Welcome to the first Pond Talk of 2023. For those of you who are new, this is our weekly roundtable question and answer section where the contributors and I discuss some of the narratives of D3VB based on the last week of matches. Enjoy our takes, some are hot (Harvey and Lindsay) and some are hot garbage (Ramius).
What was the biggest storyline of the weekend for you?
Lindsay: Juniata with a really strong opening match vs Stevenson. JC had some notable graduations to say the least. You never know how a team is going to look when they lose some cornerstones, but they had a convincing win against a Stevenson team that should have a good year. The CVC should be fun.
Harvey: California Lutheran has officially arrived. Using the experience gained from last year’s grueling schedule, Coach Judd’s crew looked sharp led by perennially underrated Taylor Marks. Not only did they get an always important Head to Head win over UCSC, but also triumphed over Vassar – hitting .298 in a 4 set win.
Ramius: Cal Lutheran had a very impressive weekend and passed the eye test so far as a potential contender in 2024. The transfer of Jordan Cooper was a big addition to the Kingsmen roster, and is the type of outside you need to make deep runs in April. Their schedule doesn’t get any easier, as their next D3 opponents will be Carthage, UCSC in a rematch, NYU, and then North Central. Even getting two wins out of those next four opponents makes a fantastic resume to start the year.
One week into the D3VB season so far, what landscape lessons have you learned you might not have expected based on what we knew from this past offseason?
Ramius: I’ve learned DI isn’t the only landscape affected by the transfer portal. This past week we already saw the impacts of some transfers finding new homes across the landscape (Piontkowski at Misericordia, Jordan Cooper at Cal Lutheran, Juan Armando at Juniata, Andrew Kim at Hobart, Jack Normandin at Nichols). DIII Coaches are finding a lot of value in the portal, combined with the covid eligibility year exceptions, the landscape has effectively reloaded in 2024 even with the departure of the 2023 class.
Harvey: New talent always arrives. 2023 may have been the most loaded year of individual talent in the history of Division III Men’s Volleyball. When you combine 6th year seniors due to COVID (shout out to Matt Knab – I love you) with the growth of the game at the club and high school level- we had an unprecedented amount of amazing athletes playing the game last year. Even with the departure of an (unofficial) record 14 of 28 All-Americans- seeing some of the breakout performances this weekend shows that the game is in good hands.
Lindsay: We don’t know what lineups some of these teams are using. The impact freshmen and transfer series tries to highlight some candidates, but Cal Lutheran is a great example of the opposite.
What other unknowns are going to burst onto the scene this week? Some junior who sat behind an all-American for the last few seasons? An unknown freshman who never played club? I have a feeling we’re going to highlight some new names this year.
What matches do you have on your radar this week? Who’s on upset alert?
Ramius: There are a bunch of good matches this week, but I think the one with a lot of upset potential is going to be Lasell vs Nazareth. Lasell might be a little underrated to start the year after their season was filled with injuries last year. When healthy I think they have a fairly good matchup against Nazareth who is ahead of them in most polls/rankings/metrics. I’m putting Nazareth on potential upset alert there.
Harvey: While football may be afraid of Western, NY D3 MVB certainly isn’t as a number of the top teams in the country descend on Rochester: Lasell, Nazareth, Juniata, St. John Fisher all square off against one another in some aspects (looks like a joint tournament) but I certainly look forward to seeing 4 top 15 teams duke it out.
Additionally, I’m loving the battle of the brain’s tri-match between MIT – SIT- WIT. In addition to volleyball supremacy, I heard they are also battling for whoever is going to be my boss when the collapse of higher education fully commences. I am also putting Southern Virginia on upset alert against Wittenberg. Coach Matthews’ squad looked frisky against SJFU and I’m wondering if they can sneak up on SVU at a neutral site.
Lindsay: I’m not ready to call anything an upset until February but I’ll be paying attention to Cal Lutheran at Carthage on Friday. NYU also takes on Santa Cruz. I’m very intrigued with the Cali teams this year because of the extra independent bid.
Who are your personal top 5?
Ramius: Stevens, Wentworth, Juniata, North Central, Cal Lutheran
Harvey: Stevens, Wentworth, Southern Virginia, California Lutheran, Juniata
Lindsay: I’m only ranking teams who have played so far. Stevens, S. Virginia, Cal Lutheran, Juniata, Vassar