Oct. 24, 2005
AVCA Poll in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
After a pair of sweeps in conference play over the weekend to extend its current winning streak to 11 matches, the University of Notre Dame women’s volleyball team (18-1, 8-0) rose two spots to #7 in this week’s CSTV/AVCA Division I Coaches Poll, released on Monday by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. It matches the highest-ever listing for the Irish in the poll, first accomplished on Sept. 19, 1995. ND will defend that ranking quickly, when it challenges #6 Louisville (20-0, 8-0) on Saturday at 2 p.m. (EST/CDT) in the first matchup of top-10 volleyball teams in the Joyce Center since 1996.
Notre Dame began the season as the second team receiving votes outside of the AVCA top 25. An upset of #11 Texas on Sept. 3 propelled the Irish to 19th, and wins over #8 USC and #6 Florida the following week saw ND move up to eighth. The lone Notre Dame defeat of the season – a five-game affair (20-18 in the fifth) with LSU on Sept. 17 – dropped the Irish back down to 11th, but they have edged upwards since then. Notre Dame also moved up two spots to a season-high eighth in the Molten/Volleyball magazine poll on Monday.
In 1995, the Irish began the season with eight consecutive victories, including an upset of #9 USC, to move up from their preseason ranking of 11th to seventh in mid-September. Notre Dame lost its next match, a four-game affair at home against #17 Texas, and fell to 10th in the next poll. The Irish finished that season with a 27-7 record and ranked 14th after falling in the round of 16 of the NCAA tournament.
Notre Dame benefited this week from losses by the two teams immediately ahead of it in last week’s poll. Then-#7 Wisconsin lost in five games to unranked Michigan (which ND beat 3-0 in the season opener) on Saturday, which also saw then-#8 Arizona fall in four games to #19 USC (which ND beat 3-1 on Sept. 9).
The top six of the poll remained unchanged this week: Nebraska (19-0, 55 first-place votes), Washington (18-0, five first-place votes), Penn State (19-2), Florida (20-1), defending NCAA champion Stanford (18-3), and Louisville (20-0). Rounding out the top 10 are Missouri (15-2), Arizona (15-3), and Hawai’i (15-6). The Cardinals and Irish have combined to make this season the first in which multiple BIG EAST teams have been ranked at the same time, let alone in the top 10. ND has now been in the top 10 of the AVCA poll on 14 occasions.
Since being ranked for the first time in the preseason of 1992, the Irish have been listed in the AVCA top 25 at some point in every season except for one (1999). In all, Notre Dame has been ranked in 128 of the 207 polls since then (62%). Only 20 schools have been ranked on more occasions than the Irish since the AVCA rankings debuted in 1982, and just 16 have been in more polls since the commencement of the 1992 campaign.
Four of Notre Dame’s 2005 opponents – #4 Florida, #6 Louisville, #14 Texas, and #17 Southern California – are also in the top 20, while Tennessee is receiving votes (listed 32nd).
The volleyball team is one of five Irish squads currently listed among the top 10 in the nation, joining women’s cross country (4th), men’s cross country (5th), women’s soccer (6th), and football (9th).
Voting by 60 Division I head coaches – including Notre Dame’s Debbie Brown – determines the CSTV/AVCA Division I Coaches Top 25.