Month: October 2026

I don’t like the Badgers, and I don’t like losing to them, so I hate to admit this — but the Badgers are pretty good. We lost 21-25, 25-22, 15-25 & 23-25. Obviously the Badgers were the better team – at least this afternoon. They lost some early matches, to very good teams – but their best player is their freshman Opposite, from Puerto Rico, who hadn’t even arrived on campus yet. They look like a possible Final Four contender.

The Gophers hit only .187 for the match, and committed 16 service errors vs 5 aces (1 of the aces by sub Blazkova during mop-up duty at the end of our disastrous Set 3). Not likely to win many matches hitting .187 and committing 3 or 4 service errors to every ace. And yet, I will argue that the Gophers played well, maybe the best this 2026 squad has played yet – againist definitely the best team they’ve played.

Here’s why I say the Gophers played well:

• We won a set against the #6 team in the country, and two of the sets we lost were close and could have gone either way. They didn’t; the Badgers were better at the end of those sets.
• The Badgers only hit .241, and had 14 service errors vs 7 aces. This was not because both teams were weak on offense and bad at serving. It was because both teams were really good on defense, and on serve-receive. Hitters and servers from both teams repeatedly crushed balls that ricocheted off receivers or blockers and well out-of-bounds, or high in the rafters – only to see a defender make a miraculous save. Except for the outcome, it was great volleyball.
• I had the Gophers with 10 blocks, the two freshmen, Crossen & Hoecke leading the way – but probably two or three times that many that were dug up by the Badgers.
• Our Gophers had a handful of poor receives, especially Crossen, playing her first match vs an opponent of this caliber, and a couple of mis-communications – but probably two handfuls of amazing digs. I thought our Libero-corps (Palabiyik, Garr & Thibault) played great.

One season-long frustration that continued this afternoon was the propensity of the Gopher hitters to dink. Wooker gets a fair number of kills off dinks (two against the Badgers) for a couple of reasons: 1) her raw power (3 back-row kills against the Badgers) puts opponents on their heels; and 2) Wooker’s good at dinking. Our other hitters are rarely successful, and even Wooker seems to dink excessively. Reader Ross, who sits in front of me at the Pav, helped me realize that most of our dink-attempts are caused by poor sets – specifically sets that seem too low, throwing off our hitter’s timing – leaving a dink their only option to get the ball over the net..

It could be that Stella just isn’t that good – but I have a different theory. Ross isn’t ready to buy it, but here it is:

• I think Coach Cook wants the Gophs to employ a higher-tempo offense than what Coach McCutcheon ran, and he is coaching Stella to make flatter sets. So Stella is deliberately setting flatter sets (as directed). But our hitters haven’t yet adjusted to the flatter sets. 
• Why, one might ask, would Coach want Stella to deliver flatter sets? Don’t hitters like high sets?
• Of course they do, especially if that’s what they’ve grown up with. But blockers love them too. Flatter sets are quicker sets – they make it harder for the hitter – and harder for the blockers and diggers.
• In theory, hitters and setters can practice the flatter sets, eventually getting good at them – but it’s much harder for blockers and diggers to practice defending against flatter sets.
• And climbing the ladder, from a Sweet Sixteen team to a Final Four Team, requires getting out in front of the trend toward flatter sets.

If my theory is right, the Gopher hitters will catch up with Stella as the season progresses.

Individual Performances:

• Wooker continues to lead the team in kills, 14 vs the Badgers, including 3 from the back-row. (Would have been more if not for the Badger’s incredible digging.) But too many errors, and consequently a poor .120.
• The freshman Crossen contributed 10 kills, with barely any errors so a .421, plus 3 blocks.
• Kinney had 8 kills, but only .091.
• Taylor continued her offensive resurgence with 7 kills, and .500. (Middles usually have higher hitting percentages.)
• And as previously mentioned, Palabiyik, Garr & Thibault played well.

Miscellaneous:

• One of Hoecke’s two aces was for set-point in Set 2.
• The Gopher fed a back-row set to our D.S., McKenna Garr. The Badgers handled this attack by Garr, but I hadn’t seen that before. I wonder if we’ll see more of this? 
• The rules on “throwing” a ball over the net have loosened up over the years. It is now legal to “follow through” with an open hand. But you are still required, as I understand the rules, to initiate contact at the top of your vertical reach. You aren’t supposed to be able to catch the ball below the top of the net and throw a basketball-style hook-shot. Yet that was exactly what Wisconsin setter Charlie Fuerbringer did on all 6 of her kills – with nary a whistle. I don’t get it.
• I think there were 5 times when a Badger hitter had hit a ball out of bounds, and the ref awarded the Gophers a point – only to have the Badgers challenge that a Gopher blocker had touched the ball as it crossed the net. And they won every touch-challenge. They don’t show such replays at the Pav, so I am in no position to argue this one. But Fuerbringer’s 6 kills and the Badger 5 challenges threw 11 points to the Badgers that could have been 11 points for the Gophers – which could have changed the outcome of the match.

