In the prelim, the shorter but more powerful Nittany Lions squeaked past the Cardinal in five sets, and then the Gophers, led by a career night by Taylor Landfair, squeaked past the Ducks in four, 25-20, 25-22, 18-25 and 27-25.
When I say “Career Night” by Landfair, I’m not just talking 28 kills, but from everywhere, 13 left-side power kills, 8 back-row kills, 4 dink kills and 3 right-side power kills. And at least 3 great digs. And when I say“squeaked, our Gophs looked the better team in Sets 1 & 2, then fell apart, trailing 14-22 on their way to losing Set 3. Coach McCutcheon had stated Julia Hanson at opposite and Naya Gros at one of the Middles. For Set 4, he went with Lauren Crowl in place of Hanson and Carter Booth in place of Gros, but it didn’t seem to help as the Gophs started Set 4 down 3-10.
But riding Landfair, who the Ducks couldn’t stop, and with a little help from Crowl, who the Ducks seemed unprepared for, the Gophs clawed back to 15-15. Then, with the Gophs trailing 24-25, the Ducks made 2 unforced errors to put the Gophs ahead. And a Wenaas/Booth block put the Ducks away. But despite winning 3 of 4 sets, the Gophers only won the total score by 95-92
More individual details tomorrow, but it’s late and I want to say a bit about tomorrow’s (now today’s) opponent, the Stanford Cardinal.
The Cardinal.plays a 5-1. Their setter, #5, is quick and has good hands, but she does not seem tall enough to block the likes of Landfair and Wenaas. They have a strong Opposite, #10, when their setter is back-row, and they run an effective slide to a Middle, #17. But the Gopher Left-sides should score a ton when the Cardinal setter is front row.
Other notes re the Cardinal:
- They might have beaten Penn State if they hadn’t made so many service errors. If they serve better tomorrow night, and the Gophers continue to rack up service errors, the Gophers could have their hands full.
- The Cardinal dinks a lot, and defending the dink has not been a Gopher strength.
- The Cardinal’s #13, a left-side hitter, struggled all night with serve-receive; the Gophers should be serving at her every chance they get
And all 4 teams played hard tonight, and could be tired tomorrow.