Author: jktrpp

Several GopherVBallRocks readers have harbored the thought that our Gophs had been consistently overrated in the polls– and it looks like they were right, probably all along. Bruins in three, and the better team won, 18-25, 22-25, 22-25. It doesn’t help we have lost 4 of our best players Acevedo now out for the season, also, leaving us with no plausible subs. It also doesn’t help that 5 of the 8 healthy players are freshman – playing like freshman. 

SET 1: Wasn’t as close as the score suggests. The Gophers trailed from the get, and were down 14-24 before a late rally. For whatever reason, the ‘25 Gophs have often started slow in Sets 1, and Acevedo has often been the exception, keeping the Gophs alive until the rest got into it. Now she’s not on the floor. My sense, watching from the stands, was that we were outplayed in every aspect of volleyball during Set 1.

SET 2: The late Set 1 rally seemed to help the Gophers’ morale, and we took leads of 3-0, 8-4, and 14-8. Things were looking up. It felt like we were going to win the set,and maybe the match, perhaps leading to a we-got-this-season. And as soon as I thought that, we went on a 6-15 run to fall behind 20-23.

Set 3: We rallied from 2-5 to 7-5, then back to 9-13. We bounced back to take a brief 17-16 lead, but fell apart again. I have suggested that one thing we miss transitioning from the Shaffmaster era to the Stella era would be Shaffmaster’s leadership. Beside being a respectable, if somewhat slow, setter, Shaffmaster seemed to have knack for playing her best when both teams were at 20-something. Stella may get there, but she isn’t demonstrating that extra gear yet. Nor does anyone else on this current squad. Hanson, a fourth year senior, is the team’s best player, and she leads by example. But Hanson doesn’t seem to have Shaffmaster’s ability to put the team on her shoulders and drag them to victory. 

If you enjoy solid defense, this was a great match to watch. In Sets 2 & 3, the Gophers played great defense, meaning strong blocking by Taylor, Myers and Hanson and amazing digs by Taylor, Hanson, Gilk, Thibault and Garr. But UCLA played better defense. Time after time it appeared that Gopher hitters had put one away – only to see the Bruins dig it up and get a return.

Hanson, our best hitter and most veteran player, had a respectable 13 kills, but also 9 errors, and a meager hitting percentage of .087. Gilk and Myers were our next most productive hitters with 5 kills each.. Meanwhile, Hanson’s Bruin counterpart had 15 kills and a .282 percentage – and she had slightly more help, two with 6 kills. Part of the problem was that Hanson was dinking more than hitting, and Taylor and Myers were actually whiffing on sets. (Which apparently doesn’t bring their percentage down because they never even touched the ball.) I told you you would love Stella Swenson – but I didn’t love her tonight. She was getting to balls that Shaffmaster wouldn’t have reached – but Stella wasn’t putting them where her hitters wanted them.  

NOTES:

1. In Sets 1 & 2 Stella was coming out, replaced by Crowl, for one-half rotation when Lee subbed in to serve for Gilk. The strategy here is that Lee has been our best server, Crowl is a bigger blocker than Stella, and it gives Stella a breather and a chat with our setter-coach. But it wasn’t working tonight; Lee didn’t record a single Ace, Crowl never recorded a block or a kill, and Lee cost us two points by not getting to balls Stella would have gotten to. We abandoned this to start Set 3, letting Gilk serve for herself, and then went back to it again, late. (Not sure why?)
2. I had thought that our serve receive actually got slightly better when Kinney replaced Acevedo – who struggled at times. (I think Kinney is the better receiver of the two.) But all this did was to shift our recent opponents’ attention to Hanson – who also has struggled recently. UCLA had seen the film and targeted Hanson from the get, resulting in two shanked receives. For Sets 2 & 3, Coach Cook shifted to a receive of Garr, Kinney and Gilk, hiding Hanson. We had started the season with a 3 Libero receive that looked good, now we were reduced to a 3 Freshman receive that isn’t great.
3. This lineup of Freshmen, Garr, Kinney, Stella, Taylor and Gilk is going to produce some big wins for the Maroon & Gold, but maybe not this season, and probably not any time soon.

