Stanford is probably a pretty good team; maybe better than the polls suggest. But our Gophers looked nothing like the #3 team in the country, going down easy, 20-25, 18-25, 25-22, 12-25, at the Pav.
Based on last night’s Stanford/Penn State game, I had suggested that the Gophs serve at #13; they did, and had some success. I also suggested hammering the ball at the undersized Cardinal setter when she was in the front row; and they failed at that. The main reason was the Cardinal’s aggressive serving, which gave the Gophs trouble all night, preventing Shaffmaster from teeing up the ball for our Left-side hitters to take advantage of an undersized setter.
(I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, Taylor Landfair is an amazing hitter, maybe the best in the country, when she gets a perfect set. With a mediocre set, she’s a mediocre hitter. When she gets a poor set, she won’t even try to hit it. Keep in mind that she is early in her second season with the Gophs; she is not the polished put-down-a-bad-set hitter that Steph Samedy was last year, in Samedy’s 5th season with the Gophs. Even so, I had her with 14 kills against Stanford, following last night’s 28 kills against Oregon; and 42 for the weekend against a pair of strong teams, isn’t bad.)
And GopherVBallRocks Readers, at least 3 of them, suggested that the Gophers stop serving aggressively and “just put the damn ball in play.” The Gophs ignored this advice in Set 1, where they committed 5 service errors, and lost 22-25. But then they heeded the advice, and stopped making service errors (only 2 total in the last 3 sets) by serving less aggressively, and lost 2 of the last 3 sets by a total score of 54-72. (Meanwhile, Stanford committed 12 service errors for the match, to the Gophers 7, repeating the results of last night’s match, where Oregon made fewer service errors than the Gophs, and lost in 4 sets. I’m not saying that this proves anything, but clearly, the correlation of fewer service errors to matches won, is not proven.)
Otherwise, the Gophers were dominated at the net, for the first time in 6 matches, by the shorter Cardinal, ultimately out-hit .269 to a pathetic .102, and out-blocked 13-5. Jenna Wenaas was fair, with 8 kills, but our second best offensive weapon was Setter Mel Shaffmaster, who contributed 4 kills. 4 aces, and 2 blocks. In a recall of last year’s squad, we got almost nothing from our Middles; I had Husemann, who played all 4 sets, with 2 kills, Gros, who played sets 1 & 2, with 2 kills, and Booth, who played sets 3 & 4, with 1 kill. A pathetic total of 5 kills from our middles, in 4 sets; following 6 kills in last night’s 4-set match — still not enough.
We saw this movie last year, and didn’t like it. When true Freshman Carter Booth put up a total of 13 kills and 13 blocks, in the first two matches of her collegiate career vs TCU and Baylor, I thought those days were over. They still might be when Booth “catches up” with the D-1 game, but she looked lost tonight.
Nor did we get much help, until late, from our Opposites. Last night, true freshman Julia Hanson, who had a breakout performance with 14 kills vs Texas, started the match but did not impress. And during last night’s Set 3, won by Oregon, Hanson seemed lost, so Coach McCutcheon replaced her with red-shirt freshman Lauren Crowl, who seems a less effective hitter, but a better blocker, and the switch seemed to help. Tonight, McCutcheon rewarded Crowl with the start, but got no blocks from Crowl during the first two sets, and only 2 kills; so he subbed Hanson back in for Sets 3 & 4, and it paid immediate dividends when Hanson got 4 kills, looking ever-so-briefly like the next Steph Samedy. But then Hanson disappeared, along with the rest of the team, in Set 4.
If one were to look hard for a ray or rays of hope to glean from tonight’s loss, it would be one of the following:
- McKenna Wucherer, 2020’s top-ranked recruit, who I thought looked great in three Spring scrimmages, then disappeared from sight during the inter-squad scrimmage 2 weeks ago, then was seen with a “boot” on her ankle last night, was on the bench tonight — not dressed-to-play, but without the boot. I have no idea what the time-table for McKenna to recover from her undisclosed injury might be, but it seemed encouraging. I think that if, and when, McKenna is fully recovered and back playing at 100%, she might be our starting Opposite. Or maybe, given how productive Landfair has proven to be from the Right-side, Opposite duties might be distributed, along with Left-side duties, among Landfair, McKenna and Wenaas. (Then again, if Hanson could play like she did in Austin, there might not be an opportunity for McKenna.)
- And after not attacking even once in Set 1, Shaffmaster started attacking as I’ve been pleading with her to. I scored her with 4 kills (in 4 sets, the rate I’m been hoping for), and no errors, on 7 swings, a .571 average. We need to see more of this.
- In fact, I thought Shaffmaster and CC McGraw, and Landfair had strong weekends . If those 3 can pull others up to their level their level of excellence, this team could still have championship potential.