Updated Team Rankings for Monday, Oct. 7
Never underestimate what the power of playing exceptional volleyball on a weekend can do for turning your season around, and turning the Class A rankings into an absolute mess. Heading into last weekend’s Lincoln Northeast Invitational, Omaha Marian was sitting…
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Continue ReadingNever underestimate what the power of playing exceptional volleyball on a weekend can do for turning your season around, and turning the Class A rankings into an absolute mess.
Heading into last weekend’s Lincoln Northeast Invitational, Omaha Marian was sitting at 9-8 on the season and had gone 3-5 in its last eight matches, was in a precarious wild-card situation and was facing a daunting schedule. But, on Friday and Saturday, Omaha Marian put it all together, winning the tournament title and scoring some major wild card points in the process.
The Crusaders went from roughly 13th to 8th in NSAA wild card points, taking it from having to play someone like Papillion-LaVista or Elkhorn South in a district final to being one spot short of securing home court in a district tournament. In the process, though, Marian also made a mess of the Class A rankings. That, however, has been the norm this season as we continue to see the balance and depth across the state’s largest class.
Undefeated Papillion-LaVista has been the only Class A team to stay above the fray so far. But, we’ve gotten to the point where teams #2-#10 are pretty interchangeable and it just depends on who is hot on a given night. So, in Class A, instead of constantly moving teams around to try and match what happened in the past week, I’m now just going to rank the teams based on the team’s ability to win the state title – based on my viewpoint. It’s about the only fair way to do it considering everyone is beating everyone and not separating themselves aside from Papio.
In Class B, the switch has been made to put Skutt at #1, replacing #2 Waverly. As I mentioned from the outset, Waverly was the best team to start the year due in equal part to the fact that the Vikings are incredibly talented and that Nebraska recruit Lindsay Krause was not with Skutt to start the year. As I stated then, things would be reevaluated once she returned. Now that Krause is back, it obviously makes a huge difference as evidenced by the Skyhawks taking second in the Asics Challenge in Chicago, knocking off national power Louisville Assumption in the semifinals. Waverly, however, showed this past weekend that it is still a very legitimate threat to Skutt with its third-place finish at the Lincoln Northeast Invite.
Wahoo defeated Lincoln Lutheran in the Ashland-Greenwood Invite title match over the weekend in a rematch from last year’s C1 state final, but St. Paul continues to have a strong-hold on the top spot. Shout out to Norfolk Catholic for an outstanding weekend and it makes it into the rankings.
Not really sure what to do with the top of the Class C2 rankings. Hastings St. Cecilia has beaten Grand Island Central Catholic twice. Grand Island CC beat Superior. Superior beat Hastings St. Cecilia. It looks like those three are pretty equal at the top, but I’m sticking with Hastings St. Cecilia at the top – for now. Both Hastings St. Cecilia and Grand Island CC will be heavily tested this week with the Centennial Conference tournament.
Diller-Odell is still the class of D1, but don’t sleep on Pleasanton and Overton. Wynot suffered its first loss in falling 3-1 to Omaha Concordia over the weekend, but the Blue Devils showed me something in that match and remain on top in D2.
Here are the links to each of the rankings.