Men's Volleyball Heads To Midwest This Weekend

Wildcats Set To Face Ball State, Urbana & Lincoln Memorial

2/6/2020 2:30:00 PM

By: By Mike Miranto, Sr. Associate A.D. for External Operations & Communications

MATCH #8 - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8 - 7:00 PM
DAEMEN WILDCATS (3-4) VS. BALL STATE CARDINALS (5-3, 0-0 MIVA)
MUNCIE, IND. (WORTHEN ARENA)

MATCH #9 - SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9 - 12:00 PM
12:00 PM - DAEMEN WILDCATS VS. URBANA BLUE KNIGHTS (0-10)
URBANA, OHIO (WARREN G. GRIMES CENTER)

MATCH #10 - SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9 - 2:00 PM
2:00 PM - DAEMEN WILDCATS VS. LINCOLN MEMORIAL RAILSPLITTERS (5-3)
URBANA, OHIO (WARREN G. GRIMES CENTER)

THE SERVE: 10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THIS WEEK'S MATCHES
1. Daemen heads out for its longest road trip of the season to date with contests this weekend against Ball State, Urbana and Lincoln Memorial. Saturday night's match against Division I affiliate Ball State is a stand-alone contest, followed by Sunday's tri-match which is being hosted by Urbana.

2. Daemen is 3-1 in their last four matches. The Wildcats picked up their first win of the season on Jan. 26, defeating crosstown rival D'Youville in straight sets. They went on to earn wins over Wittenberg (3-1) and Alderson Broaddus (3-0) this past weekend as part of the Daemen Quint-Match. The Wildcats' lone setback of late was a 3-1 final against St. John Fisher on Feb. 1.

3. Daemen is in the midst of just the second season in program history. With a roster comprised entirely of first-year college players, the Wildcats went 6-17 in their inaugural season.

4. Daemen's recent win over Alderson Broaddus featured new program records for hitting percentage (.634) and hitting percentage allowed (-.074) in a single match. The Wildcats powered down 43 kills while committing just four hitting errors in 57 attempts. Defensively, they limited ABU to just nine kills in 54 attempts, and forced 13 errors.

5. Daemen will be seeking their first-ever win against a Division I opponent when meeting Ball State on Saturday night. Daemen is 0-4 all-time against Division I teams with prior losses to St. Francis (Pa.), UCLA, Pepperdine and Harvard.

6. Saturday's match against Urbana marks Daemen's first-ever meeting with the Blue Knights. Urbana is competing in men's volleyball for the first time this season. The Wildcats will be meeting fellow Division II independent Lincoln Memorial for the second time. LMU scored a 3-0 win over the Wildcats at last season's Independent Volleyball Association tournament.

7. Daemen continues to be led by the duo of Zach Schneider and Zach Yerington. Schneider, a freshman outside hitter, has posted two double-doubles this season and leads the Wildcats in total kills (57) and digs (40). Yerington, a graduate transfer from Ohio State, is averaging a team-best 2.94 kills per set. He totaled a season-high 16 kills in the loss to St. john Fisher last weekend.

8. The Wildcats will be facing two of the top offensive players in the country this weekend. Ball State's Kaleb Jenness (3.80 kills/set) ranks 15th and Lincoln Memorial's Evan Cory (4.00 kills/set) ranks 10th among the national leaders in kills per set.

9. Daemen is holding opponents to a .194 hitting percentage this season. They rank 7th in opponent hitting percentage among the 45 NCAA Division I/II teams.

10. This weekend's matches are the first of eight in a row away from home for the Wildcats. Daemen will not play at Lumsden Gymnasium until a Feb. 29 doubleheader vs. nationally-ranked Division III program Wells.

