Volleyball Tournament Week Day 1

Well here we are just two days from the start of the Big South Volleyball Tournament and now it is time to see what we got right and what we screwed up on our pre-season rankings. Let’s review; I had Coastal, High Point, Winthrop, Liberty, UNC Asheville, Charleston Southern, Presbyterian, Gardner-Webb, and Radford. The conference poll was pretty similar with Coastal, Liberty, Winthrop, High Point, UNCA, CSU, PC, GWU, and Radford.

Now I remember saying I thought Liberty was too high at number two because they had to replace three All-Conference players. Turns out, I was wrong, they were too low. The Flames breezed through the league at 14-2 behind Karyl Bacon who should be the Big South Player of the Year. I was correct about High Point. They had a great season led by two terrific outside hitters in Megan Smith and Audie Gonzalez. UNC Asheville and Winthrop flip flopped; Asheville led by its outsides Kelsey Benorden and Cindi Miller. Winthrop easily the best middles in the league with Becca Toor and Sara Felts. Asheville and Winthrop split their two meetings and are both right where they should be.

Coastal Carolina turned out to be the biggest disappointment in the league this season. With Kelsey Kimes and Meagan Bickford this is a much better than a fifth place team but as I warned at the beginning, they are not consistent. Too many times they lose to teams they should beat. But don’t sleep on this team, they were the four seed last year and won the thing. They are talented and could make another run.

Charleston Southern and PC, both feel into the trap. They had the best teams they have had in years but the league was just too good this year. CSU places sixth and will face UNC Asheville in an interesting quarterfinal. PC does not qualify for the tournament so they get skipped over in the tournament seedings.

Radford played very well at the end of the season. This is a team that improved the most from start to finish. The record may not be impressive but the improvement is. They took teams to the wire and pulled off some upsets the second time through the league. The Highlanders will be dangerous for High Point in the Quarterfinals, they won’t win, but it will be a better match than you think.

Gardner-Webb really never had a chance. A young Bulldog team was hit with injuries and although they played alright at home they simply did not have enough fire power on offense. I am impressed with Presley Mabrey, she deserves 2nd team all-conference honors but it will be a short tournament for the Bulldogs I am afraid.

I will make more predictions tomorrow. I will tell you who should be all-conference and who will win.