NEXT UP: Ohio State, Sunday at the Pav, 1:00,B9TN+) This is a winnable match, but not iff we play like we did against UCLA.

Gophs defeated Northwestern at Northwestern in 4 Sets, 25-19, 25-22, 17-25, 26-24. Still don’t know what Garr’s injury was (concussion protocol maybe?). She was reportedly listed as “questionable” going into warm-ups, but played the entire match. Hard to pinpoint what Garr did that made so much difference, but the Gophs certainly looked better with her in the lineup.

Interesting match for Hanson. Without Palabiyik, Hanson is part of all 6 of our serve-receives. The Wildcats picked on her all match, and she struggled. I had her with 7 poor-receives. But Hanson’s serve-receive struggles didn’t affect her hitting, I had her with 18 kills (leading all hitters, 3 of the 18 back-row), and a solid .361 percentage, including 2 consecutive kills to finish off a close Set 2

The BAD NEWS is Acevedo. She started hot (as she often does), carrying the Gophs through Set 1 and part of Set 2 (7 kills, .316), then, late in Set 2, hurt her knee and had to be helped off the court. I haven’t heard anything official, but it looked bad – maybe another season-ender. I remember seasons in the recent past where the Gophs played an entire season without a major injury, and in typical seasons, no more than one per season. If Acevedo is out-of-action for a sustained period, she would be the fourth starter to go down. In one sense, we are fortunate that our most recent injury came at Outside Hitter, because it was the last remaining position where we had depth. Now, we have no depth anywhere, if anyone else goes down, even temporarily, we will be in big trouble.

Gilk started at Opposite and played okay, 7 kills. Kinney started the match on the bench, came in for Acevedo, and also had 7 kills. Kinney in for Acevedo is not much of a drop-off – but the next injury will be a huge drop-off.

Myers continued to play well, as expected, with 7 kills and 2 blocks, but the Freshman Taylor was the big story, with 6 kills and 6 blocks. Her kills were all off “quicks,” as the timing between her and Stella, on attempted “slides,” is not close to working. (The opposite of Myers, whose kills all come off “slides.”) The Stella-Taylor timing on slides is so bad that we are lucky to pop a free-ball over the net when we try one. Taylor also continues to take first-touches away from Garr & Thibault when we would rather she didn’t, and she continues to be late getting to the edges to set double blocks. But green as she is, she is a major presence at the net. Not sure how long it will take to clean some of her deficits up, but Taylor is going to make the All Big Ten Freshman Team this year, and All Big Ten Honors are in her future.

NOTES: 1) After 3 service-errors in the first two sets, Thibault was relieved of her serving duties for Sets 3 & 4, yielding to Gilk. Gilk also had 2 service-errors in 2 sets, but she also had 2 aces. 2) I don’t cringe when I see KInney attempt a dink or some other off-speed shot – because she’s good at it.

UP NEXT: Opening the Big Ten Season with MSU and Rutgers at Home, and Michigan and Northwestern on the Road, was about as easy as it could have been. 

Now the Meat Grinder starts, with our next six matches vs 

UCLA (Wed, 7:00. BTN) and Ohio State, (Sun, 1:00, BTN+) both at the Pav, then 

Oregon at Oregon (Fri, 10/17, 8:00, BTN+), 

Washington at Washington (Sat. 10/18, 9:00 BTN+), 

Indiana at Indiana (Fri, 10/24, 5:00, BTN), and 

Purdue at Purdue (Sun. 10/26, Noon, BTN+)

Oregon and Purdue are very good, and Washington on the second night of a back-to-back on the road will be tough, but I think a healthy (as healthy as now) Gopher squad could win any one of these matches, and therefore, conceivably all 6. But one more injury could leave our Gophs weakened enough to lose all 6. Cross your fingers and keep ‘em crossed. 

This is getting posted late because I experienced a health emergency almost immediately after the match. Coincidence? hmmm.

Our 10th ranked Gophers looked confident winning Set 1, and then the wheels fell off, Michigan in four, 25-18, 12-25, 14-25, 12-25. The Gophers have had off-nights in recent years, losing matches we thought they should win, but I don’t remember a Gopher team playing as poorly as they did tonight. 

