The Greeks of America continue their championship quests, fully committed to hard work and in laser-focused mode, during an extremely successful week with 5 wins in 5 matches. Recording the first double-double of the year with 14 kills and 11 digs, Angelos Mandilaris has significantly helped Ball State to an incredible 11-2 record! Traveling further west, in beautiful Hawaii, the amazing duo Chakas-Mouchlias raised the Rainbows to number 3 in the national rankings, whilst breaking records again! Meanwhile, in volley-loving California, after his great performance last week, Kalagasidis was named setter of the week in the CalPac conference! He also had a new season high in kills and with the rest of his Red Hawks teammates they clinched the perfect 4-0!
February is progressing with very good outings from the Greek volleyball youngsters, who raised the bar even higher. Starting with the incredible Hawaiian duo, Mouchlias was the 1st scorer in 3 matches and Hakas in 1, adding 5 more dubs! New personal records in total blocks for Kagialis with 7, Chakas with 5 and Mandilaris with 4! In fact, the outside Chakas recorded two more personal highs of 5 assists and 6 digs! More details below:
Another strong week for the boys with new personal records. Starting with the Greeks of Hawaii, where they had new season and personal highs with 21 kills and 10 digs for Mouchlias and 15 kills for Chakas. A few days later, Chakas set another new record for aces with 7! Season and personal high for Kalagasidis with 51 assists in the big victory against HIU! Gkitersos also made his first appearance with the new team!
Dimitris Mouchlias & Spyros Chakas 2022 started off the right way for Mouchlias and Chakas’ Hawaii University! With 4 wins in 4 matches, the Rainbow Warriors are preparing for their regular season by playing with teams outside their conference. The Greeks of Hawaii started very dynamically, with incredible stats recording two wins against Loyola (3-0, 3-1). Overall in both matches, Mouchlias had 20 [9-11] kills, 1 assists, 1 ace, 7 [3-4] blocks and 13 [7-6] digs and Chakas had 11 [8-3] kills, 1 assist, 1 ace, 4 [2-2] blocks and 4 digs. HU then welcomed Edward Waters at their home gym on January 14th and 16th. The Warriors were bad hosts, as they literally swept them in 3 sets in both matches, with all the players of the team getting playing time. Overall, Mouchlias had 7 kills, 2 blocks, 2 digs and Chakas had 12 kills, 2 blocks and 4 digs.
The first week of the year started well for international girls, especially for Elena Tsineke from the University of South Florida (11-4,1-0 AAC), who had an amazing performance against Cincinnati (7-6,0-1 AAC). The USF Bulls landed the win with a score of 61-46. She played a full 40 (!) minutes having 9-20 FGs, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 21 total points. In a way, Elena just picked up from where she left 2021; during her last game before the start of the American Conference, against Jacksonville, she scored another 22 points, shooting 8/14 FGs, 3/5 3s, 3/3 FTs, and adding 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals with no turnovers!
It’s back to business in full force for Ioanna Krimili, who has returned with a vengeance, aiming to once more compete for top rankings in national statistics. She currently sits at 9th place for three pointers made and 14th scorer overall in NCAA D1. More specifically, Ioanna has drained 18 threes over her last 4 games, and 13 in the month of December alone. She’s scoring 20 ppg (first in the West Coast Conference!) with 5rpg, 3apg and 2spg over December. Ioanna had a remarkable achievement since late November, scoring 34, 17, 29, and 19 points consecutively! In the game against Washington State, she continued her hard work by having 37 minutes, 6-16 FG, 3-10 3 PT, 2-2 FT, 2 ORB, 3 DRB, 2 assists, 17 total points. She received the Title “Player of the Game”.
Our Nomos family mourns our Thomas and extends our deepest heartfelt condolences to the Katsaounis family and all who loved Thomas.
We hereby share the words for Thomas to be read at his funeral today, by Greg Kamansky, Head Coach of California Polytechnic at Pomona, NCAA Champion, and the coach whose offer Thomas had accepted and would be joining for his basketball and higher education.
A week full of basketball games just passed with the girls not taking a break during Thanksgiving week.
A huge battle in the Bahamas between two Top-20 ranked teams, #7 Stanford and #18 South Florida, turned out to be true Black Friday for Stanford, losing by three... It was also the battle of the Elenas; Tsineke and Bosgana going head-to-head for the first time in the US, with Elena Tsineke prevailing. After an amazing game and outstanding performance, Elena T. led South Florida University (5-2) to the win against Stanford (4-2) during a busy 35 minutes, with 7-20 FG, 3 ORB, 2 DRB, 2 assists, and 14 total points. On the other hand, Elena Bosgana had a short amount of playing time in the game, with 8 minutes and a missed 3PT. Elena Bosgana had another game the following day against 2nd-ranked Maryland (6-2), during which she played 6 minutes, and got on the scorers' table with 2-3 FG, 1-2 FT, 1 assist, and 5 total points.
