vbtalk

Make the votes public. I think if the coaches knew they'd get publicly shamed, they'd pay more attention.

I haven't seen HC or NewCath this year but that's great news about Charlotte returning soon! Always hate to hear of an athlete has to miss any time at all. Holy Cross and Beechwood in a best of 5 tonight and then they have NDA in a week so we'll get some answers there. HC and Ryle won't play until 10/6. Regardless of if HC is 4th, 5th, 6th, wherever they fall. The 35th is a gauntlet this season. Other news, NDA shocked Cincinnati Ursuline last night. Granted, Ursuline was down two big hitters, one of them a Xavier commit. But they are loaded so beating them even when they aren't full strength is impressive. Absolutely crazy season season so far!

Holy Cross at 4 over Ryle? Which setter has been out?

At this point I don't think Conner is 5th. They were definitely 4th or 5th going into the season, but now they've lost to Brossart (granted, different region but still NKAC) and Holy Cross. I guess that makes Holy Cross or Highlands #5. Of were talking about NKAC teams, Brossart has a strong case for 5th. SK looks like they could be decent when they catch up with their new coach. As for Ryle, Wilkinson is probably the top player in her class in NKY, and top 5 in the state. She's that good. NDA is an enigma. They still have the most talent from top to bottom. Every problem I've seen is fixable. Their off blocker defense is atrocious right now. St Henry scored on them at will with tips and setter dumps. I can't imagine they won't make that a priority to fix. And the setting decisions should improve with more experience in the 5-1. NDA had match point in the 3rd and they set the OPP instead of the Power 4 committed outside, or the Power 4 committed middle. If she does, NDA probably wins in 3 and this is a different conversation. I will say it's a lot of fun with this many contenders instead of trying to figure out if anyone can win a set against the favorite!

Mercy and Sacred Heart both got beat pretty handily by Cincinnati teams today. Sacred Heart lost 25-15, 25-15 to Kings in the CIT. Mercy lost 25-10, 25-18, 25-15 to Ursuline. Just a down year for KHSAA vball. Ohio is always a whole lot deeper than we are if you look at the top 25 or 50 teams in each state. But the top 5 has been leaning towards Kentucky for a while now. Not the case at all this year. Our 2nd best team (whoever that is) this year might not be top 10 in Ohio.

After having seen some teams play, I think the gap between the top teams and the best of the rest is closing. Assumption is good, as they always are. But they are not the #3 team in the country. I don't know if anyone in KY can beat them. As for the teams who are usually good enough to challenge them, I don't think that's the case this year. Assumption pretty much walked through that Knoxville tournament, and it looked like their top player was on the sideline. Beechwood challenged them in one set, but not the second. SHA, St Henry, and Mercy lost to teams not nearly as good as Assumption. NDA got handled last night by a Cincinnati team. Granted, a top Cincinnati team who will almost definitely win their division of OHSAA state championship. But NDA wasn't even competitive with them. Now, it's August 27th. There's a ton of time left. In 2022, NDA dropped an early season match to a different Cincinnati team and then went on to win State. I don't see that happening this year, but they can bounce back as well as anyone. The 9th is wide open for Beechwood to be the first ever 9th Region (current alignment) public school to make it to State. St Henry has a great shot too. It's been a long and dominant run from the top teams, but that run might have an expiration date in the next few years.

Believe it or not this is the best preseason poll I’ve seen in a while. Usually NDA is 5th or worse, there are first place votes given to teams who wouldn get single digited by Assumptions or NDA, and couldn’t take a set from half the teams in the 9th. I don’t get nearly as worked up about the KVCA poll as I used to since it will all work itself out. But the all state voting is what gets me. That’s a complete joke.

That is a huge part of it. But also the Bluegrass Games effect. Coaches who vote in that poll and take their teams to those scrimmages will always vote for the teams they see performing well over teams they haven’t seen yet.

Can’t wait to see the overreactions from these scrimmages in the first KVCA poll results. Should be Assumption on top, followed by NDA. Mercy will probably be 2nd, and that’s okay. But NDA, Sacred Heart, and St Henry will all be ranked behind way too low.

Regarding seeding: Tackett is on record saying the state tournament has never been about getting the top 16 teams to play each other, or having the top two teams in the finals. He and the KHSAA believe the state tournament needs to have “equal geographic representation.” Although it’s a horrible way to decide a state champion, it’s not going to change any time soon.

The Varsity Head Coach position is listed as of Nov 3. It appears Coach Mikah Freppon had stepped down after her 3rd season. In Freppon’s first season in 2023, she was the 4th head coach in 4 seasons. There are not qualified coaches standing in line for this job. I genuinely hope this is not another case of parents running of a young coach because their 5’ 7” kid who can’t jump over a credit card didn’t get recruited by Nebraska. Camel parents if you’re reading this, I really hope you did everything you could to keep her. You won’t find another coach with more upside than the one who just walked out of your gym.

Holy cow, this is big news. Cooper has fallen so far from where they were in 2015-2019 or so. Granted they aren’t getting the same type of players they used to get. I don’t have any ties to the program or have any inside knowledge at all. But the narrative and rumors about Cooper volleyball have been flying around NKY for some time.

