Month: October 2021

24 hours ago, our 3-loss Gophers were in 3^rd place in the Big Ten, two full games behind co-leaders Wisconsin & Nebraska. But last night the Gophers gave Nebraska their 2^nd loss, in a tight 5-set match at the PAV, and minutes ago, Purdue gave Wisconsin their 2^nd loss (Roettke had an off-day, but Barnes was incredible), in a tight 4-set match in West Lafayette, reminding us that road wins are tough to come by in the Big Ten – and leaving the Gophers still in 3^rd place, but now only one game behind the co-leaders.

READERS WRITE:

READER R.A. writes

Minnesota’s hitting % of .168 and Nebraska’s .135 would normally indicate poor performance. In last night’s match, however, it signalled strong defense.  Long volleys and great digs forced both teams to try many more times, plus lots of forced errors (36 NE, 26 MN).

It was an exciting and gut-wrenching match, especially when the Gophs repeatedly blew leads near the end of sets. I sat there thinking, “The Gophs would be great if the sets were to ’24.'”

Service errors are momentum killers; I truly see little excuse. Again last night, one of Myers’ service errors came when she was serving at 24 in the 2^nd set, allowing Nebraska back in the set, which they eventually won 30-28.  Ahead at the end of the set is not the time for overly aggressive serves.

I also was pleased by Rollins’ transfer, due to her poor service-receiving. 

JOHN: Nobody likes to see their team miss serves. And yes, they can be momentum killers. And yes, there is a time for aggressive serving and a time for safe serving. But keep in mind that most points, at the Big Ten level, are won by the receiving team. If Myers rotated to the serve at 29-19, she should have served “safe.” But if she rotated to the serve at 25-24, after we had already lost the momentum, then I would have wanted an aggressive serve. (I don’t which it was.) And every Gopher server gets a signal from an assistant coach indicating the coaching staff’s expectation for the up-coming serve. If Myers is serving aggressively when you think she should be serving safe, your beef might be with the bench.

Also, Purdue missed a ton of serves in today’s win over Wisconsin — but their agressive serving kept the Badgers out of system.

READER G.U. writes

Your synopsis is pretty good of the match with them Huskers.  If NEB could serve correctly I still believe our beloved Gophers would still be crying.  Also glad to hear you tried out the new eatery in your area, you saved my wallet a big hit in case I wanted a burger and beer for $75.   

For the last 6 points of the match, that is. Three hours into the match it was tied 9-9 in the 5^th set, as close and as hard-fought a match as you’ll ever see. Reader and friend G.U. told me at Geezer Volleyball that he doubted The Gophs could take even 1 set from the powerful Huskers, but they did a lot better than that.

The Huskers jumped out to early leads in Sets 1 & 2 (the Gophers had early leads in sets 3 & 4), but the Gophers outplayed the Huskers in the middle portion of every set. Unfortunately, the Huskers out played our Gophs every time the score reached 20. We led 24-17, in Set 1, then hung on by the skin of our teeth, 25-22. Set 2 was worse, we led 24-19, then lost 28-30.

Except for the early leads, this pattern was repeated in the next two sets. We led 24-18, in Set 3, then hung on, 25-21. We were up 21-19 in Set 4, before losing 23-25. For whatever reason, the Huskers were clearly the better team late in these sets, beating the Gophs 25 to 8 at the back end of these four sets.

Set 5 was tied at 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 9 apiece. At this point, it certainly seemed as though either team could win. The Gophs got a side-out to lead 10-9, and then, with Samedy serving and Wenaas blasting away from the left-side, the Gophers, improbably, ran 5 more to close out the match.

Two surprising things happened during this final 6-point run:

• Wenaas scored on a dink, definitely the first of the night, and possibly the first of Wenaas’s Gopher career, despite scores of attempts.
• And on the final point of the match, a Husker receiver, a player who hadn’t made a mistake all night, shanked an easy receive out of bounds. Only the 2^nd unforced error of the night for the Huskers.

It felt fortunate that the tie-breaking 5^th set is only to 15; even leading 15-9, the way thing were going, I wouldn’t have put much money on the Gophers winning a 25-point 5^th set.

The Gophers were led all night by Wenaas, 22 kills & 19 digs, her best night so far as a Gopher, and of course the fantastic Samedy, 20 kills and 26 digs. Miyabe added 10 kills and several spectacular digs.

Speaking of digs, the Gophers, these 3 plus Shaffmaster, McGraw and Kilkelly made amazing digs all night – and Nebraska was even better! Time and time again, the Gopher hitters blasted ball down the throats of Husker blockers, and caromed balls off of Husker diggers toward the stands generating thunderous cheers from the Gopher faithful – only to have the cheer silenced when a Husker would make a diving one-hand save to keep the point alive! (This wasn’t just John thinking the ball was down, this was every person in the PAV.) Often, there would be 3 or 4 miraculous saves on each side of the net, on the same point. With the exception of a few missed serves (mostly by the Huskers, the one aspect of the game in which the Gophers were clearly superior) both teams had to scarp and claw for every point.

