2008 Season Smack

Rene Umass #4 · **2008 Season Smack -** 10-02-2007, 04:50 PM

What up, no one is going to talk this year? Don't be shy hahaha. So I"M BACK for my last and final season in the NECVL and hopefully it'll be a successful one. I haven't seen any teams so far so if you guys wanna give updates on your team or talk smack go right ahead. My team pretty much got all starters back but now they are sophmores so they have a bit more experience so hopefully we can step it up. Anyways i'll see you soon in a court near you.. Peace

YaleCPT · **Yale this Year -** 10-16-2007, 12:06 AM

I don't know if this counts as smack, but I think we (Yale) are going to have a strong team this year. We have all our starters returning and two will be replaced on the starting lineup by graduate students who were hiding from us.

We're still a relatively small team--so we'll see.

Matt Nehls
Captain
Yale Men's Volleyball

Peter · 10-16-2007, 04:13 PM

Yale?! Are you serious?

I’m sorry everyone, but you at least have to be within the top ten in this league in order to post in this thread. In other words, no-one cares about Yale’s promising graduate students who played volleyball 10 years ago for the Czechoslovakian junior national team.

(Why is it that none of the incoming players who say that they played for the junior national team in their respective country ever turn out to be good players?! Seriously, I have received at least 4 recruitment emails over the past few years telling me how good they are and they played international volleyball and whatever. But come tryout time, they are some of the worst players in the gym! Highly overrated!)
How is this for smack Rene?.... Yale, take notes.

Alright, I’ll stop with the prelude, it’s now on to Peter Clerc’s NECVL 2007-2008 Season Preview! (In order of predicted finishes at NECVL Regionals)

1. Northeastern University – How do you follow up a season in which you lost 4 matches all year to the rest of the league and go on to win a New England Championship?

That’s right, you go to nationals and you have the second best finish for a New England team ever (9th in the nation). Not a bad season for us last year.

But, as the story goes past performance is no indication of future results. This is the motto of Northeastern this year as we will be staying hungrier than ever.

As for an update on the current state of the team I really cannot tell you. I haven’t even seen the team compete since April of last year. Chasin and I are actually down in New York City till the end of the year, trying to become Wall Street Fat Cats. Take that literally… although Chasin did write to the team that I better resembled an “overweight Koala, but with less hair”.

We are still planning on traveling to a few select tournaments however during the fall so we will be sort of up to speed on these things.

Regardless, the absence of both of us is surely to have an effect on the progress of the team from a coaching/organizational standpoint. I don’t predict that our team will be playing great volleyball until at least March. We’ll see though.

I’ll also note that two of our starters are lost forever. Dana “Darkness” Jones has now graduated, after 9 years at Northeastern. And Phil “1/2 Ninja, ½ Amazing” Li has decided that he is too good for Graduate School and will not be completing his second year at this time.

We have a couple 2nd year players who are looking to fill in for our #1 Outside Hitter spot along with a couple freshmen that are looking to plug in at Middle.

Regardless of how Northeastern actually performs this year, it appears we are not the small loveable teddy bears that we once were. Average height of our starting lineup is starting to move up!

2. Boston College – Hmmm, where do I begin here? I know!

After 4 great years of dominance, Mr. Phil “I Hit Balls Hard” George is officially retired as an NECVL standout. Congratulations to him though for graduating and having a great NECVL career.

Now the team is left in the hands of 1st team All-NECVL Outside, Jacob “The Wisconsininian ” Layden. With this, BC will be looking to transform their archaic ways of trying to pound balls down peoples throats and will be taking on a new approach with a much more emphasis on defensive.

My advice to them: get Asians!

BC will be another serious threat this year to the league and will most likely be overwhelming favorites to win the NECVL title at times.

Just remember though, Northeastern is not a pool-play playing team. We’ll be ready on the second day of Championships.

3. Boston University – I hear BU is getting some Puerto Rican “All-National” setter or something (Please see above in italics BU). It makes sense that they needed to go get another Puerto Rican after both Hector and Ricardo were gone. They know the real secret to success.

Anyways, he could very well be legit. I have no clue. We’ll see soon enough come November 10th, when they are at the Springfield College tournament along with most of the other good teams in the NECVL.

BU will most likely be very solid once again. They still have Parker who is one of the top middles in the league.

4. UCONN – They made their coach quit on them. The best player on their team, setter, Jeff “HAHA, I’m shorter than Robbie” Sanith, is lined up to graduate in December. And their best overall player, Corey “My Big Bro Plays Ball with Clerc” Federline, graduated last Spring.

Any why do I have them pegged as the 4th best team? I have no clue…this league sucks.

5. URI – Nick “I’m Just Plain Huge” Borsay tells me that he is going to play all six positions at once. Seriously folks, this could be some entertaining volleyball. Anyways, it sounds like URI is going to have a pretty good year.

