Purdue, 24-26, 25-23, 20-25, 25-23, 10-15.
Two matches into the Big 10 season, the Gophers are 1 & 1, 8 & 4 overall. Five of the Gopher opponents (St. Thomas, Long Island, Green Bay, UND and Chicago State) were teams we were supposed to beat, and we swept each in straight sets. We also swept SE Conference Auburn, currently the #27 ranked team in the country. The other 6 matches went 5 sets (oddly, the Gophs have not played a 4-set match in 12 outings), losing to #3 Stanford (by 2 pts), beating #8 Texas (by 8), losing to #19 Baylor (by 2), losing to #22 TCU (by 2), beating #7 Wisconsin (by 2), and tonight, losing to #10 Purdue (by 5). The conclusion I draw is that while unbeaten Pitt and 10 & 1 Nebraska might be a cut above the rest, there is a ton of parity from #3 to at least #26 (and maybe beyond), which includes another 7 Big 10 teams besides Nebraska.
Tonight’s match itself was an example of this parity. Purdue’s leading hitters, Colvin and Hudson, posted 19 & 18 kills, respectively, vs Hanson and Grote with 19 and 17. We had 10 block-kills, they had 9. Both teams were great at getting partial blocks and amazing digs to keep rallies going when hitters crushed the ball. Long volleys, with the ball crossing the net a dozen times or more, were the norm rather than the exception.
The upshot is that at least half of the Gophers (10 of 20) Big 10 matches will be decided by a lucky bounce here, a questionable call there, or an unforced error. There was a call in tonight’s Set 1 (which cost us the Set) that those of us in Section 110 didn’t agree with. But the real story was unforced errors, especially in the Gophers’ serve-receive. I don’t think of Wooker as a great serve-receiver, so I was surprised, when Acevedo broke into the line-up, that Wooker would sub-in to handle serve-receive when Acevedo was hitting effectively. Could Acevedo be worse? Apparently yes.
Through 3 sets, with Wooker still injured, Acevedo was the Gophers leading hitter, but the Boilermakers were targeting her in serve-receive, and getting easy point after easy point. When Coach Cook tried to protect Acevedo by going to a two-player receive, either Palabiyik and Thibault, or Palabiyik and Hanson. Thibault broke down. The Gophers held their own with Purdue in hitting, blocking and digging, but coughed up an astonishing 17 Boilermakers aces, including 3 in the deciding Set 5. (The raw stats suggest that the Boilermakers slightly out-hit the Gophs, but only because we were playing out-of-system all night.) Down 2 sets to 1, going into Set 4, Coach Cook benched Acevedo entirely, moving Grote to Leftside and playing Crowl at Opposite, and it worked — at least in Set 4. I’m not a huge Crowl fan, but she had 2 kills in 5 swings and served well. I should give Purdue credit, they found our weakness and exploited it.
NEXT UP:
- Friday, Oct 4, 9:00 p.m., @ UCLA, on BTN+
- Saturday, Oct 5, 10:00 p.m., @ Southern Cal, on BTN
CLARIFICATION: I think I should clarify my comments (in my previous post) about the Gophers having limited depth at Setter. What I meant was that if Shaffmaster were to experience a minor injury causing her to miss part of a match, or even an entire weekend, or if she were to be injured in late November or December, I presume that our option would be to go to a 6-2, with McGhie and Ng doing the setting, and Crowl playing the other Opposite. We might be able to beat a “second-division” Big 10 team with this lineup, but we would definitely be weaker.
If, on the other hand, Shaffmaster were to experience a major injury, causing her to miss half or more of the season, I assume that Stella Swenson would step in as our 5-1 setter, sacrificing her red-shirt status. (I don’t know exactly what # of sets she could play and retain her status.) Stella does not have all the tools Shaffmaster has (like blocking and attacking), and she might need a week to adjust to the Big 10 level of play, but I have no doubt that Stella will eventually be a star.