There might be more power and higher skill at the pro or Olympic levels, but you won’t see longer, harder-fought points anywhere. (There’s a reason I call this blog “GopherVBall Rocks.” Also, s’why the match went 3 hours.)

Speaking of which, the match lasted past 10:00, my normal bedtime, and then we stopped to celebrate* on the way home, so I was foggy when I started this post, and expect to be worse by the time I finish.

* We stopped at “The Sidecar,” formerly Adrian’s. The Sidecar’s a bit more upscale than Adrian’s was back in the day when the under-estimated Super Value softball team’s lightning-quick leadoff man Jimmy Frazer ran the joint, 3.2 beer and frozen pizza heated in a toaster-oven. We had a cocktail each and split an appetizer — $50.  

But I digress. This was two incredibly well-matched teams; you can’t beat the entertainment value. Besides her first successful dink ever, Wenaas also had 2 back-row kills. The Gophs attempt to compensate for their continuing lack of Middle-hitting by setting Samedy in the back-row. They’ve been trying all season to also use Wenaas from the back-row, but I don’t recall it ever working until tonight.

And although Wenaas did get one dink down, and Samedy a couple, the Gophers continue to get out-dinked by every team they play. (I didn’t see the St. Thomas match, but the newly-invented Tommies probably out-dinked us too.)

Wenaas also received serve well. A couple of match back, an opponent (Penn St., maybe) served at Kilkelly every chance, and Kilkelly struggled. Apparently Nebraska didn’t see the tape of that match because they served at Wenaas and Miyabe all night. Miyabe shanked a couple, but Wenaas, who must have handled at least 50 receives, shanked only one that I can recall.

On the other side of the net, the Gophers started out picking on Nebraska’s D.S, Akana, who quickly shanked at least 3 receives. But after a time-out, Nebraska started hiding Akana (#6) behind one of their 6-rotation hitters, an extraordinary strategy. I think I would have kept going after this struggling D.S., even in hiding, but the Gophers went looking for a different soft-spot. (Maybe that’s why I’m not in the International Volleyball Coaching Hall of Fame, as McCutcheon is.)

Shaffmaster had a pretty good night. She’s no Seliger-Swenson – but we need to let go of that. Along with 45 assists, Shaffmaster had 21 digs (a couple of them spectacular), 4 blocks and 3 kills. (I doubt Seliger-Swenson recorded many 4 blocks and 3 kills nights.)

And Myers had a good match, 3 kills (but only one that I recall on a pass from Shaffmaster), 7 blocks and 2 Aces. Reader R.A. responded to my praise of Myers in the recent win over Indiana, pointing out that Myers has way too many service errors. And Myers does indeed lead the team with 37 service errors, compared to 29 for 2^nd-place McGraw, whereas, Kilkelly, for example has made only 9 service errors.

McGraw and Myers also lead the team in Aces, 22 and 17 respectively, compared to 9 for Kilkelly. And one might say that 9 Aces against 9 errors sounds a lot better than 17 Aces against 37 errors. But Myers and McGraw are consistently the most aggressive of the Gophers’ six regular servers, and aggressive serving pays off in other ways than just Aces. Aggressive serving can take an opponent “out-of-system” resulting in a free-ball or a weak attack. At this level, a server who can produce 10 Aces for every 20 errors – and also force the opponents out-of-system 10 times, is a valuable weapon. I like aggressive serving; it’s a trade-off.

NEXT MATCH:

AT OHIO STATE

11/4/2021 | 6:00 PM

BTN

There are a 8 Big Ten teams in the top 31 ranked teams in the country; Indiana is not one of them. Ten days ago, the Gophers swept the Hoosiers 25-15, 25-16, 25-21. But that was at the PAV, where the Gophers play better. No matter, the Gophers swept the Hoosiers 25-20 (the Gophers led this 1^st set 24-16), 25-14, 25-16. Maybe one reason home-court didn’t help the Hoosiers was that attendance appeared to be under 100 – V-ball hasn’t caught on in Bloomington. As I write this, by comparison, I am watching Wisconsin at Nebraska – 8,100 seats plus 400 standing-room tickets sold-out.

The first 2 sets were all-Samedy, 6 kills in the first set and 7 kills plus 2 blocks in the second set, plus a bunch of digs. Between sets 2 & 3, the BTN announcer reported that Samedy was hitting over .600. I recently wrote that the Gophers are terrible dinkers, but Samedy is sort of the exception. Tonight, at least 4 or 5 of her match-leading 18 kills were “roll-shots,” i.e., full swings, but half-speed with a lot of top-spin.

The 3^rd set was closer for a while, with the Gophers trailing 6-7 & 11-12 before getting serious. As I’ve said before, it is difficult (not impossible) to maintain intensity when you feel your opponent is no threat to beat you.

