The fifth-ranked Hillsdale College volleyball team won its fourth straight Great Midwest Athletic Conference title this past week.
Now, the Chargers look to make it four straight tournament titles as well.
Top-seeded Hillsdale begins its run with a quarterfinal match against eighth-seeded Ursuline at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena. A victory would allow Hillsdale to host both the semifinal and final rounds this Friday and Saturday.
Due to State of Michigan Health Department Guidelines, arena capacity will be limited, but spectators are welcome to this week's matches. Tickets for Tuesday's match will be available in advance, online via hillsdale.universitytickets.com. Tickets may be printed at home, loaded on a mobile device or picked up at will call at the arena ticket office. Any remaining tickets for each contest will be made available in-person and at the arena ticket office. Arena ticket office will open 1.5 hours prior to the game at 5:30 PM.
Beginning Monday, March 9th at 7:00 PM, general admission tickets will be available for purchase at the link below. Any remaining tickets will be available for in-person sale at the arena ticket office beginning 1.5 hours before the match.
Fans who can't make it to the arena can follow the action on the Great Midwest Digital Network. Links to both a livestream and live stats for Tuesday's match are below.
Schedule
Ursuline (4-7, 4-7 G-MAC) at #5 Hillsdale (13-1, 11-0 G-MAC) | 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 9 | Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena | Hillsdale, MI
Follow/Watch
Live Stats vs Ursuline | Webcast vs Ursuline | Tickets
Additional Info
Hillsdale Roster | Ursuline Roster | 2021 Hillsdale Stats | 2021 Ursuline Stats | G-MAC Tournament Home
Players to Watch
Hillsdale: #9 Allyssa Van Wienen, Sr., MH, Grand Rapids, MI/Christian (3rd in G-MAC in hitting %, 8th in K/S, 3rd in B/S, 3rd in P/S); #7 Karoline Shelton, Jr., OH, Shawnee, KS/Mission South (5th in G-MAC in K/S, 7th in SA/S, 2nd in P/S); #4 Alli Wiese, Fr., L/DS, Mattawan, MI/Mattawan (3rd in G-MAC in D/S, 1st in SA/S), #8 Maizie Brown, Fr., MH, Portage, MI/Central (4th in G-MAC in Hitting %, 6th in B/S)
Ursuline: #12 Devin Gerth, So., OH, Elmira, Ontario, Canada/Elmira (leads team in K/S); #16 Zoe Skinner, Sr., DS, Danville, IN/Danville (2nd in G-MAC in D/S); #20 Regan Nickol, Jr., S, Tallmadge, OH/CVCA, Mount Vernon Nazarene (6th in G-MAC in A/S); #8 Jami Turay, Jr., OH, North Ridgeville, OH/North Ridgeville (6th in G-MAC in hitting %)
Scouting the Opposition
Ursuline: The Arrows struggled through a difficult 2019 campaign, winning just four matches, but matched their win total from last season in just 11 matches in a shortened spring season, and earned a trip to the G-MAC Conference tournament for just the second time since the league expanded in 2017.
Freshman outside hitter Abigail Aguilera-Ayala has teamed with returnee Devin Gerth to give the Arrows some attacking punch up front, and senior libero Zoe Skinner has been critical to Ursuline's defense so far and is one of the top players in digs per set in the G-MAC, helping lead an Arrows squad that's sixth in the conference as a team in that stat in 2021.
While Ursuline has been solid defensively, they'll need to show more firepower in a match against the top-seeded Chargers. The Arrows are a respectable sixth in the conference in hitting percentage and seventh in kills per set, but Hillsdale is in the top two in both categories and keeping pace will be difficult.
The Arrows are coached by Calaeb Campbell, who is in his second season as head coach after taking the job in 2019. Campbell was an assistant coach at Division I Youngstown State and Southeast Missouri prior to taking the Ursuline job.
Scouting the Chargers
Currently ranked fifth in Division II, Hillsdale captured a fourth-straight G-MAC regular season title this past weekend with a third-straight undefeated run through the conference.
Hillsdale now seeks its fourth-straight G-MAC tournament title, and as the top seed will be tough to upset 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.
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 288 kills between the two of them in eleven matches and both holding hitting percentages of .291 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. Eight Chargers averaged 1 or more kills per set in the team's fourteen regular-season 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 3.1 in the fourteen matches it's played, and has committed just 32 service errors and 33 reception errors against G-MAC competition. 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
- Hillsdale is 5-0 all-time against Ursuline, including a sweep on the road on Feb. 5 this season, and has never dropped a set to the Arrows.
- The Chargers dropped out of the top spot to fifth in this past week's AVCA poll, after achieving the top ranking for the first time in program history earlier this year. 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.
- Hillsdale has won all three G-MAC Tournaments it's played in since joining the conference in 2017, dropping only five sets in nine matches on the way to those crowns. Including GLIAC titles, the Chargers have won six conference tournaments in program history, all in the last 11 years.
- Senior Allyssa Van Wienen has broken into the top 10 in program history in both kills and blocks this season. Van Wienen currently sits in seventh all-time in career blocks with 301, 31 behind sixth-place Katherine Jones ('06), and she's ninth in kills with 1,067, 58 behind eighth-place Clara Leutheuser. Van Wienen is one of just four players in program history (Leutheuser, Leslie Koppelman and Taryn Rudland) to reach 1,000 kills and 300 blocks in her career.
- Senior libero/defensive specialist Madie Schider moved past Amanda Proctor ('04) for 10th all-time in Charger history in career digs this past week. At 948 for her career now, Schider also has a very real chance to become the 10th player in program history with 1,000 digs.
- Freshman Alli Wiese tied a single-match program record in Friday's 3-1 win over Cedarville, finishing with six aces in the victory. She's one of seven Charger players to record six aces in a match in the 25-point rally scoring era that began in 2008, including teammate Lindsey Mertz and All-American honorees Sydney Dow and Ashlee Crowder.