Monday, March 9, 2015 7:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago

That's no typo, and it's not just MIVA seedings. That's the #1 team in the national rankings against #2 (at least before the next AVCA rankings are released on Monday). Loyola has won 40 consecutive matches dating back to January 2014. Lewis has won 14 of 15 matches this season-- including an impressive 3-0 win at UC Irvine (currently #3, with one first place vote)-- and their only loss was in five sets vs. BYU (currently #4, with one first place vote).

Except for the loss to BYU in Palo Alto, the Flyers have mostly sailed through their schedule, sweeping 10 of their 15 matches and only being forced to 5 sets once. The one time was the BYU loss, when the Flyers nearly came back from an 0-2 deficit. Lewis' senior OH Geoff Powell is on his way to another All America season, and the rest of the team is very deep and highly experienced (three seniors, two juniors, and one sophomore in their starting lineup). Twelve different Flyers have appeared in 10 or more sets this season.

The Ramblers are adjusting to a new starting lineup this season, and are dealing with a foot injury to junior MH Nick Olson. Without Olson-- the only Loyola player to play every set last season-- the Ramblers start one senior (Cody Caldwell), two juniors (Thomas Jaeschke, Peter Hutz), a sophomore (Owen McAndrews), and two freshmen (Ben Plaisted, Jeff Jendryk). One of the biggest adjustments the defending champs have dealt with is the missing leadership of Joe Smalzer, who was a steadying presence and a great server.

Loyola has really struggled with its service this season, committing 193 service errors in 44 sets played. That's 4.39 service errors per set this year as opposed to 3.58 per set last season. Lewis, by comparison, has only committed 169 service errors in 51 sets (3.31 per set). Last year the Ramblers had a .48 aces to errors ratio, while this year it's only .39 thus far. The Flyers have a .46 ratio this season.

The Loyola bench is also much thinner this season, as only nine players have played in 10 or more sets, and Olson's injury may leave the Ramblers with only eight tested players available. Meanwhile, Lewis has 12 players seeing significant court appearances and 16 players that have registered a kill this season.

Home court advantage, a big crowd, and a week off for rest might be just be enough to push the Ramblers through to victory, but Lewis will be a very tough matchup for Loyola in the first ever MIVA conference match between #1 and #2.

Loyola match notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... 309aaa.pdf

Lewis match notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... a_lewi.pdf

Streaming video: ESPN3 (http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/id ... la-Chicago)

Along with trying to replace Smalzer's leadership is replacing Peter Jasaitis' leadership. He was seemingly the most amped up player and a team captain on the court.

Lewis wins in 4, 25-21, 22-25, 25-22, 29-27, breaking Loyola's 40 match winning streak. The Ramblers were without Owen McAndrews, who was wearing a soft boot.

Tough loss, but 40 wins in a row and a national championship has been fantastic!

I generally do not like to speculate on "What if?" questions but I did notice that Owen McAndrew was on the bench and had a soft boot on.
I have to believe that he would have been a difference maker.
Lewis kept killing us on the side as our two blockers could not deflect back the spike kill.
Still a very entertaining match with a good crowd.
I thought though there would be more fans there and I was disappointed it was not a sell out.

There is really a 3 way log-jam for the two middle positions. Jeff Jendryk has been a solid add to the middle position this year. Owen was hurt but Nick Olson was back last night. He had been in a boot for the past several weeks. Offensively he was fine last night if he was rusty. The block was okay. He had 4 blocks and several touches. Lewis has two excellent hitters on the outside in Petty and Powell so props to them. Loyola lost the match on serve and serve receive which is their bread and butter. Lewis, to their credit, served tough. Despite this, Loyola was still able to hit over .300 and outhit Lewis. They won every other category in offense but had poorly timed service errors and serve receive errors. A two point swing means a lot and Loyola was at the wrong end of that late in sets. The 4th set was atrocious with the service errors. They had a chance and couldn't make Lewis play the ball.

Caldwell looked well under 100%. His approach seemed off but had a lot of good tools off the block. However, he was not swinging hard nor did he run many back row attacks. He went to a float serve and was even taken out for Trevor Novotny midway through the 4th while Loyola was down 2-1. I was telling my friend last night that without Smalzer, if Caldwell goes, so does Loyola (patting myself on the back). We all know what Jaeschke can do and he had a nice double double last night. Ben Plaisted had his first real test and had a bunch of errors hitting and serving. We're only midway through the season. Loyola just needs to get healthy for the stretch run and the next Lewis match.