Other highlights:

• Wenaas had zero kills in the first set, 2 in the second and 5 in the third, when the Gophs fed Samedy less often, but her digging and serve-receives were great. Indiana served at Wenaas all night – with minimal success.
• Like most D-1 VB teams, the Gophers play a 1-5 with a Libero and a Defensive Specialist. This typically means that one Left-Side Hitter (in our case, Miyabe or Landfair) plays only front-row, replaced by the D.S. (Kilkelly) in the back-row; and the other Left-Side Hitter plays all 6 rotations. In recent seasons, our 6-rotation Left-Side Hitter was Adanna Rollins, now playing for Penn State. One of the reasons I wasn’t too upset when I heard that Rollins was transferring was that I felt she was an inconsistent hitter, and a mediocre back-row player. Wenaas is also an inconsistent hitter, but I think she is a much better back-row player than Rollins was.
• Myers had a good match, with 4 kills & 5 blocks. The BTN announcer referred to Rubright as the strongest offensive threat among the Gopher Middles, but I don’t see it. I counted 4 kills for Rubright (same as Myers), one on a slide and at least 2 on over-passes. I don’t want to discount slides or over-passes, a point is a point; but teams automatically try to avoid over-passes, an opponent capable of exploiting your over-passes doesn’t affect your defensive strategy the way quick-set kills by your opponent will. I’d like to see Rubright crush a few quicks.
• Shaffmaster also had a good match, with 36 assists (at least a couple of them one-handed), 10 digs, a couple of kills and a couple blocks. It helped that the Gopher serve-receive was strong – probably because the Indiana servers didn’t put much pressure on it.

READERS WRITE:

READER G.U. writes (re the loss to Penn St):
“Penn State seemed to get 2 blockers in front of every Gopher attack, compared to the Gophers only getting one most of the time.”

JOHN: Penn St. gets offense from their Middles (at least one of them), which makes it harder to double-block their pins.

READER G.C. writes (re the loss to Penn St):

“Blowing that lead late in the second set was awful. Then on top of that, we weren’t even able to extend it to 4 sets, at home. Our middles are virtually non-existent, so other teams are ready for our outside hitters.
We still have 6 ranked teams on the schedule. If the Gophers don’t figure something out, we could finish 11-9.  Their strength of schedule should get them into the dance, but I certainly don’t see them going very far.

READER R.S. writes (re this blog):

“Your posts are too long. I didn’t sign up for a book club.”

NEXT UP: First-place Nebraska. Tied for first-place now, they just got swept by the Badgers in Lincoln.

Our Golden Gophers, losers to Penn State in 3 sets on Friday night, redeemed themselves this afternoon with a 4-set win over Ohio State at the PAV, 22-25, 25-21, 25-21, 25-21. Years ago, when Penn St was a perennial Final Four Team and Ohio State an afterthought, this sequence would have been unsurprising. But Ohio State came into the weekend ranked #6 nationally, compared to a #14 ranking for Penn State. Driving home from the straight set-loss to Penn St, I contemplated what a repeat result would do to the Gophers’ #12 rank – probably knock them out of the Top 20, maybe out of the Top 25. But today’s win puts the Gophers in a tie with Penn State for 3^rd place in the Big Ten, and probably maintains their national ranking somewhere close to #12.

As was true Friday night, every set between these two well-matched teams was close. And also as was true Friday night, the first set was the Gophers worst – the slow-start a pattern we need to break.

Before my set-by-set account, here are a couple of observations related to the entire match:

• One significant difference between the Penn St & Ohio St matches was that Penn St, served relentlessly at our D.S., Rachel Kilkelly, when she was on the court (and at Wenaas when she wasn’t) creating a rough night for Kilkelly. But Ohio St. chose to serve at Wenaas, a 6-rotation player, all afternoon, and Wenaas held up well.
• C.C. McGraw and her Buckeye counterpart (their D.S., not their Libero) were spectacular all match long. McGraw made spectacular dig after spectacular dig, and the Ohio St player kept pace. I lost count of how many balls were seemingly down for a point, only to have these remarkable, and under-appreciated players keep the play alive.
• The Gophers continue their decade-long pattern of being terrible dinkers. Other teams dink on us with frequent success, but dinks almost never work for the Gophers.
• Miyabe can’t block. And this is one of the major differences between her and the still-injured Landfair. It’s not for lack of effort; Miyabe is 6-0, and Landfair is 6-5. I’ve seen and coached some powerful hitters who weren’t very tall (like Miyabe) but I never seen a short player who was a really good blocker.

Set 1 was tied, 8-8, 15-15, & 18-18 before the Buckeyes pulled away. Samedy had 6 kills and Miyabe 5, but Wenaas had zero kills in Set 1, and as usual, the Gophers could not generate any offense from their Middles. Also frustrating to me was our inability to take advantage of Ohio St. “overpasses.” The Gophers served and hit well enough to earn 8 or 10 Ohio St overpasses, but converted only one into a point.