It didn’t help that this was the first Big Ten Road match for this freshman-laden squad, it didn’t help that this team does not (yet anyway) have a leader who can put the team on her shoulders when the going gets tough (as Shaffmaster did these past two seasons), and it certainly didn’t help to play the match short Garr. 

We started the season with 3 liberos, and planning to play all 3. Then we lost Palabiyik for the season, so down to 2. Then, with Garr injured, we played with 1. Thibault wore the Libero jersey, and did okay, but we didn’t have anyone picking up Thibault’s normal role at D.S. Time after time, there were balls off our blockers or Michigan’s blockers that Thibault-playing-D.S. would have dug up – and nobody even touched the ball.

Our 3 Libero receive of Palabiyik, Garr and Thibault looked pretty good; our 1 Libero receive of Hanson, Acevedo and Thibault was horrible. I usually try to keep track of bad receives, but I gave up halfway through the match. In an earlier blog, I had speculated that if we lost the services of Garr or Thibault, perhaps plan B would be Gilk at D.S. I have no idea how well that would have worked, but it could hardly have worked worse than Coach Cook’s plan B – to go without a D.S. 

Instead Coach benched Kinney and used Gilk at Opposite – and Gilk was a modest bright spot among the chaos. Coach also benched Stella a couple of times (this was a double-sub, Crowl in for Stella to play Opposite and Georgia Lee in for Gilk as back-row setter) to limited effect. Coach even benched Hanson for Set 4, which didn’t work at all, As I said – a disaster.

I have no idea what Garr’s injury was; I hope she can play Sunday at Northwestern.

Sort of. I don’t guess they go by the nickname “Ruts,” and two of the three sets were close. But we did sweep the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, 25-22, 25-13, 29-27.

Set 1 was hard-fought, tied 7-7, 17-17, 22-22, the Gophers often trailing by a point or two, and our points coming off of Rutgers mistakes more than from our offense. We didn’t take our first lead of the Set (and Match) until running 5 from down 20-22. Set 2 was ugly, on the Rutgers side of the net, as though their hearts were broken by letting Set 2 get away. The highlight on the Gophers side of the net was Georgia Lee’s 4 service aces, three of them consecutive, adding to the heartbreak. 

Set 3 was not as close as the 29-27 score suggests. Up a point or two mid-set, the Gophs went on a 12-5 run behind Lee & Stella’s strong serving. Outside Hitter Olivia Swenson is not part of any competitive rotation the Gophers can field, but she’s part of the team, and like any bench player in any sport, yearns to get into the game. So feeling confident, and maybe thinking about tougher upcoming opponents, Coach Cook decided that with a score of 21-13 in Set 3 would be an opportunity to play Olivia … as part of our Serve Receive instead of Thibault. Understandably, the Rutgers’ servers picked on Olivia. It was ugly, and in the blink of an eye it was tied at 23-23. Give credit to Rutgers for stiffening, and trading sideouts, even after Olivia returned to the bench. (Listen, I’m sure that Olivia is a fine young woman, and I assume that sister Stella wants her to get a chance.) Finally, at 27-27, Hanson rotated to the front row, got two good sets, and pounded ’em both to end the match.

The one spot where we have actual, can-play, depth, is at Outside Hitter, where we have 4 talented players to fill 3 positions. Recently (vs Loyola, maybe?) Hanson sat out an entire match. In the Big Ten Opener, vs Michigan State, Gilk started on the bench, with Kinney at Opposite – and I jumped to the conclusion that Hanson, Acevedo & Kinney were our “regulars.” But after a couple miss-hits in Set 2 vs MSU, Coach Cook benched Kinney for Gilk. Gilk played okay, but not noticeably better than Kinney. So I was surprised to see Gilk start today’s Rutgers’ match. Unlike Olivia, Gilk made the most of her opportunity, racking up 7 kills (one behind Hanson), 3 blocks (tying Myers for the Team-lead, and played an important role in the closing finish of Set 1. Does that mean that Gilk is the “starter” now? I dunno; KInney played Set  3 instead of Acevedo, and looked good. It could be that Coach Cook thinks of them as 4 “starters.”

