The unranked Washington State Cougers. The Cougers are a Pac 12/Power Conference Squad, and they came into the Pav with an 8 & 2 record — but other than a season-opening win over Duke, their 8 victories came against teams you would expect St. Thomas to schedule.
The Gophers were clearly the better team, taking the first two sets 25-16 & 25-13, before letting Set 3 get away 24-26. The Gophs seemed to wake from their stupor to take a 17-9 lead in Set 4, before letting the Cougers back in it. The Gophs eventually won Set 4 25-20. Our Gophs dominated the net as we hope they will often, outhitting WSU .364 to .196 for the match.
ENCOURAGING SIGN #1: True freshman McKenna Wucherer (Wooker), who had worn a boot on her foot through the Gophers first 6 matches, followed her 13-kill debut against Pepperdine with 15 against Washington State.
ENCOURAGING SIGN #2: True freshman Carter Booth, who had 6 blocks and 11 kills in her debut against Baylor – and then played her way onto the bench with ineffective play, before showing a little spark late in the loss to Pepperdine, showed up again, with 12 kills (and 2 blocks) against Washington State, the vast majority of her kills on quick-sets from Shaffmaster,
WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT: When I (and the polls) were high on the Gophers going into the season, it was partly on the expectation of these two dynamic freshman making their marks. With all due respect to Freshmen Julie Hanson and Lauren Crowl, and grad-transfer Naya Gros, who filled in admirably while we waited for Wucherer to get healthy and Booth to find her game, Wucherer and Booth are critical to the Gophers 2020 aspirations.
NOTES RE LANDFAIR:
- Besides being one of the leading power hitters in the country, Taylor Landfair is clearly the most effective dinker on this team. I’ve been tracking her dinking, and I have her with exactly 4 dink-kills in each of the first four matches at the Pav, each a 4-set match, so exactly 1.0 dink-kills per set. A pretty good #.
- And all of them off perfect sets. When this powerful hitter makes contact 2 full feet above the net, the opponents back-line is naturally on their heels (I know I would be), creating good dinking opportunities.
- But Landfair also dinks, fairly often, off bad sets – and it never works! For one thing, opponents have figured out that she is not going to crank a bad set – so they’re not on their heels. I’d like to see her attack at least the best of those bad sets.
- I absolutely LOVE the 2 rotations the Gophs have with Landfair hitting Left-side and Booth hitting Middle. When Shaffmaster gets a perfect pass, she has the option of a short-set to the 6-7 Booth, or a longer set to the 6-5 Landfair, both in the same direction. That’s a terrifying pair of options.
NOTES RE WENAAS:
- In just 2 matches, a healthy Wucherer has made it obvious that she belongs in the line-up as 1 of 3 outside hitters. So one of them has to play Right-side, and at least for now it’s Jenna Wenaas.
- At least so far, Wenaas has not hit as effectively from the Right-side as she had been from the Left-side. Tonight, for example, she had more Left-side kills than Right-side kills, despite the fact that she played Left-side for one-half rotation, and Right-side for two and one-half rotations, getting many more swings from the Right-side. Though it might be for the best, this system does clearly not play to Wenaas’s strength as a hitter.
- Yet Wenaas seems a clear choice for Right-side over either Hanson, who has so far struggled to block (Wenaas did have 3 blocks tonight, I don’t think Hanson has yet had a 3-block match), and Crowl, who has yet to produce significant offense.
- Wenaas is also the best receiver/digger among the Gopher hitters. (She might be better than Kilkelly and almost as good as McGraw), so she still contributes.
- At least for now, Wenaas has abandoned her jump-serve, which was resulting in more service errors than aces.
UP NEXT: The rugged Big Ten season, starting for the Gophers on Friday at West Lafayette. (I’ll have more to say about the Gophers prospects during the coming week.)