Trinity Volleyball Tabbed Favorites in 2024 SCAC Coaches' Poll

SUWANEE, Ga. -- In exclusive balloting by the league’s head coaches, defending SCAC regular season and tournament champion Trinity University is the preseason favorite to win the 2024 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference women’s volleyball title.

Trinity received 10 of a possible 11 first-place votes to total 120 points in the preseason balloting. 

Last year, after winning their third conference tournament title in the last five years, the Tigers (31-5 overall; 15-1 SCAC), who finished the season ranked eighth in the final AVCA Coaches Poll, advanced to the NCAA Division III quarterfinals before falling to Juniata College, 3-1, in a rematch of the national championship contest from 2022. 

Heading into the 2024 campaign, in what will be Trinity's final season in the SCAC, the program seeks its 22nd conference title and will lean heavily on a couple of returning all-Americans in its efforts to secure that championship. Mackenzie Logan, a fifth-year senior outside hitter and the defending SCAC Player-of-the-Year, is back after leading the conference in kills per set (3.70) and finishing second in total kills (374). Middle blocker Maddie Fate, also a fifth-year senior, led the SCAC last season in hitting percentage (.403) and both total blocks (138) and blocks per set (1.16). Her .403 hitting percentage was the ninth-best in conference history for a single season and the highest since Austin College's Rebekah Bowden hit .404 in 2015.

A mainstay on the sidelines since 1991, head coach Julie Jenkins moved up to second on the NCAA Division III career victories list last season and was named the AVCA Regional Coach of the Year in addition to heading the 2023 SCAC Coaching Staff of the Year alongside assistant coaches Maggi Linker and Brad Bulycz. Jenkins, whose teams have won 30 or more matches in 21 different seasons, has amassed a career mark of 1080-435 (.713), which includes an incredible 400-39 (.920) in conference play, making her the only coach in any sport in conference history to have accumulated 400+ conference wins.

Following Trinity in the preseason coaches' vote was Colorado College with 102 points and the last remaining first place vote. The CC Tigers, which have made 13 NCAA tournament appearances since 2008, finished as the SCAC Tournament runner-up last season. Junior outside hitter Carolyn Dormady, a second team all-SCAC selection last season after posting 331 kills (3.06 kills per set), is back to lead the Tigers. Following in third in the preseason balloting was Texas Lutheran University, which garnered 92 points from the coaches. The Bulldogs, who are just a year removed from earning the 2022 conference tournament title, return first team all-SCAC setter/outside hitter Shavonne Respondek, who finished sixth in the conference in both assists per set (5.16) and digs per set (4.69). 

Coming in fourth in the preseason poll was University of St. Thomas with 83 total points, followed closely by Southwestern University at fifth with 78 points and Schreiner University in sixth with 72 points. All three, along with Trinity, Colorado College and Texas Lutheran, qualified for last year's SCAC conference tournament.

Just outside the top six was Austin College, who was seventh with 60 points.

Rounding out the 2024 SCAC Volleyball preseason poll was University of Dallas in eighth with 38 points, followed by a couple of conference newcomers - McMurry University and Concordia University (Texas), who totaled 32 and 30 points, respectively, to come in at ninth and 10th. Centenary College, who will be led by first-year head coach Kayla Black, was 11th with 19 points.

The 2024 SCAC volleyball season is set to tip off with non-conference action on Friday, August 30, while the first SCAC regular season weekend is scheduled for Friday, September 20.

The league has adopted a change in format this season as teams will be divided into divisions and the top eight teams will qualify for the postseason conference tournament. Austin College, Centenary, Colorado College, Dallas, McMurry and St. Thomas will comprise the Blue Division and Concordia (Texas), Schreiner, Southwestern, Texas Lutheran and Trinity will make up the Gold Division. Teams within their division will play a double round robin, teams outside of their division will play a single round robin, giving Blue Division teams a 15-game conference schedule and Gold Division teams a 14-game schedule.  

Following the completion of the regular season, the top three teams from each division, plus the next two best conference records (regardless of division), will compete in a single-elimination tournament, November 15 and 16, to determine the conference's automatic qualifier into the NCAA Tournament. Austin College and University of Dallas will both host quarterfinal matches on Friday, followed by both of Friday's semifinal matches as well as Saturday's championship match contested at Austin College.