Set 2 started in a similar fashion, tied 6-6, before Wenaas and Myers got going. Samedy and Miyabe each had one fewer kills in Set 1 than they had in Set 2, but Wenaas’ 4 kills and Myers 3 blocks propelled the Gophers to modest leads of 10-7, 16-11, and 21-18. Then, as Ohio St closed the gap to within 1 at 21-20, a Myers’ kill (imagine that) and a Rubright block (surprise #2) gave the Gophers the set.

Set 3 was unique in a couple of respects: the Gophs jumped out to a 6-0 early lead (later to fall behind 13-12); and Samedy’s offensive production was minimal. Samedy’s first kill accounted for the Gopher’s 10^th point of the set, and her second kill the 25^th (and winning) point. Miyabe had 5 kills and Wenaas 4, and the diversified attack we’ve been hoping for emerged to make Samedy almost unnecessary. Shaffmaster had 3 kills (likely a record for her in a single set as a Gopher), and after trying all match, the Gophers finally got another kill from Myers! Service aces by Myers & Kilkelly didn’t hurt either.

Set 4 most closely resembled Set 2. It was tied 5-5, and 10-10. The Buckeyes took a 16-12 lead before the Gophers went on a 13-5 run behind Samedy’s 8 kills (in one set!). Myers had 2 blocks and a dink! And McGraw had 2 aces. Others contributed as well, but Samedy owned set 4.

APOLOGIES

• I might owe Adanna Rollins an apology for saying she didn’t outplay Wenaas or Miyabe on Friday night. I was right in the sense that she had 11 kills for the match compared to 15 for Wenaas & 14 for Miyabe. But I overlooked the fact that 3 of Rollins’ 11 kills came late in Set 2, when the Nittany Lions came from behind to steal a set it appeared than the Gophers were going to win.
• And when I keep mentioning how much the Gophers need a healthy Landfair back on the floor, I am probably being unfair to Airi Miyabe. Myabe had 16 kills this afternoon (2^nd behind Samedy), in a 4-set win over the #6 team in the country. Miyabe has served in a reserve role during her 3 seasons as a Gopher, bringing energy and a change-of-pace. But this year, seeing extended playing time as Landfair nurses her injury, Miyabe has proven herself a very good volleyball player.

Next:

• The Gophers travel to Indiana on Wed (on BTN). The Gopher beat the Hoosiers in straight sets in the PAV last Sunday; hope we can produce a similar result on the road.
• And next Sat, the Gophers are back in the PAV to host 1^st Place Nebraska (on BTN). This will be the only regular season match-up with the Huskers; a win would be huge!

Penn State beat the Gophers 25-18, 27-25, 25-22, in a match between 2 relatively evenly-matched teams. The Gophers came out slow in Set 1, spotting the Nittany Lions an early 2-7 lead, then losing 25-18, so only losing 18-16 the rest of the way, and obviously Sets 2 & 3 were close. That said, when a team comes into your gym and beats you in 3, it’s hard to deny that they were the better team. Worse yet, the Gophers led 21-16 in Set 2, and got outplayed 4-11 the rest of the way; and led 18-16 in Set 3, and got outplayed 4-9 at the end of that set. In other words, the Gophers played PSU even – except when it mattered the most.

Several thing were consistent throughout the match:

• Miyabe played, and Landfair did not. Miyabe had 14 kills in 3 sets, so I am not blaming her for the loss, but Miyabe cannot take over a set the way a healthy Landfair might.
• Not only were the sets close, except as noted, but mostly the teams just traded side-outs. If the match had been played under the old-fashioned, to 15, but only score when you serve system, they might still be playing yet.
• The Gopher blockers were getting a ton of touches, but only 5 blocks (at least 4 of those by Myers). Time-after-time, the PSU hitters appeared to hit the ball out of bounds, only to get the point due to a Gopher touch. It appeared that the PSU hitters were blasting high and hard, counting on a Gopher touch.
• Once again, the Gopher Middles produced minimal offense, with our Pins, Wenaas (15), Miyabe (14) and Samedy (12) accounting for 89% of the Gophers 46 kills. I think Myers had 4 of the other 5, and Rubright, who looked so good last week against Indiana, only 1 kill in 3 sets. The Middle-Offense that seemed to emerge against Indiana did not show up against Penn St.
• The above, in part, because of poor serve-receiving by the Gophers. Teams generally come into a match with a plan to “target” certain of their opponent’s serve-receivers. Tonight, PSU went after Kilkelly and Wenaas. I thought Wenaas did okay, but Kilkelly had a bad night. She only gave up a couple of “shanks,” but she consistently failed to deliver the ball within 15 feet of where Shaffmaster wanted it, forcing a bump-set. Not only did this prevent the Gophers from getting their middle offense going, it led to a lot of mediocre sets to our Pins. The Gophers (mostly our Pins) hit .289 for the match – which isn’t bad for a team that got beat in 3; but I think our Pins hit around .500 on really good sets, the kind they could tee-off on. Most of the night they were hitting ineffective roll-shots off of mediocre sets.

