Got the sweep we expected and needed, 25-22, 25-20 & 25-22. Closer than Friday’s sweep of Miami, but it should have been closer — St. Thomas is a better team than Miami, and the Tommies played tough throughout. The Gophs never trailed in Sets 1 or 2, but we did trail early in Set 3, at 0-4 & 4-10. Then a 6-pt run, with Stella serving behind a front-row of Kinney, Blazkova & Gilk, put the Gophs ahead to stay.
As was true a week ago against Auburn, Blazkova played Middle in place of Taylor (for the whole match) and Crossen played Opposite in place of Gilk (for Sets 1 and 2). I feel fairly certain that Gilk will be our starting Opposite when the Gophs open the Big Ten Season at Illinois on Sept 27.
I’m less certain about Taylor. We have 4 respectable Middles; I think our starters are Hoecke and Taylor, but Blazkova looked good today, 4 kills on 7 swings (.429) and 4 blocks. And Minatee, who was a starter when she blew her knee last October, has looked good in warmups. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Minatee and our Left-side Acevedo, also rehabbing from an October knee injury and also looking good in warmups, both get playing time next weekend. Most likely vs South Dakota U.
Today, vs St. Thomas, our star, senior, Left-side, McKenna Wucherer (The Wooker) was the difference separating the two teams. Wooker had 17 kills (.615), including 3 dinks, 2 from the back-row and one from the right-side – plus 2 aces, 2 blocks, and multiple digs, including two Thibault-worthy ones. Technically, the Official Gopher Scorer credited Wooker with 18 kills, but I’m not counting the dink that was respectably dug up by the Tommies setter – and then 2 Tommies stood there expecting the other to take the second touch. (The Official Gopher Scorer also credited Thibault with a kill on an overpass the Tommies misplayed– not buying that one either.)
Kinney had 10 kills – 6 hitting errors so only .174, but she got set-point kills to put away both Set 1 and Set 3 (the close ones). Our serving was awful, 13 errors vs 7 aces – we won’t beat good teams serving like that.
NEXT UP:
Back to Sioux Falls, the second trip in 3 weeks, this time to play a pair of South Dakota teams:
South Dakota U on Friday, Sept. 18, 7:00, and
South Dakota State on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2:30.
Both matches will be broadcast on something called “MIDCO Sports Plus.” Not sure how many GopherVBRocks readers will be able to access MIDCO-SP, but I will be there in person to cover the match — in the company of GopherVBRocks reader A.A.