Awards and Recognitions

[BeckysTXA]

UD Volleyball posted on social media the team finished at #5 in the NCAA Stats for Aces/Set at 2.11. But that’s not our only Top 10/50 finish in stats. FYI, as a point of reference, there were 306 DI volleyball teams playing this past season.

#5 Aces/set. 2.11
#9 Hitting Percent. .288
#10 Kills/set. 14.19
#35 Assists/set. 12.70
#44 Blocks/set. 2.45

The only team stat we were not atop 50 was Digs/set. This is NOT a reflection on the back row players. As a point of reference, National Champs Kentucky finished at #257. UD was just behind them at #267 @ 12.86/set. There are a couple reasons why you get this. First, if you have a good offensive team, you terminate a lot of balls quickly and therefore you don’t get into long rallies and thus there are less dig opportunities. If you have a strong blocking team, balls never get to the back row to dig. Third, we were a strong ace serving team, again limiting the number of opportunities to dig balls. All those also applied to Kentucky. Also, in the case of a UD, we played a pretty weak schedule due to COVID. When opponents give you points off hitting errors, you again reduce your dig opportunities. There is no double in my mind Maura Collins is the best Libero in the A10, but she will probably never lead the A10 in stats because our team is so good in all these other areas, it limits her dig opportunities. But I can tell you on another volleyball forum, in the NCAA 2nd round Washington match, the WA fans were all praising how great our Libero was, the entire match. And, they watch PAC10 Libero all season, every year.

Finally, to be fair on the flip side of the coin, our weak schedule also helped contribute to our high ranking in stats in the other areas, although 3-4 of the strongest conference teams were in our West division, which helped us prepare for the NCAAs. It will be nice to have a normal pre-conference schedule this fall, to give us stronger opponents.

Next post about the incoming freshman class...exciting stuff. I’ll post later today.

[BeckysTXA]

So here’s who we have coming in....3 hitters and a setter. (Katie Gale, Lia Hawkins, Taylor Russell and Alyssa Miller who arrived in January.) All 4 were selected to the AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) All-Regional Teams. I’ll play fair and tell you this is the 2nd year for this award, so other Flyer recruiting classes didn’t have a chance. But I’ll also say I’m pretty sure the entire class would not have been selected - or maybe we should look at the top 4 recruits in each class, and I’m still not sure we would have placed 4 in the honors.

The 2 highest ranked recruiting classes were last year and in 2007. And for the record, both were Horsmon classes. Last year I would say Lexie, Laney and Lindsey would have gotten the regional award. I could not find the list using google. The other player was Anna - who is one heck of a back row player and we are very lucky to have her. But as a DS/L, this position is many times limited to how many get recognized.

In 2007, we had Von Martin, Tiff Gaerke and a Becky Novacek. Those three for sure would have made it. The other two were Rachael Broerman and Kacie Hausfeld. I’m not sure either would have made the cut coming out of high school, but possibly.

So to have all four of this years recruits is a great thing. These are voted on by high school coaches - one from each of the 10 Regions. It’s hard to stack the deck with that set up.

This class might not have a super star Top 100 recruit, but it’s very deep on talent and I think the coaching staff will push each player to reach her potential and I except 1-2 of them will have an impact as soon as this fall (Alyssa and Katie). The other two are OHs and we are stacked at that position, so expect them to use their freshman season to soak up as much as possible and get a lot better as the year goes on.

This is a talented class.