It was a triumphant return for Adanna Rollins, who played (and started) for the Gophers for 3 seasons, before transferring to the Nittany Lions for her senior and bonus year — reportedly because the Gophers either couldn’t or wouldn’t promise her a 5^th scholarship-year, which PSU apparently did. I wouldn’t say that Rollins out-played Wenaas or Miyabe; not in any aspect of the game nor overall. BUT, Rollins played for the Gophers last spring when the Gophers beat PSU twice at the PAV, and tonight she played for PSU when they beat the Gophers at the PAV. So Rollins is 3 & 0 in MN-PSU matches at the PAV in 2021. And nobody else can say that.

NEXT:

The Gophers have a chance, on Sunday, to redeem themselves when they host the OSU Buckeyes, who lost in 4 sets at Madison tonight. A “split” against these two highly-rated teams would be respectable. Another loss would drop the Gophers to 6 & 4 in the Big Ten, certainly out of contention in the conference, and perhaps headed for the dreaded “NCAA Bubble. ”

Hoosier left-side Breanna Edwards is a powerful hitter, and there are surely other fine athletes on the University of Indiana Volleyball Team, but overall, the Hoosiers offered little resistance to the Gophers at the PAV this afternoon, 25-15, 25-16, 25-21.

The Gophers came out strong behind Steph Samedy’s 6 kills (back-row, front-row, dinks) of the Gophers first 11 points of the match (14 for the match) and cruised to an easy first set win. The Gophs gave the Hoosiers the first 4 pts in Set 2, but then, trailing 11-12, went on a 10-1 run in rotations 1 & 2* to take a commanding 21-13 lead, and a second easy win. (Indiana hit .000 in Set 2**) Set 3 was closer; the Gophs trailed 10-14 (prompting the Gophers only time out of the match) and were tied 20-20 before pulling away. It is often difficult to maintain your intensity when you feel very confident.

* The Gophers’ Rotation 1 is the rotation they start in if they’re serving, and the rotation they rotate to after the first side-out, when receiving to start the set. Rotation 1 features Katie Myers serving, Melanie Shaffmaster at front-right, Airi Miyabe front-center, Shea Rubright (today, anyway) front-left, Samedy back-left, and Jenna Wenaas at middle-back. CC McGraw comes in for Myers as soon as she loses her serve, Shaffmaster is the 2^nd server, and D.S. Rachel Kilkelly (playing back row for Miyabe) is the 3rd server.

This is slightly unorthodox in that teams generally like to start with their strongest rotations, and for most teams employing a 5-1, that means having their setters serving in Rotation 1 (which gives them 3 front-row hitters) OR they start their most powerful hitter (Samedy in our case) at front-left. But the Gophers achieve both of these advantages in Rotation 2. One reason they delay this is that Myers has emerged as their strongest server. But also true is that the Gophers count on Samedy to hit from anywhere, front row or back.

** Hitting % equals klils minus errors  divided by  attempts. So Indiana hittting .000 doesn’t mean they didn’t have any kills, it means that they had as many errors as kills.

C.C. McGraw, who I thought had a fantastic match, was a big part of Indiana’s offensive futility. The Hoosier hitters struggled to get the ball past the Gopher blockers (we seemed to have a distinct height advantage), and even when they did, McGraw (officially 14 digs for the match), dug them up, often with spectacular efforts.

One encouraging development was the emergence of the Gophers Middle Attack. I’ve been saying that the Gophs need to generate offense from their Middle Hitters, and either they’ve been reading this blog (unlikely) or they came to the same conclusion. Shaffmaster is clearly making an effort to involve her Middles, and since Rubright replaced Husemann during the Northwestern Match, we’ve seen some positive results. (Maybe Rubright was injured earlier in the season; maybe Husemann is injured now, maybe Shaffmaster is more confident, who knows?) The “Pins,” Samedy, Wenaas and Miyabe are still dominate feature in the Gopher Offense, but there’s a lot better balance than there was.

And two plays this afternoon revealed another encouraging, though more minor, development. Strong hits or serves often force imperfect digs, and some of these turn into “overpasses,” i.e., balls intended for the opponent’s setter that carry over the net to our hitters. Stewartville’s Tapp sisters, who handled both Middle positions for the Gophs from 2013 through 2016, were particularly effective at scoring off of overpasses. They didn’t wind up and crush the ball, which can be great fun but often result in a hitting error (you don’t get a lot of practice reps on overpasses), nor did they just passively block the ball back into the opponent’s court, as the Gophers have been doing in recent years; the Tapp sisters would use both hands to direct the ball down and to the side, almost always scoring a point. I don’t know if they learned this from Coach McCutcheon or if they brought it with them from Stewartville, but this play has been rare since the Tapp sisters moved on to professional volleyball. But today, I saw Rubright and Wenaas score with this technique. I hope we see more of it.

