The End*
Looking back on the 2015 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball National Championship and forward to the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics
#4 seed Nebraska swept #3 seed Texas 3–0 in the 2015 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball National Championship in front of a record-breaking crowd in Omaha.
That dominance may have been superficially unexpected. In the last AVCA Coaches poll, taken on November 30, 2015, the week before the national tournament started, Nebraska ranked #5 in the country with 1345 points, behind B1G champions Minnesota, who were #4 with 1426 points and 4 first-place votes, who were in turn behind Big 12 champions Texas, who were #3 with 1472 points yet no first-place votes. Apparently there was some west coast bias at play, as Pac-12 co-champions USC and Washington ranked #2 and #1 respectively, with the Trojans receiving 1503 points and 18 first-place votes while the Huskies tallied 1569 points and 42 first-place votes. Yet this would be the first NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Final Four in history that didn’t include a west coast + Hawaii school.
Also, Nebraska and Texas had already played each other during the 2015 regular season as part of a regular non-conference series that seeks to continue the rivalry between these classic Big 12 schools. In that September 4 encounter, Texas won in 5 sets in Austin as part of the VERT Challenge.
Finally, and this factor may have been more open to interpretation, Texas had beaten #2 seed Minnesota in their Final Four matchup, 3 sets to 1, in probably the best game I’ve watched all season and definitely the closest, as the vast majority of the contest was spent with neither team more than 2 points ahead of the other, while Nebraska cruised over #9 seed Kansas, 3 sets to 1, with the final set’s score of 25–16 after a disappointingly dropped third set capturing the difference in talent between the two sides.
This may have been an example of B1G bias, but Beth Mowins and Karch Kiraly, the commentators for the ESPN2 broadcasts of the Final Four and National Championship, recklessly repeated the lie during the Texas-Minnesota game that this Texas squad was bereft of a star like Texas teams of the past. Big 12 Player of the Year Amy Neal promptly posted a career-high 25 kills to show everyone how foolish that idea is. All-American Paulina Prieto Cerame — a Puerto Rican-American (who represented the U.S. Youth National Team) who was super-hyped coming out of high school and signed with Penn State to prove how good she was, only to not fit in at the program and transfer after redshirt freshman year to Texas — added 19 kills to that. Factor in potential star-in-the-making true freshman Yaasmeen Bedart-Ghani’s career-high 15 kills and Minnesota just couldn’t keep up, even with a 21 kill-10 dig double-double from Daly Santana — who I feel deserved to be named Division I AVCA National Player of the Year more than USC’s Mexican prodigy Samantha Bricio; actually, that Final Four matchup between Amy Neal’s Texas and Daly Santana’s Minnesota should have resulted in the Player of the Year being awarded to whoever guided their team to the win, so Amy Neal. Daly’s fellow Puerto Rican Golden Gopher may have let her down, as Dalianliz Rosado — who is admittedly only a true sophomore — was thoroughly outplayed by opposing libero — and fellow true sophomore — Cat McCoy. Despite both liberos recording 20 digs, Rosado had 3 return errors (to McCoy’s 0), and the tape will tell you even more than those stats.
Actually, Texas has two First-Team All-Americans — Neal and Chiaka Ogbogu, who had to leave the game against Minnesota due to leg cramps and may have not been 100% at the National Championship two days later — a Second-Teamer — Prieto Cerame — and two Third-Teamers — Chloe Collins and Molly McCage, who had to work twice as hard once Ogbogu went down. Not exactly starving for talent, as Mowins and Kiraly would have had you believe.
Meanwhile, Texas’s National Championship opponent, Nebraska, has one First-Teamer — Kadie Rolfzen — one Second-Teamer — her twin sister, Amber Rolfzen — and one Third-Teamer — beach volleyball prodigy Justine Wong-Orantes. The Rolfzen sisters have been acclaimed since high school and could be considered stars if they weren’t so emblematic of the Cornhusker state, while Wong-Orantes is more of a star in the sport that she’ll probably end up making money in after graduating. If anything, Nebraska’s one star player is the freshman phenom who they always seem to select for the post-game interview, perhaps giving away the marketing plan at work: Mikaela Foecke. Despite failing to receive any national honors other than an AVCA All-American Honorable Mention — she probably got ripped off by the Division I AVCA Freshman of the Year going to Stanford’s Hayley Hodson, but by the AVCA Coaches poll and their PotY and FotY selections, I think it’s safe to say that the AVCA on a whole is more interested in politics than merit — the 2014–15 Gatorade National Volleyball Player of the Year carried that hype into her freshman season, contributing as a powerful outside hitter to a Nebraska team that may not have won the B1G, but looked more well-rounded than any other I saw, due in no small part to Foecke’s Fedor Emelianenko-esque power. And in the National Championship, Foecke racked up almost twice as many kills as any other player, 19, to cap off a tournament that saw her post 12, 12, 8, 11, and 12 kills in the preceding games en route to being named the tourney’s Most Oustanding Player. She’ll be scary for any opponent to have to deal with for the next three years.
