Friday at Purdue, the Gophers split the first two sets and lost the 3rd, before coming back to win the 4th set and dominate the 5th. And they did it again Saturday – in even more dramatic fashion!
Playing as they left off Friday, without libero CC McGraw, the Gophers jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the 1st set on the back of Sophomore Middle SHEA RUBRIGHT, who didn’t even play in the Gophs’ first four matches. After establishing a 19-11 lead, the Gophers traded side-outs with the Boilermakers for a 25-17 win.
And then the wheels fell off. Purdue won the 2nd and 3rd sets by identical 25-18 scores, and took a 21-18 lead in the 4th set, putting the home team within 4 pts of a 4-set victory. This was not a case of Purdue playing great, or a case of the Gophers playing especially poorly. During this 54-68 slump, the Gophers just couldn’t find a hitter who could put the ball away with any consistency. Samedy, Pittman, Rubright, Rollins and Landfair all got a kill now and then, but were blocked approximately as often, maybe hitting under .100 for this extensive portion of the match. The points were often long, but unspectacularly so. Samedy and Pittman were each even benched, briefly, with super-sub Miyabe relieving Samedy, and Myers, who had been benched in favor of Rubright on Friday, relieving Pittman.
Then suddenly, when it looked all but hopeless, Minnesota was back. Purdue didn’t noticeably choke, they just got over-powered by a seemingly invincible Gopher steam-roller. After a timeout, the Gophers, led by Landfair and a revitalized Smaedy, dominated the end of the 4th set with a 7-0 run. And after starting the 5th set 7-7, Samedy and Pittman blew Purdue away with an 8-2 run, for the weekend sweep.
What happened is hard to say. Watching in-person, I might have a theory; but watching on BTN+ I can only speculate:
- Are the Gophers so much better than Purdue that they, except Rubright, weren’t really focused — until their backs were against the wall?
- Did the benching of Samedy & Pittman and/or something McCutcheon said during the timeout get the Gophers fired up?
- Were Samedy & Pittman tired and then re-energized by a short rest?
- Did Shaffmaster finally start putting the ball in better spots for her hitters?
- All of the above?
- None of the above/
I don’t know.
I do know that even down 2 sets to one and trailing 21-8 in the 4th set, the Gophers did not look (from what I could see on BTN+) at all worried. They looked like a team that was confident about pulling the match out of the fire. Which is exactly what they did!