My deepest and most treasured personal connection to the sport of volleyball comes from the four years I spent as the public address voice for the team at my alma mater, Western Washington University. It was the summer between my first and second years, and I was taking just a couple of rather easy classes for my major. The athletic department put a listing on the website and I figured, what the hell, I’ll give it a shot. I can be a ham when I put my mind to it.
The fun thing about it, looking back, is I went in to interview with the sports information director just a couple of days after giving myself a disastrous haircut that was…well, disastrous, it’s been said. For a good couple of weeks, I wore a hat everywhere I went. I’m not sure what possessed me to do it, but I don’t think the SID (my boss, essentially) ever really knew about it.
After a first season that could be described as solidly good, including a share of the league title and an NCAA tournament berth (albeit first-round exit), our girls were major favorites to win the league title and make some noise in the NCAA tournament. And all pretty much went according to plan. They only lost one match on home court all season, a five-setter to renowned national powerhouse Cal State San Bernardino. Were it not for that one loss, I wonder if we could have been able to host the regional. Our girls pulled out the win over CSUSB in the tournament, to go to the Elite Eight.
If you’re not aware, the Elite Eight is basically the Division II equivalent of the Final Four. Where the Division I tournaments have four regionals with either 8 or 16 teams, which whittle down to a Final Four played at a central site, there are eight regionals of eight teams each in Division II. They’re hosted on the home court of the top seed, and the eight winners then advance to a central site. This year, 2007, that site was Topeka, Kansas, home of one of the eight finalists Washburn University. I don’t know if the site was chosen months in advance or if it was one of the eight finalists who was chosen. I’d rather not know, frankly, and think that we narrowly (randomly?) missed out on hosting.
We had viewing parties on campus, setting up webcasts to project on a big screen. In retrospect it’s remarkable how stable the pictures were. Our team easily dispatched Dowling College, and then did the same for the host Washburn in the national semifinal (this match even had a play-by-play commentator). That left the national championship, the final foe before our school’s name was going in the record book — the Golden Bears of Concordia University-St. Paul.
It didn’t go according to plan for us. Our team lost in four games (as what we now call “sets” were then known), and it stung a little to see another team celebrating what we had come so close to (while I generally abhor the use of “we,” “us,” and “them” when one isn’t actually a member of the sports team, I don’t mind it for one’s alma mater or nation in international competitions such as the Olympics). Particularly as a very close line/out call on the second-to-last point of the match went against us. Particularly as we had 4 outgoing seniors in the starting lineup, it was questionable if and how soon we would be back.
But oh my goodness, did Concordia-St. Paul come back.
Our girls indeed didn’t make it back to the tournament the next year despite a second-place league finish, as all five at-large berths for our region went to teams from the California Collegiate Athletic Association. So I didn’t follow the tournament as closely as I had the year prior, considering that for what I was immediately concerned with, the season was over. I was amused a few weeks later when I saw that Concordia-St. Paul had again won the national crown, defeating Cal State San Bernardino this time to win it. You can see the final point of the tournament here. I had begun to think of CSSB as a rival of some sort (even though, in retrospect, they’re a heavyweight and we just had a couple of good years), so hey, better them than us this year.
That wasn’t it for the Golden Bears, though. Oh, no, not by a long shot. Nor for Cal State San Bernardino, either, though not in a good way for them. The two teams met up yet again in the Elite Eight in 2009 (the way the Division II tournaments work, teams are only ever assigned to one regional, so CSP and CSSB could only possibly meet in the Elite Eight). The team from Minnesota eliminated the team from California 3 sets to 1 in the national semifinals this time, and Concordia-St. Paul won the final match over West Texas A&M in an easy three-set sweep. It completed a perfect 37-0 season, and was the 32nd of those 37 matches won in straight sets. The team did not lose between their first match of 2008 (their only loss that year) and the 2009 national championship. I suspect the streak extended into 2010 a bit, but information on that is not so easy to find.