BALL STATE SCOUTING REPORT

Ball State is a member of NCAA Division I and the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.
The Cardinals are led by veteran head coach Joel Walton. Now in his 22nd season at the helm, Walton has led Ball State to a 396-227 overall record and 15 NCAA tournament berths.
Ball State's 19-player roster includes 15 returning players who helped the Cardinals to a 15-15 record in 2019.
The Cardinals were picked sixth out of eight teams in the MIVA preseason poll and have opened the season with five wins in their first eight contests, including a 3-0 sweep of No. 7 Penn State.
Senior outside hitter Matt Szews headlines the Ball State roster after earning First Team All-MIVA honors last season. Szews is hitting .246 and averaging 2.96 kills per set this season. The Wisconsin native notched a season-high 18 kills in a five-set win over Cal State Northridge on Jan. 17.
Sophomore outside hitter Kaleb Jenness, a MIVA All-Freshman Team selection last season, is leading the Cardinals in total kills (95) and kills per set (3.80) this season. Jenness has topped 20 kills twice this season, including 26 in a five-set loss to nationally-ranked George Mason on Jan. 23.
Junior setter Quinn Isaacson is running the Cardinal offense, averaging 9.29 assists per set.

SERIES HISTORY VS. BALL STATE
All-Time Series: 0-0
At Ball State: 0-0
Current Streak: N/A
Last Meeting: N/A

URBANA SCOUTING REPORT

Urbana is an independent member of NCAA Division II. The program is in its inaugural season.
The Blue Knights are led by head coach Andrew Palmer. The Illinois native spent the 2019 season as an assistant and interim head coach at Division III Aurora where he helped the Spartans to a 12-14 record in their inaugural season.
The first-year program is still searching for its first win. They'll head into a busy stretch (four matches from Thursday to Sunday) with an 0-10 record thus far. Among the results are setbacks against Ohio State (3-0), No. 7 Lewis (3-0) and No. 15 Loyola (3-0).
Freshman outside hitter Jack Brinkman is pacing the Urbana attackers, averaging 3.03 kills per set (ranks 39th among the national leaders). Brinkman registered a season-high 18 kills in a five-set loss to Wittenberg on Jan. 14.
Additional offensive production is coming from Tyler Chavez (2.41 kills/set), Sam Hargett (2.29 kills/set) and Chaz Hafer (8.35 assists/set).

SERIES HISTORY VS. URBANA
All-Time Series: 0-0
At Urbana: 0-0
Current Streak: N/A
Last Meeting: N/A

LINCOLN MEMORIAL SCOUTING REPORT

Lincoln Memorial is an independent member of NCAA Division II.
The Railsplitters are led by third-year head coach John Cash who holds a 37-23 overall record with the program. Cash led the team to a program-record 18 wins and an Independent Volleyball Association championship last season.
LMU returns 12 players from their 2019 team, including senior Evan Cory who averaged a team-high 4.04 kills per set last season. He ranked eighth among the Division I/II leaders in kills per set.
The Railsplitters have won five of their first eight contests this season, inlcuding the last two in a row (3-2 vs. St. Francis [Pa.], 3-0 vs. Belmont Abbey). Two of their defeats have come against No. 15 Ohio State and No. 1 Hawaii.
Cory is once again averaging 4.00 kills per set, ranking 10th among the national leaders. He's being backed up by sophomore Johansen Negron who's averaging 2.07 kills per set.
Junior A.J. Risavy is handling the setting duties and posting 8.88 assists per set.

SERIES HISTORY VS. LINCOLN MEMORIAL
All-Time Series: 0-1
At Neutral Site: 0-0
Current Streak: Lincoln Memorial won 1
Last Meeting: Lincoln Memorial 3, Daemen 0 (25-16, 25-16, 25-13) | Apr. 12, 2019 | at Harrogate, Tenn.

THE DAPPER DON
Don Gleason was named the first head men's volleyball coach at Daemen on May 5, 2017, the same day that the establishment of the program was announced. Gleason brings a wealth of experience to the position, including previous coaching stops at Stony Brook, Buffalo, Yale, Southern California and Medaille. In addition to his coaching responsibilities with the men's program, Gleason has served as an assistant coach with the Daemen women's team for the past four seasons, helping them to a pair of NCAA tournament berths. In the men's inaugural season, Gleason guided a group entirely comprised of first-year college players to a 6-17 overall record. His first head coaching victory came in the program's first-ever match - a 3-2 defeat of Alderson Broaddus on Jan. 11 at the Red Flash Invitational hosted by St. Francis (Pa.).

