All the Aces!

We have our second ace-related NCAA record of the season! And it was from a first-year team. Are we living in a simulation?

Dominican serving their way into the record books. | Dominican Athletics

It seems like every time I turn around, I'm either looking up ace statistics or digging into the record books for aces. This year has already produced record-shattering performances on individual, team, conference, and national levels. But wait, there’s more!

Yesterday, another name was added to the record book: Dominican University! This first-year program out of the ECC recorded 30 aces in their sweep of the Yeshiva Maccabees. This ties the record held by Ball State in 2006.¹ I cannot tell you how excited I am for Dominican to hold an NCAA record four matches into their existence. Keep up the strong serving!

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Are we at peak ace?

I hope to unpack aces more in the future, but I think Men's Volleyball is going through a bit of a transformation. Similar to the 3-point revolution in basketball, it would appear that aces are in this season.² This season alone, there have been four individual performances of 9 or more aces in a match. Four matches in the 199 matches that have been played in 2024. This is an absurd pace.

For context, all of last year, there were three such matches from just two players. (Bonus points if you know both players!) This year, all of those performances have been by a different player:

• Ben Harrington (Princeton) - 13

• Louis Sakanoko (Hawaii) - 9

• Hilir Henno (UC Irvine) - 9

• Gavin Tate (Dominican) - 10

Oh yeah, and it is still January!

Looking at the NCAA record book, of the 12 highest team performances (including Dominican yesterday), 7 have happened in the past 3 seasons!

NCAA National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Records

I have some theories for why this might be the case, but I will save that for another post. What do you think is causing the service pressure in men's volleyball?

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Match Recaps

Non-conference

Dominican (62%) def. Yeshiva (38%)
3-0 (25-8, 25-10, 25-15)

Quincy (72%) def. Missouri S&T (28%)
3-0 (25-21, 25-23, 25-15)

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Match Projections

MIVA

Lewis (64%) vs Lindenwood (36%)

Non-conference

UCLA (70%) vs UC Irvine (30%)

UC Santa Barbara (19%) vs Princeton (81%)

Southern California (60%) vs UC San Diego (40%)

Benedict (16%) vs Belmont Abbey (84%)

Dominican (6%) vs Long Island (94%)

St. Thomas Aquinas (15%) vs Sacred Heart (85%)

Grand Canyon (91%) vs Merrimack (9%)

1. For those paying super close attention, this is the same match I mentioned earlier in the season where Ball State had two players with 11 aces each.

2. I recently watched a season of Project Runway, so I'm thinking about things being “in” or “out”. It just happens to work really well for volleyball too.