Yes, the same Matt Long. This was his 3rd season back at Beechwood.

Holy crap on a cracker they did it again. They have Mercy at 2, Sacred Heart at 3, NDA at 4, Bowling Green at 5, and St Henry at 6. Not to mention Beechwood at 12 or some nonsense like that. Any of the voting coaches who might read this, please feel free to give us your logic.

That’s not the trophy they are chasing. St Henry knows they can win the All A. They are playing tournaments in Knoxville, Louisville, and Arizona this season against top teams from all over the country. They’d have to eliminate a lot of those matches to play 9 matches in the All A. How many of the teams they’d play in the All A would realistically score double digits against St Henry? It just would not be beneficial to their ultimate goal.

St Henry has only lost to Assumption (one of those losses in 5) and got 2nd in a highly competitive, national tournament. NDA has lost to 3 different teams (none of which are as good as Assumption) and placed 25th in a highly competitive national tournament. NDA has some stuff to figure out. New faces, new coaches, same high expectations. They’ll be where they need to be at the end of October. But as of today, St Henry has the better resume.

Statewide top 10 would take a minute. If I get some time later today I can post it. But I can do top 5 for the 9th right now. Region 9 Top 5 as of 9/5 1. St Henry 2. Notre Dame Academy 3. Beechwood 4. Ryle 5. Highlands

Not surprisingly at all, voters paid no attention to what actually happened on the court. In the new ranking released today.

Coach Hillary Johnson earns 100th career victory tonight. Coach Johnson, a Notre Dame Academy graduate in the class of 2005, secured win #100 with a 2-0 victory over NDA! Have to love when stuff like this comes together. Some of you will remember her name was all over the place as possible successor to former NDA coach, Suli Kayed. Coach Johnson has those Pioneers playing well enough to show us she is right where she belongs. Congrats, Coach!

Since the initial rankings, St Henry has wins over Mercy and Sacred Heart, and their only two losses on the season are to Assumption. One of those losses was in a 5 set slugfest. Will voters acknowledge real life results? Here’s how the top 5 should look in the next ranking: 1. Assumption 2. St. Henry 3. Winner of tonight’s Mercy/NDA 4. Loser of tonight’s Mercy/NDA 5. E’town Beechwood should be top 10. They honestly might not drop a set in All A play (St Henry not in All A this season)

Annual reminder that our post season format is horribly flawed. Last night in the 7th Region, the #2 team in the state eliminated the #3 team in the state, in what is essentially the round of 64. Tonight, #2 plays #6 in the round of 32. In the 9th, #1 eliminated #4 in the round of 32, one day after #4 eliminated #9 in the round of 64. Long past time to reformat the post season! I don’t care how basketball does it. Football’s post season is tailored to football. No reason we can’t have volleyball’s post season tailored to volleyball.

Assumption and Notre Dame Academy were both in Chicago over the weekend for the ASICS Challenge. NDA went on to win the tournament without dropping a set. Assumption lost to NDA in the first round of Gold, lost their next match to Wisconsin’s Divine Savior 2-1, then finished up the tournament with a win over Xavier (Iowa). In addition to the 2-0 win over Assumption, NDA beat Chicago Marist and Nebraska’s Skutt Catholic. Another notable performance from the weekend came from DuPont Manual out in Arizona at the Nike TOC. Manual went 2-1 in their pool earning a birth in the Platinum/Gold challenge match against the #1 team in the nation, Mater Dei (CA). Manual ultimately lost the match 2-1. But taking a set off of Mater Dei is a huge accomplishment. If you look at the national polls, you’ll occasionally see one - maybe two if we’re lucky - of Kentucky’s teams. You’ll see teams from TX, CA, FL, all up and down the rankings. But when our girls travel half way across the country to play the toughest competition available, our girls never disappoint! I’ll take our little pocket of the South/Midwest up against ANY major metro market in youth volleyball! Congrats to all!

If you want to cherry pick parts of my post to make it seem like I wasn’t praising Ryle, knock yourself out. For everyone else, I’m a huge fan of Ryle and their program. I’d say they’re worthy of being ranked 4th in the state right now.

Ryle beat Assumption in bracket play at LIVT. I noticed Coach Kordes wasn’t on the sidelines during that match. Hope all is well with Coach K! Also, major props to the Raiders. Absolutely huge win for their program. I’m guessing Assumption didn’t play their absolute best match. But there are usually only 3-4 teams in Kentucky good enough to take advantage when Assumption gives an opportunity. Ryle is definitely one of those teams in 2024!

that's correct. NDA beat Sacred Heart in a tournament on Saturday, then SacrecHeart went to NDA’s place and won a 5 set match. To be fair, the tournament match was a consolation match after each team had lost in the semis, and NDA was down a setter in their regular season match on Thursday. The only opportunity these teams will have to play each other again would be in the state tourney. I think the top 3 teams are pretty clear. NDA and St Henry play tomorrow 9/7, so well know more about the Crusaders after that match.