But before I turn my attention to the future in this post, I wanted to spend a few more paragraphs on this D-I national tournament. As I mentioned, this was the first year without a school on the Pacific making the Final Four. And yet, there weren’t too many upsets on a whole, especially for those accustomed to March Madness. Looking only the games in which a seeded team — of which there were 16 — lost to an unseeded or lower-seeded team, there’s a grand total of 8, 2 of which came in the Final Four & National Championship. There weren’t any in the First Round, but in the Second Round, unseeded Loyola Marymount pulled off possibly the stunner of the tournament, knocking out #8 seed Stanford, a perennial power. If you want to consider unseeded Hawaii beating #10 seed Texas A&M an upset, be my guest, but it looks like the seeding committee slept on Dave Shoji’s always-dangerous Rainbow Warriors for some reason, despite having finished the regular season #7 in the AVCA Coaches poll with 1147 points and a 26–1 record. Meanwhile, unseeded Illinois handily dispatched #15 seed Louisville, asserting B1G strength. In the Third Round, #11 seed Florida bested #6 seed Wisconsin in 5 sets, a surprise for anyone used to an SEC-B1G women’s volleyball matchup. Hawaii continued their run with an impressive sweep of #7 seed Penn State, giving Shoji bragging rights over fellow legendary coach Russ Rose this year. In the Quarterfinals, #9 seed Kansas improbably overcame #1 seed USC in 5 sets in the only other upset that could compare with Loyola Marymount’s over Stanford. Then #3 seed Texas participated in two consecutive upsets, winning over #2 seed Minnesota in the Final Four before falling to #4 seed Nebraska in the National Championship.
My alma mater, Michigan, won in the First Round against fellow unseeded Santa Clara, 3–1, before losing to #14 seed UCLA in a hotly contested Second Round B1G-Pac-12 5 set duel. The Wolverines entered the national tournament 3 spots outside of the AVCA Coaches top 25 and finished this 2015 season with an RPI ranking of #31 to go with their 20–13 (9–11 in the B1G) record. They were a fairly young team, at least offensively, so 2016 should mark an improvement, but baseball legend Jim Abbott’s daughter, Maddy Abbott, will have to fully take on the setter role as a true sophomore, with Carly Warner graduating, and a similar story awaits Jenna Lerg in her true sophomore year but for libero, although Lerg the Younger spent much of the end of the season as libero as coach Mark Rosen eyed a successor for Tiffany Morales, who is graduating and looking to use her fifth year of eligibility to transfer to a beach volleyball program for the inaugural 2016 season of the D-I sport. I’ll be expecting Second-Team All-American Abby Cole to dominate as a true senior, whether at outside hitter, where she transitioned midway through the season, or as a middle blocker, if we need her natural height in the absence of other suitable players. Also, Caroline Knop should build on the bright spots of her true sophomore campaign as a junior, hopefully becoming more of a consistent kill-threat while playing outside hitter, or maybe just focusing on those back row attacks and digs as a defensive specialist.
Just as I gave out “awards” to my favorite and the best players I watched either in-person or on TV during the 2015 NCAA Division I women’s volleyball regular season, I’d like to do the same for those players who struck me during the national tournament. While I’m limited to watching whatever B1G or non-conference school Michigan plays against at Cliff Keen Arena or the occasional B1G-B1G matchup on Big Ten Network, I was able to catch both Final Four games along with the National Championship on ESPN2, as well as Wisconsin’s Second Round sweep of Iowa State on the Big Ten Network, since Wisconsin was the host, I guess. I tried watching some other games, especially Michigan’s, on the various streams that were provided on the schools’ websites, but none of them worked or lasted for more than a few seconds at a time. That’s a real shame; in 2015, streaming should be in everyone’s entertainment packaging strategy.
