Another great weekend of men’s college volleyball. This year is “cracked” as the kids would say. Level of parity and talent at Division III right now makes every night an adventure, throw each team in the blender and see what happens. Let’s get into it.
- Stevens – (+1) For me, an easy number one. The best resume with wins over Fisher, Vassar, and Springfield at this point. Coach Buehring has his Ducks in a row.
- Messiah – (+2) A massive flock of wins for the Falcons as they sweep their Midwest road trip. Escaping Mount Union in 5 and knocking off Aurora in 4 before sweeping the 2x defending National Champion Firebirds.
- Juniata – (+3) Coach DeHaven’s squad sent this weekend into a frenzy by knocking off the Firebirds on Friday night. Comfortable wins over Aurora and Wittenberg rounded out their weekend.
- St. John Fisher – (+1) Idle against DIII competition this weekend, the Cardinals dropped a close 5 setter against DII, WNY rival Daemen.
- Springfield – (-2) Not a lot of shame in falling to the Ducks right now. The Pride also got wins over Elms and Ramapo this week. Jarret Anderson has looked every bit the part of reigning NPoY early on this season.
- Vassar – (+3) A nice weekend for the Brewers making wins over St. Joe’s (LI) and SUNY Potsdam look routine. Excited to see Coach Gary’s Brew Crew in person this weekend.
- Carthage – (-6) Falling 6 spots after dropping matches to the number two and three in my poll is a harsh penalty, but that is the early season grind. Carthage was able to grab a win over host Wittenberg to close the weekend strong.
- New Paltz – (-1) An idle week and more tumultuous midwest results drop the Hawks a few spots, but they will have plenty of chances to turn heads, impress, and climb back up with this weeks slate.
- Nazareth – (+4) Having seen them in person for two weekends in a row, the Golden Flyers continue to impress me. Cal has lots of versatility on the squad and they are causing a lot of problems even without elite size or physicality.
- UC Santa Cruz – (+2) Picked up two wins over UC Merced and Simpson before falling to Stanford. The Slime Time crew will have a chance to prove itself this weekend.
- MIT – (NR) A nice week for the Engineers highlighted by taking down the WIT Leopards for Boston engineering superiority. That paired with a win over Lasell gets them in the poll.
- Lasell (NR) A big win over Rutgers-Newark has the laser light show warming up. This group has the talent to be in the mix all season long.
- NYU – (+2) The Violets won their only competition of the week taking down Kean moving them to 2-1. But their past win over Aurora carries some weight to move them up.
- Rutgers-Newark (-3) Jersey’s finest took the trip to the Great Northeastern corridor and had a tough loss to the Lasell but grabbed 3 other wins on the weekend. This group will be in the CVC mix all year long.
- Southern Virginia – (NR) The Knights haven’t competed a whole lot of DIII competition to this point, but the ones that they haven’t seen haven’t been much competition. Christian Shaeffer is one of the big breakout of the young season.
Also Considered: Wentworth, Benedictine, Wittenberg, Baldwin Wallace, and Loras