The 2016 Continental Volleyball Conference Tournament begins this weekend, April 8-9, in Owings Mills, Maryland and will include host school Stevenson University; defending champion, Rutgers University-Newark; two-time tournament champion, Juniata College; and Marymount University, who is making their second consecutive postseason appearance.
CVC Championship Tournament Page
CVC Tournament Video Preview
Tournament Information
The 2016 Tournament will be held on the campus of Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Maryland. Semifinal games will be held on Friday, April 8 with #1 Stevenson facing #4 Juniata at 6 p.m. and #2 Rutgers-Newark facing #3 Marymount at 8 p.m. The Championship match is set for Saturday, April 9 at 2 p.m. You can stream all matches HERE
Ticket prices for the tournament are as follows: $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $3 for students (Stevenson students free with ID), and children under 12 are free.
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#1 STEVENSON UNIVERSITY MUSTANGS Stevenson secured hosting rights for this year's tournament by finishing the regular season with an 11-1 conference record, going 23-7 overall. "Hosting the tournament is a big honor in our eyes," said Stevenson Head Coach Steve Grossnickle. "We like to think of the CVC as one of the stronger conferences in the country and to be the one seed and have the opportunity to have postseason play in our gym is a pretty big deal to us." The Mustangs are currently ranked #7 in the AVCA poll and have won five of their last six matches as they enter the postseason. "It is nice to be nationally ranked, but that's about all it is, just nice. Our goal was actually pretty simple this year, win the CVC. We have tremendous respect for the other teams in our conference, and our goal this year was to compete with them and prove that we deserved to be talked about when people spoke about the CVC. Not to mention winning the CVC gets you a birth into the NCAA Tournament, somewhere this program has never been before. That was the only goal we set for ourselves this year, win the CVC." The Mustangs have made the CVC Championship match in each of the last two years, coming up short twice. This year they are hoping home court advantage can get them over the final hurdle. The Mustangs are 30-8 at home in the last four seasons including going undefeated this year with an 8-0 record. Despite being undefeated at home this year and finishing first in the regular season standings Grossnickle knows this weekend is not given. "Two years ago we lost to Juniata, who has been a traditional powerhouse in Division III volleyball for as long as I can remember. Last year losing to Rutgers, we have great respect for their coaching staff and players, they came in and made a statement; not just to the CVC but to the entire Division III landscape. Marymount is a team that has gotten good, very very quickly. Again, great coaches with hard working kids and it is paying off for them. In order to be the best you have to beat the best, these three teams can compete with anyone in the country on any given day. We will have to have laser focus on the attention to the little details. All the little points that we maybe did not earn in the regular season we are going to have to earn now in the postseason. There is not much that separates these four teams in my opinion so we have to be fully prepared for some battles this weekend." The Mustangs are led by freshman Landon Shorts, who ranked second in the league with 303 kills this season. Shorts is hitting .315 and totaled 46 service aces. Nate Ellis, a junior, is the inside presence for the Mustangs; hitting .407 and ranking second in the CVC in blocks. Senior setter Rob Wingert leads the team on the court and led the league at 10.66 assists per season. |
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#2 RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-NEWARK SCARLET RAIDERS Rutgers-Newark return the majority of their team from last year's CVC Championship squad; bring back 2015 CVC Player of the Year Cody Chidsey, and three All-Tournament performers in Jack Fredricks, Travis Mintzer, and MVP Kevin McCandless. That experience carried them to a 23-2 overall record and a 10-2 record in the CVC during the regular season. "Having the majority of our starting lineup back is awesome," said Rutgers-Newark Head Coach Pedro Trevino. "These players have tasted victory and want it again. They know the challenges we faced last year as underdogs and what it is like to gun for the number one team. Not losing that hunger is essential. It inspires the newer players to want that win. The team knows it will be tough to win back to back CVC championships but they are up to the challenge." The Scarlet Raiders may have began last year as underdogs, playing their first season in the CVC and at the Division III level, but this year they were the ones being hunted. Holding down the #5 ranking in the AVCA poll for the majority of the season, the Scarlet Raiders put together two winning streaks of at least eight matches and carry a winning streak of six matches into the tournament. "Our goal is to win every game. Winning streaks are nice but they can be deceiving. It's all about playing well and staying focused on playing each game to the best of our ability. We review each opponent's offensive and defensive tactics. We look at our own individual styles and focus on tailoring our play to our opponents. I remind them that each team is going to bring their "A" game. We need to meet that mindset head-on." Rutgers-Newark rolls out a deep rotation for their matches. Although they led the conference in kills per set at 12.6, they did not have a player rank in the top five individually. The Scarlet Raiders also lead the league with a .342 hitting percentage, with Chidsey leading the way with a .455 mark. They finished with four players totaling over 160 kills this season as Kevin McCandless averaged 10.52 assists per set and last year's All-Conference libero, Quocmy Nguyen, averaging 2.16 digs per set. |
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#3 MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY SAINTS Marymount University is making their second straight tournament appearance after finishing the regular season with a 19-10 overall record and a 9-3 record in conference action. The Saints, in just their third year of the program, took a big leap forward this year as they finished above .500 for the first time in program history. "Making the postseason last year as a second year program was really a big deal for us," said Head Coach Hudson Bates. "We are grateful that once again we made the tournament, and have the opportunity to achieve our season long goal of reaching the championship match. It's going to be a really tough task to beat Rutgers in the semifinal, but we are thankful to be in control of our own destiny."