Did you think the story ended there? I hope not.
The two teams met yet again in 2010, this time in the national quarterfinals (the Elite Eight round itself). Despite a fairly competitive first set, the match went the same way it had in years past, with the team from Minnesota charging ahead. Later in the week, they confirmed their dominance of NCAA Division II with a fourth consecutive national championship. This win came over the Tampa Spartans (the last team other than CSP to win a national championship) in a match that began even and competitive but featured a lopsided 25-10 fourth and final set.
There’s one more year till we’re caught up to the present season. Surely you’ve figured out the pattern by now…
2011. The site of the Elite Eight was San Bernardino, California. Yes, that San Bernardino. CSSB had rattled off an undefeated 30-0 season coming into the national quarterfinals, and they easily advanced to the national championship match. I wonder how big the groan was when it was determined who would be facing them.
For perhaps the first time in their run (and I mean at any time in their run), Concordia-St. Paul probably entered the match as the underdogs. No doubt they belonged in the match, finishing with a share of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference championship for the fifth time and recording three easy straight-sets wins in their regional and another in San Bernardino. The Golden Bears had eliminated the Coyotes of CSSB three straight years, in three different tournament rounds, but they’d never been to their home court. The Coyotes rode a 66-match home winning streak and had to be so hungry to eliminate their nemesis.
The turning point of the match was the second set. After the first set went to CSP fairly easily, the second went well beyond 25 points. The Golden Lions had three set points at 24-21, but didn’t put it away. CSSB then had their own set point at 29-28, but a kill from the Concordia side, an error from San Bernardino, and another kill for the Golden Lions put them one set away from a staggering fifth consecutive national championship. The outcome was never in any real doubt; they took a 25-18 win in the third to sting CSSB for the fourth year in a row.
Think about that — five consecutive national championships. Outgoing seniors came to a team that was just coming off the high of winning a national championship, and they never failed to experience that high themselves. People hold their mouths agape at the seven consecutive national championships and nine in eleven years achieved by John Wooden’s UCLA basketball teams in the 60s and 70s — this school’s run might just be worthy of similar awe.
Because the story may not be over even now. They’re ranked #1 in the 2012 pre-season AVCA national poll, and they’re the overwhelming favorite to win the NSIC again as well. They’ve got quite a ways to go to take the mark for most consecutive NCAA championships. It doesn’t belong to Wooden’s Bruins, oh no no — it belongs to NCAA Division III Kenyon College, who won a stupefying thirty-one consecutive national championshipsin men’s swimming and diving. People who weren’t even born when that streak began probably were married and had children by the time it ended. But who knows how long Concordia’s run will last.
My own school is riding a similar wave of dominance in a somewhat obscure sport — rowing. We’ve won seven consecutive national championships there. Though the London Olympics would tend to disagree with me, I just don’t think of rowing as particularly spectacular (meaning, like a spectacle) or audience-friendly. We don’t have banners above our competitors to show the competition how dominant we are like Concordia does. That’s why Concordia’s streak in volleyball has me so stunned to learn about it and read up. It speaks to amazing recruiting and coaching, as teams have approached them in their conference but they’ve never offset them. And of course it speaks to incredible play on the court. Is there something in the water over there? Only one member of their roster for this season is from outside Minnesota, and she’s from all the way over in Wisconsin.
You may not see any Division II volleyball, this year or ever (though chances are I’ll write about it), but if you do, give a thought to the team that rules the D-II world. This squad has been the guest of two different Minnesota governors, touring the state capital with Tim Pawlenty in 2007 (and since, I’m sure) and actually being the dinner guests of Mark Dayton this past year. They’ve thrown out the first ball at a Minnesota Twins game five years running. They’ve established that they’re a very big deal, and a force to be reckoned with. That kind of juice doesn’t dissipate overnight. If I had to guess, it’ll be years, maybe never, and I’d look for them in the Elite Eight again this season.
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