RE BLOCKING: We finished the match, officially, with 5 “Team-Blocks,” mostly Taylor, Hanson and Gilk. But we also had a ton of “Denial-Blocks,” where we stuff the ball back in the opposing hitter’s face, someone pops it up, and play goes on. And we had at least 8 to 10 times where we stuffed our opponent’s hit and the ball went straight  to the floor too quick for anyone to dig it – but landed out of bounds, usually by less than a foot. So, we were inches from having a dozen blocks – yielding a much more dominant match. In a sense, there is an easy fix, as this is just a matter of the angle at which our blockers are extending their hands – ten degrees would produce a better outcome. But it happens fast; that ten degrees has to be mastered by a thousand repetitions in practice. Hopefully, by the end of the season, we’ll see the majority of those balls hitting the line or just inside.

RE SERVING: I am, at least for now, very happy with our serving. Today, we had 11 aces vs 5 errors, which I’d take any day. I’d even be happy with 4 aces vs 5 errors, if we were consistently pressuring our opponents’ receive – and keeping them “out-of-system.” As we did today. Aces are great, but given that we don’t have anyone capable of a 90 mile-an-hour, top-spin, jump-serve, aces are sort of a random bonus. A consistent barrage of hard, flat, floaters, aimed at the back-line, and targeted at the opponent’s weak link, is good serving. That’s what we did today, and I loved it. 

RE CONFIDENCE: After watching Gopher Teams coached by Hugh McCutcheon (for 11 years?), it is surprising to see the frequent substitutions made by Coach Cook, especially ones like not playing Hanson against Loyola and letting Rutgers back into today’s Set 3. McCutcheon did not coach like that. But these ‘25 Gophers have won 12 straight matches since the season opener vs Texas A & M, 9 of those in 3-set sweeps, including several sets that could have gone either way — but didn’t. Cook seems to have a lot of confidence in these freshmen, and these freshmen show no sign of panic when down a few points mid-set. I worried that we might miss the confidence that Shaffmaster had to take over a tight set or match. But maybe this whole freshmen-heavy team has that we-got-this confidence.

NEXT UP

Michigan at Michigan, Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. on BTN. Michigan is 10 & 3 overall, and were ranked in the top-30 at one point, and it will be these freshmen’s first BIG-Ten road game. On the other hand, we swept Michigan State at the PAV, and 3 nights later, Michigan State swept Michigan in East Lansing. 

Northwestern at Northwestern, Sunday, 2:00 p.m. on BTN +

These are matches the Gophers SHOULD win, and it is exactly the sort of matches we NEED to win.

I had failed to notice (until multiple GopherVBallRocks readers mentioned it to me) that the MSU Spartans came into the match with a perfect 10 & 0 record. The catch was that they hadn’t played anyone very good. Anyway, the Gophs made quick work of Sparty, 25-16, 26-24, 25-18. Set 2 was close, at one point we trailed 9-15, but even then I felt, accurately as it turned out, that we would win the set.

Once again, the victory reflected balanced scoring, I had

• Hanson with 11 kills (and 3 aces)
• Acevedo with 10 kills
• Myers with 6 kills (all slides)
• Gilk (who subbed in for Kinney early in Set 2) with 4 kills
• Kinney with 3 kills, and
• Taylor with 3 kills and 3 blocks.

And a Team Hitting percentage of .389

Speaking of Taylor, I’m not sure she would be getting court-time yet if Minatee hadn’t gotten injured, but tonight we saw exactly the Taylor I was hoping to see. By that I mean, she’s a freshman, making freshman mistakes. (E.G., she got whistled for reaching over the net to interfere with a Sparty set, and she threw a free ball back to Sparty versus passing it to Stella.) But she is very active at the net getting lots of no-kill blocks and intimidating the Sparty hitters.

Speaking of freshman struggles, Garr didn’t have a perfect night either, especially on serve-receive. She shanked a couple of receives, and let two go by that hit the line. (Someone in section 110 said that her teammates were screaming “OUT” on both.) 

I liked our serving. We had 4 Aces vs 5 service-errors. Obviously we’d prefer that ratio to tilt the other way, but aside from the aces & errors, I felt we put a lot of pressure on Sparty’s receive all night.

