In 4 sets, 25-19, 25-19, 18-25, 25-19. At Indiana, making this the Gophers second straight road win! I feel like the Gophs might be slightly overrated, but if we’re overrated at #20, the Hoosiers are definitely overrated at #23. The Hoosiers did have a great Oct 3,4 weekend, defeating UCLA and So. Cal on their West Coast road trip. This was our first win over a rated team, but you have to wonder how long the Indiana Team we played tonight will remain top-25?
Set 1: Kinney was on fire, 7 kills without a hitting error, and Hanson had a pair of nice kills toward the end of the set. Set 2: More Hanson and a lot of Gilk; Gilk spurring the Gophs to their first significant lead halfway through the set. But the big Set 2 news was 4 aces by Stella, 3 of them consecutive. We had more Aces than blocks in set 4. Set 3: Not sure if it was complacency or what, but our serve-receive suddenly went bad (especially Hanson). The lone bright spot was Myers generating offense late to give the Gophs momentum into set 4. Set 4: Stella did a great job of distributing the ball all match, but especially in Set 4. Hanson, Gilk and Kinney were all effective with strong blocking by Myers and Taylor.
Hanson led the way with 17 kills and a very impressive .457. The Gophs as a team hit .412; you won’t lose many matches hitting .400 or higher. A lot of the credit goes to our serve-receive; except for Set 3, we were making decent first passes – which makes Stella’s job much easier. Stella also kept the Hoosier defense off balance by not always making the obvious set. Stella’s 5 aces didn’t hurt either
Note: the up-ref was calling throws, 2 on the Gophs and at least 1 on Indiana, on hits that other Big Ten refs let go.
NEXT UP: A Short trip to West Lafayette for a Sunday at Noon match (BTN+) against a very strong Purdue squad, ranked #11. (And seemingly not-overrated.) An interesting match for Myers who transferred from Purdue – could she get hot against her former team? I know they’ll expect her “slide,” and try to take it away. I said last week that I’d be happy with a weekend split, and I’m happy – but I could be really happy with a win at Purdue – the signature win the Gophs are still looking for.