Iowa High School Volleyball Coverage
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Hard to believe we are already moving to the postseason, but 2A & 1A first-round kicks off tonight, with 5A, 4A & 3A starting tomorrow night.
The IGHSAU will be releasing their final regular season rankings later today. These are the rankings that will be used for seeding at the State Tournament.
Here are our final regular season rankings for 5A & 4A.
Tomorrow is the day for volleyball fans across the state!! The IGHSAU will be releasing the regional pairings for postseason play with the YouTube release show at 3:45p and the brackets posted to Bound at 4:00p. As such, we are doing something we haven’t done before and posting our projected regional pairings. We are only posting what we believe the IGHSAU will have for the projected REGIONAL FINAL ROUND and not any of the prior rounds. Disclaimer: this doesn’t mean this is how we would draw it up, nor does it mean that we believe all of these teams will necessarily make it to the regional final round. So, this is for entertainment purposes only (although this should be pretty close).
Here’s 5A & 4A. The way you read this, is for example we have Waukee Northwest vs Waukee in the region 1 final, DCG vs Iowa City High in the region 2 final, etc.
Continuing with our Power Grids for 3A, 2A & 1A:
3A: Western Christian and CPU are the only 3A schools without a loss to teams outside of the top 30. The difference however, is that Western Christian is 6-3 against the top 30 while CPU is 1-7. DNH has played 17 of their 24 matches against top 60 schools (10-7 record).
2A: Hinton’s record against the top 100 is impressive at 8-1, but there are two other things that stick out here. 1) Grundy Center has played 19 matches against top 100 schools and Denver has played 20, very challenging schedules for both. 2) Riverside is on the other end of the spectrum having played only 2 matches against top 100 schools. Riverside has had a strong program for the last handful of years or so, but they seemingly always come into postseason having only faced the local competition in SW Iowa. I’m not sure that fully prepares them for what they end up facing late in the 2A postseason.
1A: The entire class of 1A has 7 wins over top 50 schools, and 5 of those 7 wins have come from Ankeny Christian. Besides Ankeny Christian, Janesville is the only other 1A school with a winning record against the top 100, Ankeny Christian is 8-1 and Janesville is 7-6.
We are posting what we call our Power Grids. This is a different way of looking at the rankings and strength of schedule. Below are those grids for 5A & 4A along with a comment or two for each class:
5A: Yes, DCG is the only undefeated 5A program, but they have played the fewest matches against top 25 schools out of all of the 15 ranked schools. How is this going to play out in the postseason? Hard to say, but we may have an indication this weekend, as DCG and Waukee Northwest are both competing in the Urbandale tournament. Needless to say, if they play each other, the winner will get the overall #1 seed in 5A when the pairings are released next Thursday.
4A: Assumption is the only 4A school with more than 2 wins against top 25 schools. Sioux Center & Assumption are the only 2 4A schools without a loss outside of the top 25. Also, Assumption, Western Dubuque and Norwalk are the only 3 4A schools with a winning record against the top 50.
Some huge matchups slated for tonight with what could be big implications on post season seeding!
Let’s start with 3A, where #1 Western Christian travels to #6 MOC-Floyd Valley, looking to avenge a loss from Saturday at the Sanford Pentagon Invitational in which MOC won relatively easily 25-16 & 25-14. A win by MOC would certainly shake up the rankings and seedings next week.
#5 Center Point-Urbana plays at 4A #6 Marion in what is always a great WaMaC contest.
#2 Dike-New Hartford visits 2A #8 Aplington-Parkersburg in a battle of two hot teams. AP has won 7 in a row while DNH has won 12 out of their last 13.
We have 3 big matches in 5A as #5 Centennial plays at #1 Waukee Northwest, #10 Valley is at #12 Johnston, and in what could be the best match of the night, #4 Ankeny visits #3 Dowling.
Too many other big matches to list, but it’s important to note that we are down to 9 days until postseason pairings are released, so a final week of contests to make a push to improve your seeding.
Let’s go!!
Western Christian gets a big win at MOC-Floyd Valley 3-2, with this win getting the Wolfpack pretty close to locking up the 1 seed in 3A.
CPU with an impressive sweep at Marion!
How about Aplington-Parkersburg taking down 3A #2 Dike-New Hartford 3-2! DNH’s first loss this season to a non 5A or 4A school.
In 5A action Waukee Northwest sweeps Ankeny Centennial; Ankeny with a huge road win over #3 Dowling 3-1, and in the match of the night Johnston takes a 2-1 lead over Valley, loses a hard fought set 4 23-25, and then rallies to take set 5 15-13.
Another great night of Iowa High School volleyball. We are now only two weeks away from the release of postseason pairings so schools now have limited opportunities to move the needle. A few notable results from tonight’s action:
- 1A #5 Wapsie Valley wins 3 matches, including victories over 1A #13 Saint Ansgar and a huge win over 1A #2 Janesville. This win will likely have postseason seed implications.
- 5A #1 Waukee Northwest sweeps 5A #4 Ankeny. The Wolves look like the #1 seed heading into the postseason.
- 2A #13 Regina Catholic with a 3-1 win at 2A # 7 Hudson. Regina trying to right the ship after a tough 1-6 stretch over the last 2 weeks.
- 4A #1 Assumption with three huge wins over 3A #2 Dike-New Hartford, 5A #15 Iowa City High and 5A #7 Iowa City Liberty.
- 2A #2 Grundy Center with a couple of wins at Grinnell including a win over 4A #14 Grinnell. Grundy Center moves to 23-2 on the season, with their only losses coming against 2A #3 Union Community, a loss that they avenged last weekend with a 2 set sweep, and a 2-1 loss to 1A #1 Ankeny Christian.
We have a lot of great tournament action coming up this weekend that we are really looking forward to!
Iowa High School volleyball, you gotta love it!! ❤️