Interesting that Gilk came in for Kinney. I like Kinney and I thought we had settled on Kinney as our Opposite. But after a couple of hitting errors she got the early hook. I like Gilk too, and she wasted no time getting her first kill. I’m glad we have both of them.

NEXT UP: RUTGERS, at the Pav, 2:00 on Sunday.

The Gophs are on an 11-match win streak, and I like our chances of extending it to 12.

If you are learning here that the Gophs swept the Golden Eagles, 28-26, 25-21, 25-21, you might ask, “Well, shouldn’t they? Marquette isn’t Big Ten, and they weren’t TOP 25 ranked.” But Marquette was a pretty tough team, tough enough to have swept #15 ranked Florida two days earlier. And each Set was a grind. 

In Set 1, our Gophs trailed 7-12 and 15-19. We never trailed by more than a point in Set 2, but we never led by more than a couple until late. And in Set 3, we trailed 8-12 and 11-15. Part of the reason we trailed in Sets 1 & 3 was fantastic saves made by the Golden Eagles. Time and time again, the Gophs pounded great hits or killer dinks that looked like certain kills, only to have a gutsy Marquette Squad save balls headed for the bleachers.

And the reason we were able to come back in Sets 1 & 3 was that the Gophers didn’t let it bother them. We lost some of those points I thought we had already won, but we just kept pounding the ball. Two of the 4 close-the-gap runs were with Acevedo serving. Give Acevedo credit for serves that kept Marquette out-of-system, but credit also a front-line of Taylor, Kinney and Hanson.

In past seasons, my reporting good offensive balance was often rare. But I think this ‘25 squad is going to thrive repeatedly on BALANCE. Here are the Official stats from today’s match:

Hanson: 15 kills with a .225 %, and a block;

Acevedo: 11 kills with a .233 %, and a block;

Kinney: 9 kills with a .400% and 4 blocks;

Myers: 8 kills with a .217% and a block; and

Taylor: 6 kills with a .667% and 4 blocks. 

THAT’S BALANCE!

Good day for the locals; Vikes win big, Lynx win big, and Gopher VB wins big. I didn’t realize they were still playing, but apparently even the Twins won.

NEXT UP: 

Big Ten Opener at the Pav vs Michigan State, Thursday, 7:30 (BTN), and

Rutgers at the Pav on Sunday, 2:00 BTN+

Not the Gophers, to sweep Loyola, 25-19, 25-10, 25- 15. Hanson never played a set. But don’t panic; I am fairly certain that Coach Cook “rested” Hanson so as to create the opportunity to play Kinney at Leftside (plus Acevedo) and Gilk at opposite.  

And it worked; these 3 Gopher Outside Hitters dominated the Ramblers. Kinney and Acevedo both reached double-figure kills, and Gilk was close. And roughly half of Kinney’s kills were off-speed shots. I have long lamented that the Gophers have, for years, been weak at off-speed shots (Samedy was okay at it, and the Tapp Sisters knew how to dink an overpass, but generally). Stella is good at it also so we have two players who can score with an off-speeder. I still don’t want Hanson or Acevedo trying it, and I cringe when Crowl does it.

The Gopher Middles, Myers and now Taylor in her debut as a starter, also looked good – I had them near double figure kills combined. One concern is that their kills came mostly on slides, which Myers excels at; Minatee was better at quicks.  I’m high on both Myers and Taylor, but it would be helpful for quicks to be part of a diversified attack.  

Loyola didn’t really test our serve-receive. Look for more competition from Marquette on Sunday.

Prior to the season opener, less than a month and a mere 9 matches ago, I had posted my thoughts regarding our 12th ranked* Gophers depth chart. I was right about the order of who ranked where for some positions and wrong about others, but the big development concerns the DEPTH itself. Prior to the season opener, we appeared to have a lot of it, but no longer. Even before we have concluded our non-conference season, we are extremely dependent on keeping our starters healthy. * I think the #12 reflects our 8-1 record – but ignores our relatively weak non-conference schedule AND our current depth issue.

We never had depth at SETTER. We play a 5-1, and Stella Swenson is the ONE. Georgia Lee has, a pleasant surprise, turned out to be a strong designated server, and she sets well enough for minimal spot duty, i.e., in for a point or two, as a setter. But we are unlikely to fare well in the rugged Big Ten schedule with Lee or third string setter Chloe Ng as our one setter. 