Bates and the Saints have seen the team go from nine wins in year one, to 14 last year, and now 19 wins this season. The results have been fast for the Saints as they continue their upward trend.
"There have been a vast number of differences between all three seasons. The biggest difference from year 1 to year 2 was personnel. Year two was the first time we were able to recruit and get a true freshman class into the program. The biggest difference between year 2 to year 3 has been the ability to train a full roster. Having some depth at each position put some much needed pressure on each starter to perform at a higher level. The full roster allowed us to conduct great practices night in and night out, and the experience of the older players on the team put more ownership of our culture in the hands of the athletes and less dependence on the coaching staff."
The team depth is never more apparent in looking at the numbers. Last year the Saints hit just .185 as a team and relied heavily on TJ Wiechecki who finished second in the league in kills. This season Wiechecki once again is atop the leaderboard in kills, with 324, but the Saints are hitting .269 as a team, ranking third best in the league.
"We have always asked for alot of offensive production from TJ, and he's come through time and time again. But to be a more balanced and defensively strong team, we recognized we needed to run a 6-2 offense. We had a couple players, TJ and Erich Bratke selflessly give up some of their playing time in order to help the team. The offensive balance, strong attacking from our middles, and high level of play from our second setter, Jordan Pawlicki, all lead to the team's higher hitting percentage. Even with half of the playing time, and everyone expecting it, it's pretty amazing TJ was still able to produce the numbers he has."
Tomasz Ksiazkiewicz, a junior, was second on the team in kills with 205, hitting .413 and adding 72 total blocks. Both Eric Wiles and Graham Clark each topped the 170 kill mark as well while the duo of Erich Bratke and Jordan Pawlicki combined for over 1,000 assists this season.
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#4 JUNIATA COLLEGE EAGLES Juniata College's entry into the CVC Tournament this season came down to the final match of the season. Finishing the regular season with a 10-15 overall record and a 5-7 record in the CVC, the Eagles return to post-season play this year after sitting out last year's playoffs on a self-imposed ban. "It's been a long season this year for us," said Juniata Head Coach Pat Shawayrn. "The Juniata tradition we have is one we are very proud of and coming off the best season in program history at 24-5 but missing the post-season for a self-ban and losing some key individuals on that team due to graduation, transferring, and other reasons has been a tough road to recover from. After talking with the team about rebuilding that tradition, we decided we needed to stop thinking about what teams in the past have done. What we needed to focus on was starting to write this team's legacy and moving forward. Once the team started to accept that we have been a different team and a much more focused and balanced group." After dropping their first six matches of March, the Eagles were on the outside looking in for post-season play. But with their backs against the wall the Eagles responded and have won three of their last five matches. "The team responded better with their backs against the wall than just going out and playing. As a staff, we didn't change our tactics but preached more of a do or die situation and the team responded to that approach better than we had anticipated." The team certainly has responded, taking #5 ranked Rutgers-Newark to a five set thriller, just the fourth time Rutgers-Newark went five sets this season, in their second to last match of the regular season and then sweeping Cairn in a must sweep situation to win a tiebreaker and get into the tournament. "Once we found out we still had a chance we took advantage of that and pride, joy, excitement, relief, and motivation to show we deserve to be in that position all came out at once. At the beginning of the year we knew it was going to be a very difficult with the talent we have in our conference but we knew we could put ourselves in a position to get back into the conference tournament. This season hasn't gone the way we hoped but right now everyone is 0-0 and anything can happen. We feel like we are playing our best volleyball right now which is what we want going into the post-season." The Eagles hit .235 as a team this season, fourth best in the league, and are led by junior Kyle Seely who needs just five more kills to reach the 300 mark this season. Freshman Quinn Peterson and sophomore Matt Vasinko were second and third on the team in kills while senior Chad Albert led the team with a .381 hitting percentage. Junior libero Brendon Smith ranked as one of the top defenders in the league, averaging 2.24 digs per set. |