NEXT UP:

• Friday, Oct 9, 6:00, at Rutgers, on BTN+
• Sunday, Oct 11, 3:00 at Ohio State, on BTN

Neither team is ranked, but the 2026 Gophers have yet to win a road match. So keep your fingers crossed.

Northwestern came into the PAV with a record of 7 & 6, but at least tonight was the least competitive team we’ve seen so far, including the 3 from the Summit League. Gophs in three, 25-14, 25-11 & 25-9, a total score of 75-34. The Gophers hit .413 for the match, vs minus .036 for the Cats.

Georgia Lee subbed in late in Set 2, Lee, Gilk & Blazkova played all of Set 3, and before it was over, Madi Kraft & Olivia Swenson saw action. Every healthy player played – so not Minatee or Acevedo, who are still being held out. Given that we took Set 3 by a wider margin than earlier sets, it might have been that the Wildcats also played their bench in Set 3 – but I am not familiar with their roster.

Either it was my imagination that Wooker was not 100% vs Oregon (I don’t think she was), or she is recovered. Because she started left-front tonight (she didn’t vs Oregon) and played the entire match when other starters did not. I had her with a team-leading 10 kills, including one from back-row (none vs Oregon), plus 2 blocks and 3 aces.

I mention that Gilk played in Set 3. Gilk has been a starter for most of the season, but was benched during the Oregon match, and didn’t start tonight. Gilk had one convincing kill in Set 3, plus another strong hit that was saved by the Cats. Maybe those two swings will help restore Gilk’s confidence.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the Freshman Crossen. She started and played Sets 1 & 2 at Opposite, and played Set 3 at Leftside. (I think she’ll be playing Leftside next year.) She had 6 kills and served great. Only one ace, but Crossen was the server on a 7-point run in Set 1, and a 5-point run in Set 2. (Wooker, Hoecke & Stella were the front-row on both runs.) Garr also served well, 4 aces vs 1 error.

And speaking of Hoecke, our freshman Middle continues to impress: 7 kills, including 3 quicks, 3 slides & an overpass, plus 3 blocks. Garr served well, 4 aces vs 1 error. Kinney was fine, 5 kills, as was Taylor 3 kills and one block; neither playing in Set 3.

READERS WRITE:

Reader CB wonders, “What is so hard about serving?  Server holds the ball, nobody defending her, has practiced it a thousand times. Why should that be the thing she can’t do under pressure? Our players perform better during live action when there’s no time to think about it. It must be mental; do the Gophers need a psychologist?”

JOHN: CB is not the first reader to raise this issue. There is a mental aspect to serving. When I coached club ball, I told my players, “It’s just you and the ball. Don’t think about anything else — because nothing else exists.” 

Any 2nd-string 16 yr-old VB player can get 95+% of their serves “in” – if that’s the goal. But in modern D-1 VB, the last thing a serving team wants is a serve that’s merely “in,” because that allows the receiving team to run the offense they want. The goal is to prevent this. This is called taking them “out of system.” You do this with hard serves,  top-spins, “floaters” that dance like a knuckle-ball, serves that “paint the lines,” and combinations thereof. On top of that, every D1 team has an assistant coach whose during-the-match duty is to tell servers where to serve, i.e., at the receiver who has been struggling

Obviously, the more aggressive the serve, the higher the risk of error. And there are situational differences related to momentum: This might seem counter-intuitive, but I wanted my servers aggressive when we were trailing significantly late in the set. The odds are against us, but a couple of aces could change that, so serve aggressive. But if your teammates just made 2 service-errors in a row, just lob it over — don’t give our opponent the momentum.

My general rule, when I was coaching, was get your first serve in; you haven’t served for a while, so be a little cautious. Second serve, a little more aggressive. By the third serve, you have your rhythm down, so crush it. By the sixth serve, ease up. We’ve got so much momentum that our opponent will make errors without our help. Let them.

Anyway, there’s more to it than just get it in.