Speaking of Shaffmaster: Now, in her second season as the Gophers’ setter, today was my 7^th opportunity to watch her in person (none last season), and I think I am gaining a better understanding of her skill sets. She’s big, of course; maybe not the biggest setter in women’s volleyball history, but certainly the biggest the Gophers have even had, and probably the biggest in Big Ten history. And this is a major advantage in blocking; so far this year she has 40 official “blocks,” i.e., blocks for points, in 60 sets, trailing Samedy (43) only slightly, and more than Wenaas (37) Middles Myers (63) and Husemann (54) have more, but .67 blocks per set is really good for a setter.

And, she has really good hands. She doesn’t have the quickest feet, but today I saw her hand-set balls that were below her shoulder level, which is tough to do. Last season, watching exclusively on TV, I felt that she was bump-setting way too much; but today I felt she was getting under balls that she would have bump-set last season. A really good sign.

And then there’sLandfair, once again on the bench in a jacket, not even warming up. I was right about Miyabe, she is truly a super-sub, 13 kills today. But she’s no Landfair. The Gophers have some tough matches ahead, including two next weekend, and I would feel much better about our chances with Landfair in the line-up. Whatever is wrong with her, it isn’t obvious as she dances to the between-set music, but reportedly it’s her back. That could mean she will play sparingly the rest of the season – or maybe she’s at 95% and they wanted to give her a few more days rest. We’ll know more next Friday.

NEXT UP:

• Penn St. at the PAV, Friday at 6:00 (Maureen has a conflict, so I have an extra ticket for this one; anyone interested?)
• Ohio St. at the PAV, Sunday at 4:00

(Both teams tied with the Gophers, and Purdue, for 3^rd place in the Big Ten at 6 & 2.)

READERS RESPOND:

Reader G.C. writes, “The good news is that perhaps we’re developing a more diverse offense.”

Reader G.H. writes, “We are on the road a lot, so we don’t get to see every match. We see the scores, but we really appreciate your more detailed notes on how they played.”

As you would expect them to. Northwestern is a competent D-1 Volleyball team, with some pretty good athletes, but they have not, in decades, been a serious threat to finish ahead of Minnesota in the Big Ten standings. The Wildcats are good, but we don’t expect the Gophers to have trouble with them, and tonight they didn’t, sweeping the Cats 25-20, 25-10, 25-14. As the score suggests, the Cats were competitive in the first set, never leading but hanging tough and within 3 at 18-21. But the Gophers won 4 of the next 6 points to close out the set, and the Cats never threatened again.

And yet, just 11 days ago, the Gophers escaped Evanston by the skin of their teeth in a 5-set win, 24-26, 19-25, 25-18, 31-29 & 15-7; a match in which the Cats had 4 match points in the 4^th set; and a match the Gophers would not have won without 20 kills from Taylor Landfair. Who didn’t even play tonight.

WHY THE DIFFERENCE?

A couple of obvious things: 1) The Gophers play better at home, and the Cat’s presumably play less well on the road; & 2) In Evanston, the Gophs came out flat and let the Cats take a significant lead in the first set, and the Cats played with confidence the rest of the night – or at least until the 5^th set.

Less obvious: Playing a Saturday Night match in Evanston following a Friday Night match in Madison, our best player, Steph Samedy was part of the coming out flat – as she would do again the following Saturday Night at East Lansing following a tough Friday Night match at Ann Arbor. The Gophers lean heavily on Samedy, and it seems to affect her on the 2^nd night of back-to-back road matches. Tonight, by contrast, was a mid-week home game on 4 nights rest. This is not on Samedy; it’s what happens when you lean too heavily on one player. Samedy wasn’t especially dominant at the net tonight, 11 kills and 4 blocks, but she played well in the first set, hit steady all night, and she dug and passed well besides.

The BIG NEWS was the emergence of Shea Rubright as a major factor in the match. Rubright, a 6-5 Middle from Yakima, WA. had 5 kills and 6 blocks, all 5 of her kills coming on quick-sets from Shaffmaster. And she had a at least 2 other decent quicks that were dug up by the Cats, and at least 2 decent attempts on “slides” from Shaffmaster. And Myers added at least 4 kills, one of those on a slide. This was against Northwestern, not Wisc, Neb, or Penn St, but even so it was great to see the balance in tonight’s offense – and not needing to lean on Samedy.

The Gophers have essentially 3 Middles (4 if you count true-freshman Anna Wolf, who hasn’t seen much action), Myers, Rubright and Ellie Husemann. Last season, Coach McCutcheon seemed to have a hard time deciding who would be the “other” starting Middle opposite Regan Pittman, but by the end of the season, Rubright seemed to emerge as the strongest of the three. With Pittman gone, we need to play 2 of the 3, and lately it was mostly Myers and Husemann, with only the occasional appearance by Rubright. Tonight, Rubright was the dominant Middle the Gophers so badly need.

Another piece the Gophers desperately need is Taylor Landfair, the one player on this roster with even more potential than Samedy. Once again, Landfair was in attendance – in a warm-up jacket and dancing during breaks. But she did not participate in pre-match drills and did not see action. Reader D.S. knows somebody who knows somebody who says the problem is Landfair’s back. And backs, as we all know, are a mystery in themselves; Landfair might be 100% on Sunday vs Indiana – or she might not play again this season. Keep your fingers crossed.

