The top-ranked Hillsdale College volleyball team suffered its first setback of the season on Saturday, falling 3-1 to visiting Gannon.
Now, the Chargers look to regroup and shift their focus to the team's original goal this spring season -- winning a fourth-straight G-MAC crown.
The non-conference loss to the Knights doesn't affect Hillsdale's conference title hopes, and the Chargers enter the final week of the regular season still atop the conference at 8-0 and controlling their own destiny.
Hillsdale will look to clinch the crown with wins over two ranked teams -- #12 Findlay at home on Tuesday and #25 Cedarville on the road on Friday -- as well as the regular season finale at Ohio Valley on Saturday.
While complying with MDHHS orders, Hillsdale College is now allowing a limited number of fans to attend games at Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena for the remainder of the season. You can find more details at this link, and you can also find links to ticket pages for each game below. Tickets will not go on sale until 24 hours before each match.
You can also follow along with all the action on the Great Midwest Digital Network, at home and away. Links to both live stats and the streaming webcast for each match are below.
Schedule
#12 Findlay (7-1, 7-1 G-MAC) at #1 Hillsdale (10-1, 8-0 G-MAC) | 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 2 | Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena | Hillsdale, MI
#1 Hillsdale (10-1, 8-0 G-MAC) at #25 Cedarvillle (6-2, 6-2 G-MAC) | 1:30 p.m. Friday, March 5 | Callan Athletic Center | Cedarville, OH
#1 Hillsdale (10-1, 8-0 G-MAC) at Ohio Valley (0-8, 0-8 G-MAC)| 1:00 p.m. Saturday, March 6 | Snyder Center | Vienna, WV
Follow/Watch
Live Stats vs Findlay | Webcast vs Findlay | Live Stats vs Cedarville | Webcast vs Cedarville | Live Stats vs Ohio Valley | Webcast vs Ohio Valley | Tickets
Additional Info
Hillsdale Roster | Findlay Roster | Cedarville Roster | OVU Roster | 2021 Hillsdale Stats | 2021 Findlay Stats | 2021 Cedarville Stats | 2021 OVU Stats
Players to Watch
Hillsdale: #9 Allyssa Van Wienen, Sr., MH, Grand Rapids, MI/Christian (5th in G-MAC in hitting %, 4th in B/S, 4th in P/S); #7 Karoline Shelton, Jr., OH, Shawnee, KS/Mission South (5th in G-MAC in K/S, 7th in SA/S, 3rd in P/S); #4 Alli Wiese, Fr., L/DS, Mattawan, MI/Mattawan (2nd in G-MAC in D/S, 3rd in SA/S), #8 Maizie Brown, Fr., MH, Portage, MI/Central (3rd in G-MAC in Hitting %, 5th in B/S)
Findlay: #18 Hannah Warrington, Fr, OH, Findlay, OH/Liberty Benton (7th G-MAC in K/S, 1st in SA/S, 6th P/S); #2 Emily Annesser, Jr., S, Ottawa, OH/Ottawa-Glandorf (7th in G-MAC in hitting %, 10th in SA/S); #9 Abigail Schroeder, Jr., S, Pemberville, OH/Eastwood (8th in G-MAC in A/S); #15 Emma Meyer, So, MH, Anna, OH/Anna (6th in G-MAC in B/S)
Cedarville: #14 Lauren Willow, Sr., MH, Arlington, OH/Arlington (2nd in G-MAC in hitting %, 8th in K/S, 7th in B/S, 10th in P/S), #5 Liene Miller, Sr., OH, Westfield, IN/Westfield (2nd in G-MAC in K/S, 2nd in P/S); #17 Haley Goff, Fr., S, Bridgman, MI/Bridgman (3rd in G-MAC in A/S); #16 Hannah Willow, So., MB, Arlington, OH/Arlington (2nd in G-MAC in B/S)
Ohio Valley: #3 Shayne Sanders, So., DS/L, Menifee, CA/Heritage (3rd in G-MAC in D/S); #9 Zulairam DeJesus, So., OH, Carolina, PR/Colegio Santa Gema, Dodge City CC (leads team in K/S, P/S, SA/S); #12 Yarianne Gonzalez, So., S, Manati, PR/Piaget Bilingual Academy (leads team in A/S); #10 Lena Marcikic, So., MH, Subotica, Serbia/Gimnazia Za Talentovane Ucenike Deze Kostolanj (leads team in B/S)
Scouting the Opposition
Findlay: A perennial title contender in the G-MAC since joining in 2017, the Oilers look like they're back to being one of the conference's top teams after a down year in 2019.
Findlay is off to a 7-1 start with quality wins over Cedarville and Ohio Dominican, and are poised to take advantage if Hillsdale or Walsh slips up in the final week of the season.
Freshman outside hitter Hannah Warrington has been a revelation for the Oilers in her first season despite her 5-foot-6 stature, turning into one of the conference's best hitters early-on.
Findlay is led by a lights-out offense that is challenging Hillsdale's for the best in the G-MAC, with a .236 team hitting percentage, 13.58 kills per set, and 2.08 aces per set, but they haven't been quite as good defensively – an area to improve on as the Oilers look toward a tough stretch run in conference play.
The Oilers are coached by Wick Colchagoff, who's been an institution for 23 years at Findlay, with a 462-269 mark and 16 20-win seasons entering the 2021 campaign, as well as five NCAA Division II tournament bids.
