Men's Volleyball Opens Up 2017 Campaign With Three-Win Weekend

The Tigers opened up tournament play with back-to-back 3-0 wins on Friday night against HIlbert and Lincoln Memorial to kick off the festivities.

Men's Volleyball Opens Up 2017 Campaign With Three-Win Weekend
January 21, 2017
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SPRINGFIELD, Ohio—Wittenberg men's volleyball opened up their second campaign as a varsity sport with the second annual Jim Coleman Invitational. Wittenberg alongside Division II Lincoln Memorial and NAIA Cincinnati Christian University, welcomed a field of Division III talent that included Southern Virginia, Penn State-Altoona, Hilbert and Mount Saint Joseph to Pam Evans Smith Arena. Wittenberg rounded out the weekend going 3-1, with their lone match loss coming to Penn State-Altoona in the final match of the Tournament. 

 Jim Coleman was inducted into Wittenberg's athletic hall of honor based on a career which started in Springfield as a child and blossomed during his four years as a student at Wittenberg. After he was introduced to the sport of volleyball during his formative years, Coleman brought it to Wittenberg as a student and later as a professor at the university.
 
    Married to Lee Doellman Coleman, class of 1958 and a 1988 inductee into Wittenberg's Athletics Hall of Honor, Jim Coleman served three stints as the United States National Team's head coach and was involved in the program through most of a 35-year span.
 
Coaching in seven Olympic Games, and helping the USA Men's Volleyball team to gold medals in 1984 and 1988, Coleman is credited with visionary leadership in the sport itself, teaming with his wife to create statistical systems and the net antennae used in today's competition.

     Coleman was one of the founders of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) in 1961, a league that now features some of the top NCAA Division I intercollegiate men's programs in the country. Wittenberg competed in the MIVA in 1961 and 1962 before Coleman moved on to the first of several NCAA Division I college coaching positions."

TOURNAMENT NOTES

  • The Tigers opened up tournament play with back-to-back 3-0 wins on Friday night against HIlbert and Lincoln Memorial to kick off the festivities.  
  • After dropping the first set on Saturday to Southern Virginia, Wittenberg managed to come roaring back and handle the Knights 3-1.
  • The final match of the evening, as well as the tournament, featured the Tigers and the Lions of Penn State-Altoona, while the Tigers ran out of gas at the end, falling 3-1.
  • Wittenberg leaves there first four matches with a team hitting-percentage of .202, while Dylan Kolovitz leads the Tigers with 40 kills on the young season.
  • Joel Sotos leads the Tigers with 3.13 kills per-set, as the southpaw is currently slugging .250 percent through the four matches.
  • Ross Russell progressed each game of the tournament, posting games in succession of 25, 31, 34, and 42 assists, landing the sophomore on the All-Tournament Team.
  • As a team, the Tigers are averaging 10.93 kills per-set, 9.86 assists per-set, and 2.14 aces per-set.

ALL TOURNAMENT TEAM

  • Lincoln Memorial- Pedro Carvalho
  • Mount Saint Joseph- Darrell Swanson 
  • Cincinnati Christian University- Logan Webber
  • Hilbert- Michael Podgorny
  • Southen Virginia University- Daniel Aina 
  • Penn State-Altoona- Jacob Byers
  • Wittenberg- Ross Russell