 Airi Miyabe played great in relief of Landfair, leading all scorers with 11 kills. I have previously described Miyabe as our “Super-Sub,” and she continues to demonstrate her value to this team. But if this squad is going to compete with the likes of Wisc, Neb, and Penn St, etc, we’re going to need Rubright playing the way she did tonight, and Landfair at 100%.

MISCELLANEOUS: Wenaas was steady in all aspects of the game, McGraw played well as we have come to expect, and I thought Kilkelly’s passing was especially good tonight. Shaffmaster disappointed me with a couple of unexplainably poor sets – but she did feed her middles better than she has all year.

One night after dropping a 5-set match at to then-9^th place Michigan at Ann Arbor, our Gophers squeezed past 12^th-place Michigan State at East Lansing 22-25, 25-23, 25-21, 25-21. All 4 sets were close, but the Gophers, without Landfair, and with minimal contribution from Samedy, hung tough to win 3 of the 4 sets. The Spartans continued their recent pattern of playing competitive volleyball, but losing the close sets to higher-rated teams.

SET 1: Last night I missed the whole first set because BTN was broadcasting the end of the Nebraska-Penn State match. Tonight I missed a substantial portion of the first set – the Gophers were already behind 3-12 when I tuned into BTN+ at 5:55 for a match scheduled for 6:00 our time. What’s up with that?

But I see that these first 15 points included the worst stretch of the evening, maybe the worst stretch of the season, for the Gophers – who had been up 2-0 and then lost the next 9 points. Two errors by Shaffmaster and two errors by Samedy contributed to the Spartan run. The Gophers actually outplayed the Spartans from there, pulling to within 1 at 22-23, led by Miyabe playing in what I think of as Landfair’s position. But it was too little too late.

SET 2: Set 2 was as tight as the final score suggests, with ties at 9-9, 13-13, 16-16 and 22-22 before the Gophers finally prevailed. For a change, the Gophers got offense from somewhere other than the pins, as Shaffmaster had 3 kills and our Middle combo of Myers and Rubright had 6, including a “slide.” (Remember when the Tapp Sisters were nearly unstoppable on slides?)

SET 3: Much like Set 1, the Gophers dug a 4-9 hole. But this time, they rebounded more quickly, tying the Spartans at 13-13, pulling ahead 16-14 and 24-21, mostly behind Wenaas, with 5 kills in Set 3, and Miyabe with 4 kills.

SET 4:  I mentioned to Maureen that Michigan State, on a tough-loss streak, might fold up in Set 4 — but they didn’t. The Spartans jumped out to leads of 9-6, 11-7, 14-9 & 17-12 before the Gophers, with Wenaas serving, ran 5 to tie it up; and finish it off at 25-21.

Interestingly, our left-side hitters Jenna Wenaas and Airi Miyabe led the way with 17 and 16 kills respectively, with 3 of Wenaas’ kills coming from the back-row – which prior to this evening almost never worked! The official box score shows Samedy with 11 kills. I only counted 6, so maybe she had a couple before I tuned in, and I must have missed a couple. (It’s BTN+, not the high-def picture we’ve become accustomed to.) 11 kills would be good for most hitters, but it constitutes an off-night for the leading hitter in the Big Ten.

As far as I know, Taylor Landfair did not play. I’ve seen nothing to explain her absence (she was on the bench), but I assume she is injured. Miyabe played wonderfully in her place – for Miyabe; who is good but not capable of dominating. And after being out-served last night by Michigan by a considerable margin, the Gopher servers were roughly the equals of the Spartans.

Another interesting development was when Coach McCutcheon twice subbed Bailey McMenimen in for Samedy for her trip through the back row. Normally, Miyabe subs in for Shaffmaster at the same time, making McMenimen the back-row setter and Miyabe the right-side hitter. But of course Miyabe was already in the game, filling in for Landfair. McCutcheon could have put Natalie Glenn in for Shaffmaster, but he instead left Shaffmaster in. Possibly, McMenimen was supposed to set, and Shaffmaster, who is certainly capable, was supposed to hit Right-side. But I think McMenimen was merely in as a Defensive Specialist, giving Samedy a rest.

One last note: before tonight, the Gophers have generated almost zero middle offense, and I have suggested that this was at least partly due to poor first-passes (making Shaffmaster chase the ball). I thought our passing was much better tonight, allowing Shaffmaster and our Middles to be more productive. Let’s hope we can keep this up against better teams.

Three weeks ago, the Gophers opened the Big Ten Season with a 5-set win over Michigan at the PAV. Tonight, the Gophers lost a 5-set match at Michigan, 13-25, 25-13, 26-24, 14-25, 11-15. At least in the 4 sets that were televised, this was a hard-fought match with lots of long rallies full of amazing saves on both sides of the net.

