Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship Preview: All You Need to Know
Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship Preview: All You Need to Know
Here’s a look at all you need to know ahead of the 2024 Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship streaming live on FloCollege.
The reigning and defending NCAA Division III volleyball national champion calls the Landmark Conference home, and the very best of the rest of the league is trying to take them down in this week’s conference tournament.
The Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship this week officially signals the start of postseason play for the league’s six squads still playing following the conclusion of the regular season, and the conference’s most powerful team is looking to continue to hold an iron grip on both the Landmark and the rest of D-III as a whole.
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Can any of the other five schools still competing play spoiler and give the top-seeded team a ding in its armor ahead of the NCAA Tournament, or will it roll through everyone just like it has been doing over the past couple of months and continue on a historic winning streak?
The Landmark Tournament is set 🚨🏐
— FloVolleyball (@FloVolleyball) November 6, 2024
With one week until the tourney begins, the top six seeds are locked in. Can anyone pull off the upset against Juniata? Or are the Eagles destined to win their 17th straight Landmark title? 🏆#LANDMARKVB | @LandmarkConf | @JuniataWVB pic.twitter.com/bascYWRgib
We’re about to find out, and all the action will be streamed live and exclusively on FloCollege throughout the tournament.
Here’s a look at all you need to know ahead of the 2024 Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship, which gets going with quarterfinal matches on Tuesday and concludes with Saturday’s championship match:
No. 1 Juniata Volleyball
Record: 27-0 (9-0 Landmark)
The lowdown: If you’re new to D-III volleyball, let us introduce you to the greatest winning streak that you potentially have never heard of.
On Sept. 16, 2022, Juniata’s volleyball team lost in four sets in an away nonconference match at Trinity (Texas). In the 89 matches since then, the Eagles have never lost or even had a match go five sets, winning back-to-back national championships in that stretch and breaking the D-III volleyball record for consecutive wins earlier this year with their 67th in a row against Swarthmore on Sept. 7.
AVCA No. 1-ranked Juniata wouldn’t be able to break Penn State’s iconic 109-match winning streak from 2007-10 for a NCAA all-divisions volleyball record this season, but it would be able to become the first D-III team ever to have back-to-back perfect seasons if it continues its reign of dominance and wins the national title without a scratch. The Eagles’ postseason road starts this week at the Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship.
It goes without saying that Juniata is as favored as it gets in the conference tournament, having never lost a set in Landmark play this season as it cruised to the regular-season title. Anything other than the Eagles cleaning house this week would be a major shock; Juniata has the nation’s best setter in Olivia Foley (D-III-leading 11.87 assists per set), the best hitting percentage of any team in the country (.319) and multiple players likely bound for All-America honors.
Enjoy the show Juniata is expected to put on and marvel at potential history in the making this week, because the Eagles can absolutely fly.
No. 2 Scranton Volleyball
Record: 16-13 (8-1)
The lowdown: Likely on the outside looking in for an at-large NCAA Tournament berth heading into the Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship, Scranton will probably need to pull off the improbable and upset Juniata in the conference tournament final in order to make it to its third NCAA tourney in four seasons.
The Royals are not listed in the top seven of the NCAA’s most recent Region V rankings (listed through games played Nov. 3), so while a strong Landmark Conference record that features just two dropped sets to teams not named Juniata is a step forward for the program, it also likely leaves Scranton a step behind the Eagles when it comes to being primed for the postseason.
Regardless, the Royals have earned a first-round bye as the tournament’s No. 2 seed — meaning they won’t see Juniata until the title match if both teams take care of business in the semifinals — and with 12.64 kills per set and a .212 hitting percentage, both marks of which rank second in the Landmark behind you-know-who, they are most definitely a tough out in their own right.
Opposite Erin Keaveney generates much of the Royals’ offense, leading the team with 259 kills (2.84 per set, third in the Landmark), and her hitting percentage of .356 also is third in the conference. Scranton will face either Elizabethtown or Drew in the semifinals at home, both teams of which it swept on the road in the regular season.
No. 3 Elizabethtown
Record: 16-12 (6-3)
The lowdown: Since joining the Landmark Conference, Elizabethtown has made the conference tournament semifinals in each year the volleyball season has been held (excluding 2020) since 2019.
But what’s it going to take for the Blue Jays to take the next step and challenge for some postseason hardware? ETown last made the NCAA Tournament in 2007, and like Scranton, there’s an uphill climb for it to make the field as it is not in the top seven of the Region V rankings.