They have some promising talent and a decent base to build on. Remember, they were one of the Final Four Teams last year at NECVL Regionals before bowing out to Army.

I’m really going to stop the breakdown here. I have a lot more to say but I’m sick of typing and I seriously need to get back to work. It’d be nice to wrap up an offer letter from here within the next couple weeks. I don’t think writing NECVL forum posts constitute any sort of “job experience” that they are looking for.

Jacob · **BC Perspective -** 10-23-2007, 04:53 PM

So I am in class and not paying attention, so I thought now would be a perfect time to let everybody know what is going on with our team this year and where I see everybody else.

Boston College:

We will again be competitive, we took four freshmen on to the team some of which seem to be helping our drinking team others are giving it their all and are well on their way to making fools of themselves at nationals.
As for volleyball we will still be pounding the ball down people's throats even without Phil on the team. We have a tall athletic team that is having difficulty playing defense at time but seem to be coming around. By the spring I believe that we will be better than our team last year.

Northeastern:

The loss of Phil and Dana hurt as your two secondary go to hitters. Obviously the defense will be there but it may be back to two years ago when you had the defense but could not get the big kill during the long rally. Depending on old man Chasin you guys will still be one of the best teams in the league.

Everybody else:

Most teams in the league have the physical ability to put out a strong team but if we look at last year make a lot of errors preventing you from cracking the elite. As for Yale, if the two other players are upgrades i think they have the potential to crack the top six in the NECVL. Good luck.

I feel like I should keep typing because I still have twenty minutes left in class but do not really care that much. So, good luck to everyone. I hope everyone has raised the level of volleyball and we will be able to go make a statement for the northeast for a second year at nationals (though midwest volleyball is and will always be better, sorry).

YaleCPT · **More Yale Perspective -** 01-22-2008, 11:52 AM

Alright, now that we've played in one of the more competitive tournaments, I'm going to make some comments.

First, I don't quite know about Jung Park ranking us above URI at this point...I don't know that we deserve that.

Second, Clerc, I definitely think that we'll place somewhere in the top 5. We're a stronger team than both UConn and Fairfield (we beat Fairfield 2x in a Connecticut tourney and have not played UConn yet).

Third, while I haven't seen BC, I think that we are more than capable of beating NU, BU, and URI, despite the fact that we lost to both BU and NU this weekend.

Fourth, as to how we did in the URI tourney:

We had an extremly rough first day, but we were, for sure, in the most difficult bracket (our bracket took 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 7th overall). However, we did split with Velocity--who ended up taking second overall.

I think the second day was more indicative of how we tend to play, except our middles normally don't play quite so well, and our outsides normally play much better. At least, that's my perspective.

BU, URI, NU/Clerc...thoughts?

-Matt Nehls (setter)

YaleCPT · **More Yale Perspective -** 01-22-2008, 11:53 AM

Alright, now that we've played in one of the more competitive tournaments, I'm going to make some comments.

First, I don't quite know about Jung Park ranking us above URI at this point...I don't know that we deserve that.

Second, Clerc, I definitely think that we'll place somewhere in the top 5. We're a stronger team than both UConn and Fairfield (we beat Fairfield 2x in a Connecticut tourney and have not played UConn yet).

Third, while I haven't seen BC, I think that we are more than capable of beating NU, BU, and URI, despite the fact that we lost to both BU and NU this weekend.

Fourth, as to how we did in the URI tourney:

We had an extremly rough first day, but we were, for sure, in the most difficult bracket (our bracket took 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th? (NU?), and 7th overall). However, we did split with Velocity--who ended up taking second overall.

I think the second day was more indicative of how we tend to play, except our middles normally don't play quite so well, and our outsides normally play much better. At least, that's my perspective.

BU, URI, NU/Clerc...thoughts?

-Matt Nehls (setter)

FUVB6 · 01-23-2008, 01:08 AM

Just to clarify, the team that was at the Yankee tournament was not all Fairfield. Just a few of the starters and a 37 year old outside hitter. Not to mention it was a Yankee tournament, not the regular season. But I am an honest man, and Yale has significantly improved without question.

YaleCPT · **More Yale -** 01-23-2008, 09:34 AM

Sorry about the double post above...I don't know why it did that.

If that wasn't the full fairfield team, then things might be more competitive than I thought.

NU/Clerc, I haven't been around the league for long...did you have all-tournament Chasin Prather at the URI tourney? (bc if not, that would change things too).

fuvb 9 · 02-04-2008, 01:30 PM

What everyone's records it Divisionals?

Fairfield went 2-1 losing to RW and beating Uconn and Dartmouth

Jacob · 02-21-2008, 08:34 PM

I think we have come out and played the best volleyball thus far in the league. Who is the second best team? What new players are picking teams up? I would say the middle from UNH and Jon the opposite from BU keeps improving. Why is Yale winning so many games? Fairfield has Omar and who else?