All Hail the New Ace Prince(ton)
A new entry was made in the NCAA record book yesterday as Princeton's Ben Harrington collected a baker's dozen of aces.
Today is a perfect example of why even "slow" volleyball days can be exciting. Princeton opened their season with a decisive 3-0 victory over Queens University. Queens moved from the IVA to the MIVA this season and were welcomed by becoming part of NCAA history.
Ben Harrington, Princeton pin-hitter, piled up 13 aces in only three sets! Eight of those thirteen aces came in the third and final set. Harrington now holds the NCAA record for most aces in a match in the rally scoring era (2001-present), regardless of the number of sets. This shouldn’t be too surprising, as Harrington finished the 2023 season 3rd in the nation in Aces/set with 0.684.
The previous NCAA record for a 3-set match was 11 aces held by three separate players. The really fun part is that two of those players set that record on the same day, in the same match, and on the same team! On February 7, 2006, Ball State defeated Central State 3-0 (30-2, 30-5, 30-6). In a match that only 59 people attended, Matt McCarthy and Mark Termion had 11 aces each for the Cardinals. I know it is only one match into the season for Princeton, but the single-season record for aces is held by Curtis Abram of Emmanuel University. In 2011, he had 100 aces! Harrington “only” needs 87 more.1
Aces in 2023
Since we are talking about aces today, I decided to look quickly at aces in the 2023 season. Unsurprisingly, Princeton led the way. The Ben Harrington effect is real! The EIVA stands out since they had the only two programs with over two aces per set last season. A lot of ink was spilled on the serving (and service errors) of eventual champion UCLA last season. Seeing them in the third spot makes a lot of sense. Seeing Charleston near the bottom though is suprising given the great season they had. I would love to know what surprised you (or didn’t) in this list.
If you are anything like me, you might be wondering if aces per set was actually correlated to winning. The short answer is no, not in the aggregate. If you simply map a team's aces per set against their winning percentage, the correlation is low. In terms of R-squared, it is only 0.3. I don't think this tells the entire story though. If I had more data (and time), looking at how aces (and service errors) impact individual matches would be interesting, especially taking into account the strength of the opponent. Alas, there is only so much time (and access to data).
Match Recaps
Non-conference
Princeton (60%) def. Queens (40%)
3-0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-20)
Stanford (54%) def. Loyola Chicago (46%)
3-2 (25-21, 25-17, 18-25, 25-27, 15-12)
Ohio State (84%) def. Saint Francis (16%)
3-1 (26-28, 25-20, 25-15, 25-18)
Match Projections
IVA
Thomas More (4%) vs Lincoln Memorial (96%)
First conference matchup of the year!
Non-conference
George Mason (20%) vs UC Irvine (80%)
Princeton (67%) vs Queens (33%)
At this (very unsustainable) rate, he will have the record before the end of January.
Abram had an incredible arm and played at the Division III Emmanuel in MA. The question for many would be who is the most dominant from behind the serving line. Let's see how this develops this year.