The journey to a conference title will be made even harder for the Blue Jays considering that they don’t have a first-round bye for the conference tournament, with their opening-round matchup against Drew being what separates them from another potential Landmark tourney semifinal appearance.
Freshman outside hitter Lucy Stanek is already the program’s top option in the attack (2.56 kills per set) and could be a name to watch for the future, and she’s often paired with another talented first-year player at the net in freshman middle blocker Ida Fisher (0.52 blocks per set). ETown’s youth could be what the team leans on as it pushes for a deep tournament run from the first day of play, which is very much in the cards for the Blue Jays if they play similar to the type of squad that blanked the likes of Wilkes and Goucher in separate sweeps in Landmark play.
No. 4 Susquehanna Volleyball
Record: 19-12 (6-3)
The lowdown: The good news for Susquehanna heading into its Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship quarterfinal match against Catholic on Tuesday is that the River Hawks swept the Cardinals in Washington D.C. back on Oct. 26, making them a big favorite on paper to secure a postseason victory and try to keep their season rolling.
The bad news for Susquehanna is that Juniata awaits the River Hawks in the semifinals if they win, and it’s already been well-discussed already about what happens to teams who try to take down the Eagles.
Still, this should be a River Hawks squad that won’t be fazed by the pressure of facing high-level opponents.
SU went through a gauntlet of a regular-season schedule that included D-III powerhouses like Juniata and Johns Hopkins, plus multiple other teams that were either ranked or receiving votes in the AVCA poll like Ithaca, Washington and Lee and Christopher Newport. Plus, seven wins from their past eight matches going into the conference tournament won’t hurt the River Hawks’ confidence, either.
Teams do tend to find gaps in the River Hawks’ defensive setup, however, as evidenced by the fact that Susquehanna finished last in the Landmark in opponent kills per set allowed (12.63) and second-to-last in opponent hitting percentage allowed (.196). But if the River Hawks can get on a roll in terms of defending at the net — where they are much stronger, ranking second in the league in blocks per set with 1.63 — they may have the juice to give some teams some trouble this week.
No. 5 Catholic Volleyball
Record: 14-20 (5-4)
The lowdown: If there’s a strength in the Cardinals’ setup that they can rely on to make a strong run in the Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship, it’s their defense at the net.
In one of the few team statistical categories in the Landmark that Juniata doesn’t lead going into the conference tournament, Catholic is the league’s No. 1 team when it comes to blocks per set (1.8), and it could be an important advantage that it could rely on as a tough game against Susquehanna and potentially an even tougher game against Juniata if it wins looms ahead this week.
Senior middle blocker Grace Guerin is the league’s individual leader in blocks per set with a 0.98 average, and the former All-Landmark Conference Honorable Mention selection could be bound for a spot on a league postseason team once again very soon, as well. Regardless, however, she and the rest of the Cardinals will have challenges ahead of them in stringing together a good postseason surge of form.
Victories over Elizabethtown and Drew were the highlights of conference play for Catholic, but in order for the Cardinals to get back to the Landmark tournament championship match for just the second time since they joined the league and the first time since 2012, they’re going to have to find a new edge that separates them from the pack and into a squad that can play spoiler.
No. 6 Drew Volleyball
Record: 10-20 (4-5)
The lowdown: In a last-gasp push for the postseason, the Rangers just snuck in as the Landmark Conference Volleyball Championship’s sixth seed by defeating Lycoming in four sets on Nov. 2, the same match in which sophomore setter Alyssa Rachwal broke the school record for assists despite the fact that she’s only played in 55 matches in her career.
Drew definitely has the capability for nabbing a postseason win, especially considering the fact that it took first-round opponent Elizabethtown to five sets in their regular-season meeting Oct. 18 — a match in which the Rangers had a 2-0 set lead, including a 25-8 set win, before fading late. Plus, with wins in three of its final four Landmark games, the only loss of which came to mighty Juniata, Drew seems as if it’s starting to figure itself out at just the right time following a 2-9 start to the season.
Rachwal is one of the Landmark’s better setters, but the Rangers — who ranked second-to-last in the conference in the regular season in team hitting percentage (.113) — have been struck before by their attack stalling out, which can limit Rachwal’s impact. Still, the potential for getting sweet revenge on the Blue Jays following a first meeting against them that it probably should’ve won could give Drew that extra motivation that it needs to put its production into another gear.
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