COMPLIMENTS FROM A GIANT IN THE GAME
In a recent interview on The Jerry Sullivan Show (1270 The Fan), UCLA and U.S. Men's National Team coach John Speraw had some very complimentary things to about Daemen head coach Don Gleason. Speraw said, "He's really been incredibly thorough about everything in terms of how he's growing it, how he really worked hard at Daemen to make it happen, obviously now how he's going out recruiting... he's out working hard so I'm guessing they're going to be good quick. He's a good coach and he's working it."

STIFF TESTS
Daemen's first three regular season contests of 2020 came against some of the top programs in the country. In addition to hosting 19-time national champion and No. 2-ranked UCLA in their season opener, Daemen also welcomed 2019 national semifinalist Pepperdine (Jan. 14) and Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association fixture Harvard (Jan. 16) to Lumsden Gymnasium, all in the first three weeks of January. Pepperdine is the defending champion of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, and came in as the No. 8 ranked team in the AVCA Division I-II national poll. Harvard came in with six top-four finishes in the last eight seasons within the EIVA. In addition, Daemen will face Division I opponents Ball State (away, Feb. 8), St. Francis-Brooklyn (home, Mar. 7; away, Apr. 3) and St. Francis (Pa.) (away, Mar. 27) this season.

THE FRESHMAN EXPERIENCE
Competing in the program's inaugural season in 2019, Daemen fielded a nine-man roster comprised entirely of first-year college players. The Wildcats posted a 6-17 overall record in 2019. The first match in program history resulted in a win - a 3-2 defeat of Alderson Broaddus on Jan. 11. The Wildcats went on to add a pair of wins over crosstown rival Medaille, as well as single defeats of Lasell, D'Youville and Vassar. They closed the campaign by competing in the Independent Volleyball Association Tournament hosted by Lincoln Memorial in The Volunteer State. Eight players, including all six starters and the team's top libero, return to the mix in 2020.

WINK, WINK
Sophomore right-side/middle hitter Jahari Winkfield headlines Daemen's group of returners. The 6-foot-4 Illinois native led Daemen with 222 kills and 2.81 kills per set in 2019, and was the lone Wildcat to be named to the Off the Block All-Independent Team. Winkfield reached 10 kills in 10 matches last season, including three with 20 or more. He tallied a career-high 21 kills in a five-set loss to Misericordia.

ASSIST MAN
Sophomore setter Michael Krueger returns to the fold after handling the bulk of setting duties as a rookie in 2019. Krueger totaled 667 assists last season, good for an 8.04 assists-per-set average. He topped 40 assists in four matches last season, including a season-high 47 while making his collegiate debut in a 3-2 defeat of Alderson Broaddus. He also led the team in total digs (150) and digs per set (1.81), and ranked second on the team in service aces (19). Krueger notched three double-doubles in 2019, including 43 assists and 14 digs in a four-set win over D'Youville.

GETTING DEFENSIVE
Sophomore defensive specialist Jaden Gillette totaled 134 digs and averaged 1.79 digs per set while appearing in all 23 matches in 2019. Those efforts have him being mentioned alongside some of the top defensive players in the country as he was recently named to Off the Block's Erik Shoji Award Watch List. The award is given annually to the top libero competing within NCAA Division I-II.

BOLSTERING THE ROSTER
The Wildcats' roster depth should be far greater in year two as head coach Don Gleason has added nine newcomers to the fold. Among the new faces is graduate transfer Zach Yerington, a 6-foot-5, 205-pound right-side hitter who helped Ohio State to national championships in 2016 and 2017. A Western New York native, Yerington was a two-time All-State player during his scholastic days at Hamburg High School.

LATE ADD
Daemen's 2020 roster was further bolstered with the addition of outside hitter Zach Schneider who inked a letter of intent in November. Schneider is a 6-foot-6 outside hitter who earned numerous accolades over the last several years while competing at Lockport High School in nearby Niagara County. Schneider was originally committed to defending national champion Long Beach State, but opted to re-open his recruitment during the fall semester, ultimately landing here with the Wildcats.

NEXT SERVE
The Wildcats will play three matches at the Wells Classic Tournament on Feb. 14-15.

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