Let me start, then, with a player I never got to watch, but who became one of my favorites anyways:
Hunter Jennings (#16, Junior, Libero, San Diego)
If you’ve read my FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 Best Hair XI post, you should know that I love any athlete who dyes their hair an unnatural color, especially for a major tournament. Thank you, Hunter Jennings, for being the only such athlete to do so — that I’ve seen — for the 2015 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball National Championship. It looks like Jennings dyed her hair blonde in previous seasons but went blue this year, while also spending some time with lavender. I only wish I could have seen her play, preferably in San Diego’s sweep of Northern Arizona in the First Round, rather than their Second Round sweep by #1 seed USC (article linked to at least has some highlights from that game, courtesy of USC, which indicate that Jennings may have gone back to blonde).
Tionna Williams (#11, Freshman, Middle Blocker, Wisconsin)
Tionna Williams was a unanimous selection for the B1G All-Freshman team, so I shouldn’t have slept on her, but the Wisconsin game was one of the only conference games of Michigan’s that I missed. Watching her participate in Wisconsin’s demolition of Iowa State, though, I realized just how legit she is, as she led the Badgers with 9 kills. Tionna’s exactly the sort of threatening middle blocker I’d want on my team — and she’s only a true freshman!
Mikaela Foecke (#2, Freshman, Outside Hitter, Nebraska)
What more can be said? Nebraska was the only B1G team to beat Michigan both home and away this season — which was especially disappointing for me because the home game was Senior Night, the only one of the season played at Crisler Center — so they’re not my favorite, but I was cheering for them in the tournament because I want B1G success— which is what allowed Michigan to even qualify for the tournament this year, despite finishing 9th in the B1G with a below .500 conference record — and I enjoy Foecke’s dominance the way I enjoy Fedor Emelianenko’s despite not being a fan of the country he represents. She’s built like Fedor, strong like Fedor, and has a sort of sleepy killer expression before the kill that reminds me of Fedor. A truly special talent.
While Tionna and Foecke will have to wait a while before entertaining thoughts of playing for the U.S. National Team — and Jennings will probably never have that opportunity — I did want to speak briefly about how much I’m looking forward to Rio 2016. Check out this response on the survey on Tionna’s player profile:
Post-college plans/goals: be a professional volleyball player in Italy or Brazil, and play in the Olympics multiple times
Along with beach volleyball, these are the only professional opportunities for a women’s volleyball player out of college. And of all those opportunities, a women’s volleyball fan will only be able to watch on TV a handful of beach volleyball tournaments and, of course, the Summer Olympics every 4 years. I’m glad for these young women that they can continue their passion in countries like Italy and Brazil; on the other hand, I’m unsurprised yet still disappointed that the U.S. can only muster up a meager effort when it comes to a pro women’s sports league. There’s a sadness that comes from watching seniors play their last D-I women’s volleyball game that isn’t matched by any men’s team sport. “At least I’ll get to watch Daly Santana play for Puerto Rico next summer,” I say to myself.
I wanted to end this post with a look at one D-I women’s volleyball player whose future didn’t involve sports, despite her life up to that point revolving largely around that. I hadn’t even heard of this woman until I looked up Brittney Griner on Wikipedia, in response to Gilbert Arenas’s recent comments on Instagram that WNBA players should compete in thongs if they want to attract more male viewers, as Griner was the last women’s basketball superstar that I’d heard of, and I wanted to see what she’s been up to. In the Wikipedia section for her WNBA career, my eyes were drawn to this interesting fact:
The only international players surpassing her height are the late Margo Dydek, at 7 ft 2 in (2.18 m), the late Sue Geh, at 2.05 metres (6 ft 9 in) tall, Heidi Gillingham at 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) and Allyssa DeHaan.
I looked up all those women, and when I ended up at DeHaan — tied for Geh as the shortest of those four, at 6'9" — I saw that she was from Michigan, and not only played basketball for 4 years at Michigan State, but also volleyball as a graduate transfer in her fifth year of eligibility at Grand Valley State. I then looked up DeHaan’s career volleyball stats via the NCAA’s historical database, and here’s what I found:
So, for the 2011 NCAA D-II women’s volleyball, DeHaan only managed to play 18 games in 10 matches (GVSU would go 11–11 that season, so that’s just under half of their total matches) with 22 kills on a decent .269 hitting %. She also had 8 total blocks, of which 6 were assists. She played middle blocker of course, and I guess it’s funny that her height is listed here as 0–0. According to this article from the time, DeHaan was dealing with lingering injuries that had forced her to stop playing basketball and forget about the WNBA. Instead, she was studying to become a physician’s assistant at GVSU, but according to her current Instagram account, it looks like she became a realtor instead. I’d say that’s a happy ending.
