Northern AC Tourney: Edgewood upsets co-champs

No. 6 seed Edgewood missed the Northern AC Tournament last season, but the Eagles made up for lost time with their 3-1 upset win over No. 3 seed Benedictine, one of three co-champions of the conference regular season.

The other Northern AC semifinal matches resulted in sweeps for the home teams.

No. 1 Dominican swept No. 8 Concordia (IL), 25-9, 25-16, 25-19.
No. 2 Lakeland swept No. 7 Wisconsin Lutheran, 25-21, 25-18, 25-23.
No. 6 Edgewood upset No. 3 Benedictine, 28-26, 25-17, 12-25, 25-14.
No. 4 Concordia (WI) swept No. 5 Aurora, 25-18, 25-16, 25-18.

11/5 semifinals schedule
Concordia (WI) @ Dominican, 7 p.m.
Edgewood @ Lakeland, 7 p.m.

-Ricky Nelson

UMAC Tourney: Top 2 seeds to play for title

After their semifinal wins tonight, No. 1 seed Northwestern will play No. 2 St. Scholastica for the UMAC Tournament championship on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Northwestern.

Northwestern beat No. 4 Minnesota-Morris, 22-25, 25-20, 25-13, 25-20.
St. Scholastica defeated No. 3 Northland, 25-13, 25-15, 15-25, 25-15.

The UMAC Tournament winner does not receive a Pool A bid to the NCAA Tournament this season.

-Ricky Nelson

CCIW Tourney: Millikin posts mild upset

Three of the top four seeds advanced tonight in the CCIW Tournament play-in round. Millikin was the only road winner of the night.

No. 1 seed Carthage swept No. 8 North Park, 25-10, 25-12, 25-7.
No. 2 North Central beat No. 7 Augustana, 25-20, 25-16, 21-25, 25-20.
No. 6 Millikin downed No. 3 Illinois Wesleyan, 25-20, 19-25, 25-22, 25-15.
No. 4 Elmhurst swept No. 5 Wheaton, 25-20, 25-20, 25-15.

11/6 schedule @ Carthage:
North Central vs. Millikin, 4:30 p.m.
Carthage vs. Elmhurst, 7 p.m.

-Ricky Nelson

WIAC Tourney: Platteville, Eau Claire advance

Ugh. This post was brutal. No idea what I was thinking. Was even following both on live scoring. Sorry about that.
The higher seeds both had to work for it, but both pulled off home wins in the opening round of the WIAC Tournament tonight. UW-Eau Claire was down 2-0 in sets and 25-24 in Set 3, but the Blugolds survived to play another day.

No. 3 4 seed Eau Claire outlasted No. 4 5 UW-Stevens Point River Falls, 22-25, 19-25, 27-25, 25-23, 15-7.
No. 4 3 seed UW-Platteville beat No. 5 6 UW-River Falls Stevens Point, 19-25, 25-17, 25-22, 25-23.

11/6 schedule @ UW Oshkosh
No. 2 UW-Whitewater vs. No. 3 Eau Claire Platteville, 5 p.m.
No. 1 UW Oshkosh vs. No. 4 Platteville Eau Claire, 7:30 p.m.
Thanks for quietly telling me I’m an idiot, anonymous!

-Ricky Nelson

MIAC Tourney: St. Olaf, Concordia advance

No. 3 seed St. Olaf and No. 5 Concordia started the MIAC Tournament with sweeps tonight. OH Jenna Green returned to the court for Concordia.

St. Olaf beat No. 6 Saint Mary’s, 25-23, 25-21, 25-14.
Concordia defeated No. 4 Augsburg, 25-22, 25-23, 25-16.

St. Olaf next battles No. 2 seed St. Thomas. Concordia advances to take on No. 1 seed Saint Benedict. Both matches are Thursday night at the higher seeds.

-Ricky Nelson

Week 9 Poll: Oshkosh regains top spot

After defeating then-No. 1 Juniata in five sets this week, UW Oshkosh reclaimed the AVCA Week 9 No. 1 ranking that it held from Weeks 3-7. What is a bit surprising is Juniata still garnered one first-place vote. Oshkosh (34-1) received 22 first-place votes and Washington got the other. Juniata (29-3) falls to No. 2. The other top five teams remained the same: No. 3 Wash U (25-3), No. 4 Emory (30-4) and No. 5 Hope (28-2).

Other Midwest and Central region teams in the top 25:
No. 7 UW-Whitewater (29-6)
No. 8 Carthage (28-5)
No. 9 St. Thomas (24-6)
No. 16 Saint Benedict (24-5)
No. 18 UW-Eau Claire (28-6)
No. 21 St. Olaf (25-3)
No. 22 Nebraska Wesleyan (17-11)
Receiving votes: Concordia (MN), North Central (IL), St. Mary’s (MN)

Whitewater still being ahead of Carthage is a bit puzzling after the Lady Reds beat the Warhawks at Whitewater this week.

-Ricky Nelson

Oshkosh’s Jacque Ray named National Player of the Week

UW Oshkosh middle blocker Jacque Ray was selected the AVCA National Player of the Week. Ray led the Titans to wins over No. 1 Juniata, No. 8 Wittenberg and No. 18 Trinity (TX) last week in San Antonio, Texas.

Ray led Oshkosh in points, blocks and kills in all three matches, hitting .417 for the week with 4.73 points, 3.91 kills and 1.27 blocks per set.

-Ricky Nelson

Predicted ‘09 regional hosts

I won’t bore you with why I think these school should/will host, but there are a lot of factors I took into account, including regional rankings, which schools hosted in previous seasons, mileage, facilities, etc. The one thing I don’t know is whether all of these school submitted bids to host. What I will say is the NCAA likes to spread around its regionals from year to year. But I don’t think you can deny some of these teams hosting rights in consecutive seasons.

Selected hosts are scheduled for a conference call on Wednesday at 2 p.m. (eastern).

My predictions:
UW Oshkosh (hosted last year, No. 1 in Midwest)
Washington (No. 1 in Central)
Hope (No. 1 in Great Lakes)
Juniata (hosted last year, No. 1 in Mid-Atlantic)
UMass Boston (No. 2 in New England)
New York University* (No. 1 in New York)
Southwestern (No. 2 in South)
Pacific Lutheran (No. 2 in West)
* NYU was selected to host last year but didn’t. Union filled in for NYU at the last minute in 2008.

What do you think?

-Ricky Nelson

New: Links to all conference tourneys

Now that one conference tournament has started (North Atlantic Conference, New England Region) and one team has already punched its ticket to the NCAA Tournament (Pacific Lutheran), I updated the Conference Tournament page on the right rail to include all 40 Pool A conferences. Besides the links on that page, you can see the dates, No. 1 seeds and winners of each tourney from California to Maine. Click away.

Some conferences are better than others in terms of Web presence, so I tried to choose the most effective link for each tournament. Some conference tourney pages are forthcoming from the current links. The process has made me feel fortunate to have high-quality sports information directors in the normal coverage area of the Midwest and Central regions.

-Ricky Nelson

Maranatha falls in NCCAA regional final

No. 1 seed Lincoln Christian beat No. 3 seed Maranatha, 3-1, in the D-II Midwest Regional final of the National Christian College Athletic Association today in Grand Rapids, Mich.

North Central (MN) lost yesterday in its NCCAA D-II regional in North Dakota.

-Ricky Nelson