The 1^st set was not televised because it was the second match of a Big Ten Network Doubleheader, and the Nebraska-Penn State match went long. But somehow, the Gophers got clobbered, as they did in the 4^th set, which I watched. I don’t want to take anything away from Michigan, who played well all night. But losing a set 13-25 or 14-25 is not something that should happen to a good team.

For the match, the Gophers out-hit the Wolverines 63 to 56 and .219 to .194, but lost the match on serves and serve-receives. Michigan had 8 aces to the Gophers 1, and the Gophers had a ton of service errors in sets 2,3, & 4, despite winning two of these sets. (I don’t think that the Gophers had any service errors in Set 5 – perhaps because they had lost confidence in their serves and were not serving aggressively, resulting in a failure to put pressure on the Wolverines – perhaps costing them the set.)

And once again, the Gophers failed to produce any sustained offense from their Middles. Shaffmaster was moderately effective attacking 2^nd touches, and Samedy (19 kills in the match) was again a significant weapon from the back row. Wenaas was not. Altogether, not enough of either to mount a balanced attack.

THE LANDFAIR MYSTERY CONTINUES

Three weeks ago at the PAV, Landfair did not enter the match until midway through the 4^th set, won by Michigan; but she dominated the 5^th set. Tonight, Landfair played the untelevised 1^st, recording at least 1 kill; but then disappeared during the televised 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th set. Miyabe played well in relief of Landfair, especially in the 3^rd set, where I credited her with 7 of her 12 match kills (and 7 of the Gophers 26 points), and again in the 5^th set, where she added 3 more. But Miyabe, who I love, is not capable of dominating a set the way Landfair can.

Landfair spent the rest of the night on the bench, wearing a jacket (presumably to stay warm). But since she didn’t play in any of the televised sets, and I have no idea why. The Big Ten Network commentators didn’t explain, and neither does the official Gopher volleyball web-site. Did she get hurt/ reinjure her previous injury? Or did she get benched for poor play. Anyone know? Or have a theory?

Regarding Friday night’s loss at Madison:

Reader R.A. writes, “Since Gophs are poor at serve-receive and passing, running Shaffmaster all over the court, they have no chance vs a good team like Wisconsin. I don’t see any fix for that .”

[John: I agree that our Gophs were not competitive in Madison on Friday. But somehow the Terps, who were not competitive at the PAV, beat the Badgers in Maryland. So there’s hope when the Badgers come to the PAV.]

Reader G.U. writes, “ ‘Drubbed was a gross understatement. Last night’s match was hard to watch. And to make it worse it was against them stinkin’ Badgers. Shaffmaster has skills setting, but should never be allowed to play the back row as her defense is not D1 caliber. Hugh was out-coached in this one, as the WIS gals were always in perfect position to defend against most of our attacks.”

[John: McCutcheon’s Gophers play a 5-1, as do most high-level teams. And in a 5-1, our setter, Shaffmaster, plays all 6 rotations. The alternative, used by a few teams, and by the Gophs when desperate, is a 6-2. In a 6-2, our Shaffmaster plays only back row, and when her position rotates to the front row, Shaffmaster subs out for a hitter, typically Miyabe, and at the same time, Samedy subs out for a setter, McMeninmen – who also sets from the back row. Our problem is that when you’re using a rack-row setter, said setter has primary responsibility for covering dinks. We got spoiled by Seliger-Swenson, who was great at covering dinks; unfortunately Shaffmaster is not. (And in my opinion, McMeninmen is worse.) Shaffmaster is not likely to get much quicker – but hopefully she can learn to “read” the opposing hitters better, so as to anticipate the dinks.]

Regarding Saturday night’s white-knuckle win at Evanston :

Reader L.A. writes, “Enjoyed your description of Maureen’s intensity. But us poor people can’t afford BTN+.”

[John: BTN+ was a bargain (about $70) this year because we got two volleyball seasons in one year.]

R.A. writes, “Whew! is right. Landfair saved the Gophers. Can you explain why she is allowed to play so little?” 

[John: I’ll try: I guess she was injured for a while, but this weekend she played about as much as possible. Landfair excels as a left-side hitter, and the Gophers are clearly better when she’s there. She generally starts each set there, and slides to that position during each of the first 3 rotations. But then she must rotate to the back-row. At this point in her career, Landfair is a 3-position player, meaning that Kilkelly subs in for her when she rotates to back row. Recently, McCutcheon has allowed Landfair to serve before Kilkelly subs-in, which gives Landfair a chance to hit back-row (as Samedy often does). But Samedy is also an excellent back-row player, which is why she gets to play 6-rotations, but Landfair isn’t yet as good a passer as Kilkelly. Also, if I’m coaching against the Gophers, and I see a 6-5 girl in the back-row, we’re going to serve at her every time. And even if she receives successfully most of the time, it’s going to tire her out over the course of a 5-set match. Even Samedy, who appears to have more stamina than Landfair, gets worn-down sometimes.]