-II schools, seeing Lewis there was surprising, much less being the 1 seed.
They're D1 for volleyball. Sine schools have different levels for different sports.
I believe you can only "play up" in certain sports. Ice hockey, men's volleyball, lacrosse...maybe others. Schools can no longer place football or basketball teams in different divisions.
Nova? Butler?
Was at the Final Four and after 2 less than stellar semifinal matches, what a final match. Props to both teams. Loyola should be on their way to a 3 peat, with BYU really their only big competition (as long as the rumors about Patch leaving are not true). Caldwell's consistent serve reception will be missed but they will have other guys who can outperform what he did offensively.Nothing wrong with McAndrews health wise, just had a kid who came in and won the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament as a freshman come in and win his spot in the starting lineup. Jendryk still isn't fundamentally where he needs to be, which is scary, because he is already very, very good.Should be interesting to see who USC picks up as their coach. It would not shock me to see Dan Friend (Lewis's coach) take that job. Some people think Shane Davis is getting a call from USC. He might (well, he probably should), but it will be a very quick "Thank you but no thank you." This program is his baby. He got the job right after graduating when they were going to shut the program down, and he said he would do it even though they were only willing to pay him $10K for it. He's now making a very comfortable salary. They should go after the guy who we tried to get onto the Marquette woman's team's list of candidates, but we got our word in too late. And it would be all to ironic, because Brad Keller was one of the assistants who became the sacrificial lamb in order to keep Bill Ferguson around as the head coach at USC not too many years ago. Oops.
Was that you wearing the Marquette blue sweatshirt with the gold lettering? Saw some guy that appeared on camera more than a few times. Many of the US national team players were here on Friday at a Costa Mesa high school from both the men and the women's teams. Including the freshman from Loyola.
Nope, I was the guy in the white next to him. That was my roommate from college and teammate from high school.
You guys didn't seem to be wanting Loyola to win, or you were pretty stoic when they did.My son and I were chuckling when we watched the tournament and saw the sweatshirt...."what the hell...was that a Marquette sweatshirt". Kudos to your roommate for representing. Set 5 was pretty insane. Thought the other sets were ok, so-so, with some good points here and there.
Nothing wrong with McAndrews health wise, just had a kid who came in and won the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament as a freshman come in and win his spot in the starting lineup. Jendryk still isn't fundamentally where he needs to be, which is scary, because he is already very, very good.
Glad to hear that Owen is well. Actually, I saw him on Thursday when my son's HS team played at Owen's alma mater (St. Eds).When I watched Loyola play Harvard earlier this year Owen was playing RS. I think (but am not sure) that is where he was slotted when he played early in the season (even though they have him listed as MH). So, it was the other Freshman who took his spot. I guess it's hard to argue with 6'11". I'd imagine that's a pretty common occurrence with teams that reach the "next level." The freshman who are coming in after the championship are sometimes a higher caliber than the existing players and take their spots. Still, I'd imagine it's been a nice experience for Owen at Loyola with two national championships and a good shot at a third.The championship was a great match. That fifth set was incredible. Lewis just didn't have an answer for Loyola's middles. Loyola's middles combined for 0.524 (27 kills on 42 swings with only 5 errors). Amazing. In that final set, it seemed like every time they set the middle they got the kill.
It's always been our philosophy that you get your middles the ball as much as you can. They will always have the highest hitting efficiency of anyone on the court. Serve and pass become the name of the game because if you can do those 2 things you can get your middles the ball and you can take the other team's middles out of the game. Middles will almost always have a 1 on 1 and at most have just simple help on them. Plus when you throw the threat of a bic like Jaeshke in there it's just 1 more thing for a middle blocker on the other side to think about.
That bic they run with Jaeschke is absolutely ridiculous. When we saw them play Harvard, I think they ran it about 6 or 7 times and scored on all but one.
Rewatching the game and two things about the college game amaze me. One, how quick these 6 10 kids move. They move so well, you think of how slow Otule was but these guys have such incredible footwork. Secondly, the passing amazes me every time, in both serve receive and in regards two digs.I used to go to Loyolas volleyball camp back in like 2007 and 2008. Shane was there and he's such a great guy. Also, since I was a setter, I worked a lot with Hutz's older brother who was on the team at that time. He was a goof but setting runs in the family I guess.
If i recall correctly, Peter Hutz wasn't even a setter in high school at MUHS. His older brother, now Dr. Hutz, was actually the one known more for his setting.
Peter hit throughout his high school career but he did set half of his 17s club season and his entire 18s season, making the All Tournament Team at Nationals as a setter his 18s year.And come to think of it, not only did Novotny win MVP twice at Nationals, but he also was named to the All Tournament Team the 2 other years (they only give out All Tournament 15s-18s, so Novotny was All Tournament all 4 years he possibly could've been, with 2 of them MVPs).
I was at the first Loyola-Lewis match during the regular season and saw Novotny run one of the best bics I've ever seen. I didn't know his history, so it came as a huge surprise to me. I'm sure he doesn't regret coming to team that has won back to back national champs and made it to the Final Four every year he's been there, but he sounds like he could have been a star at a lesser MIVA teams and maybe even a career similar to former Tosa West and Lewis star Drew Pickering.