Cedarville: The Yellow Jackets are currently the best of the second-tier of G-MAC contenders, with a potent offense that can threaten any team in the conference on a given night.
Cedarville has size at the net and a wide array of experienced hitters, led by returning first-team All-G-MAC seniors Liene Miller and Lauren Willow. Freshman setter Haley Goff has fit right in to the Yellow Jacket attack in her first collegiate season, helping Cedarville lead the conference in kills and hitting percentage.
Quality wins over Tiffin and Ohio Dominican have Cedarville in line to host a G-MAC quarterfinal – but sweeps at the hands of top 15 teams Walsh and Findlay limit their upward mobility in the conference picture. A win over Hillsdale in their final match of the season could change things for the Yellow Jackets, however.
Cedarville is coached by Greg Smith, in his third year with the program. Smith has led Cedarville to the G-MAC tournament in each of his first two seasons as head coach, and prior to taking the job with the Yellow Jackets, was a head coach at Virginia Tech for five years and Toledo for eight, making four trips to the NCAA Division I tournament with the Rockets.
Ohio Valley: It's been a long final go-around in the G-MAC for the Fighting Scots, who are 0-8 on the season and have won just three sets this year.
A silver lining for Ohio Valley is that the team is extremely young this year, with just one senior and sophomores leading the way in every major statistical category – portending better things to come in the future as the Scots transition to the NAIA.
Ohio Valley is coached by Amanda Weatherwax, who took over as interim head coach this spring and is hoping to turn the program around in the near future.
Scouting the Chargers
Currently the top-ranked team in the country, Hillsdale is chasing a fourth-straight G-MAC regular season and tournament title, and looks well on its way with a squad that's got a level of depth and talent that few Charger teams have had in head coach Chris Gravel's storied 25-year tenure.
While the Chargers suffered their first loss of the season to Gannon on Saturday, they're still very much in control of the G-MAC title race, sitting at 8-0 and in first place with three league matches remaining before the conference tournament.
All-American middle hitter Allyssa Van Wienen and junior outside hitter Karoline Shelton have been a lethal 1-2 punch for the Chargers, combining for 228 kills between the two of them in eleven matches and both holding hitting percentages of .275 or better.
Hillsdale's ability to spread the ball around to effective hitters, thanks to setters Lindsey Mertz and Madeline Zenas, is a large part of what makes the team so dangerous. Seven Chargers are averaging 1 or more kills per set through the team's first eleven matches.
The Chargers also have played extremely clean volleyball so far, with their lone loss to Gannon the notable exception. Hillsdale has a kill to attack error ratio of 3.0 in the eleven matches it's played, and has committed just 27 service errors and 25 reception errors outside of the match against the Knights. That lack of mistakes makes it extremely difficult for opponents to get back in the match if the Chargers' powerhouse offense can get out to an early lead.
Coaching the Chargers for the 25th year is Chris Gravel, who's built Hillsdale's program from the ground up and into one of the top programs in the Midwest Region. Under Gravel, the Chargers have won seven conference regular season titles, six conference tournament titles, made 12 NCAA Division II tournament appearances, won the Midwest Regional title in 2011, and reached the NCAA DII Final Four in that same year.
Other Notes
- Findlay is one of only two programs to beat Hillsdale during the Chargers' four years as a G-MAC member and the last one to beat Hillsdale, in a 3-2 NCAA tournament victory on Nov. 30, 2017. Since that match, Hillsdale has won four straight over the Oilers, and has a 28-18 lead in the all-time series over Findlay.
- Cedarville is one of only two G-MAC teams to beat the Chargers in Hillsdale's four-year run in the G-MAC, but Hillsdale is 8-1 all-time against the Yellow Jackets, including a sweep last season on Oct. 12, 2019.
- Hillsdale has won all three meetings against Ohio Valley and has never dropped a set to the Fighting Scots.
- Hillsdale remained in the top spot in the AVCA Division II poll for the third-straight week last week, though the Chargers are likely to fall when the poll is released later this week after a loss to Gannon. Prior to this season, the Chargers' highest ranking was third in the nation in the 2006 season. The last time the Chargers were ranked in the top five nationally prior to this season was 2011, when Hillsdale made its only NCAA Division II Final Four appearance in program history.
- Both Hillsdale and Findlay are currently occupying their highest rankings in the AVCA poll in the history of either program, with the Chargers in the top spot and the Oilers ranked 12th. Tuesday's matchup will be a battle of the two highest-ranked teams combined in G-MAC volleyball history.
- Senior Allyssa Van Wienen Van Wienen needs just 6 kills this week to surpass Melissa Bartlett ('08)'s career total of 1,046 and break into the top 10 all time in Charger history in the statistic. She's already in the career top-10 in blocks for the Chargers, sitting in 8th all time with 293 for her career.
- Senior libero/defensive specialist Madie Schider now has 925 digs for her career and is 5 digs behind Amanda Proctor ('04) for 10th all-time in Charger history. Schider also has a very real chance to become the 10th player in program history with 1,000 digs.
- Freshman Maizie Brown had a stellar contest in the loss to Gannon, leading the Chargers offensively with 10 kills and a .667 hitting percentage, and defensively, finishing with a solo block and four block assists. Brown is currently third in the G-MAC in hitting percentage (.368) and fifth in blocks per set (0.97) and has seen her role grow considerably in recent weeks as she's adjusted to the collegiate level.