We had good depth at LIBERO, with the excellent Zeynab Palabiyik as our #1, Kate Thibault as our #2, and true freshman McKenna Garr as our #3. So much so that it appeared we were going to routinely play all 3 at the same time in certain rotations. But Palabiyik is out for the season, leaving us with only Thibault and Garr. I predicted that Garr might jump ahead of Thibault, and for now, she has, getting the 11 half-rotation jersey and keeping Thibault in the 6 half-rotation D.S. spot. But Thibault has been playing really well, so this might continue to be a competition between the two of them. The bigger issue is that we need at least two healthy Liberos, so we no longer have any depth at this position. Maybe Gilk?

We had good depth at MIDDLE, with the excellent 5th yr transfer (from Purdue) Lourdes Myers as our #1, the undersized junior Calissa Minatee as our #2, and the long and talented true freshman Jordan Taylor as our #3. But Minatee is out for the season, leaving us with only Myers and Taylor. Taylor instead of Minatee won’t hurt us on defense, as Taylor has the potential to become a dominant blocker. In the short-term, losing Minatee will set us back a bit on offense as Minatee had been quite productive on the quick-sets from Stella, and the Stella-Taylor timing is still off. The adjustment from setting the short & quick Minatee to the tall & slow Taylor falls on Stella’s shoulders; I think Stella is up to it, but it won’t happen overnight. Again, the bigger issue is that we need at least two healthy Middles, so we no longer have any depth at this position. Maybe Kinney?

We had good depth at OUTSIDE HITTER, where we’ll play two LEFTSIDES and one OPPOSITE. We had Julia Hanson, The Wooker, and Alex Acevedo at Leftside, the true freshman Carly Gilk and 5th yr veteran Lauren Crowl at Opposite, and the true freshman and versatile Kelly Kinney who can perform at either position. (I did not, and do not, entertain playing the slow-moving Olivia Swenson in a Big Ten match. I’m sure Olivia is a nice person and a supportive teammate, but if she really wants court-time, she belongs D-3.) 

So we had 6 players for 3 positions, and losing The Wooker drops us to 5 options for 3 positions, with Kinney’s versatility a critical asset. For now, it appears that the starting Leftsides will be Hanson and Acevedo, and Kinney at Opposite, and Gilk and Crowl hopefully performing so well in practice as to push Acevedo for a starting role (moving Kinney to Leftside). Hanson is a stud. Acevedo has looked good lately, and starts quick in Sets 1, which is helpful. But Acevedo was inconsistent at times last year, which we can’t afford. Kinney and Gilk are true freshmen, which often portends inconsistency. Crowl is an adequate, 5-tool backup, but I scream in frustration every time she dinks – which is way too often. So OUTSIDE HITTER is the one position where we still have a little depth, but precious little. 

Injuries play a role in every team sport, but losing 3 of your top 13 players competing for 8 starting roles is enough bad luck – and the Big Ten season hasn’t even started yet. We can’t afford much more and still remain competitive.

NEXT UP: The Gophs finish the non-conference season with

Friday: Loyola at Loyola, 6:00 on ESPN+

Sunday: Marquette at Marquette, 5:00 on FS1

We need to win both!

Three of the 4 sets were close, but our Gophers prevailed 25-23, 26-28, 25-18 & 25-20.

Set 1 involved a series of mini-runs, The Gophs went up 7-3 with Acevedo serving (Hanson, Crowl & Minatee in front row), then the Jackrabbits pulled within 1 at 7-6. The Gophs again pulled ahead 12-8 behind Hanson’s serve and Acevedo’s hitting, but then the Rabbits again pulled back in it at 12-11. We pulled ahead 16-11 and traded side-outs to 24-19, but the Rabbits ran 4 to get within 24-23 before a nice kill from Acevedo (who had a great Set 1) put it away.

Set 2 started poorly at 2-5 and 3-8, during which Minatee was injured. (Her knee?) Taylor came in, looked uncomfortable, then Minatee came back, during which Myers got hot, pulling to Gophs to a 12-10 lead. Taylor came back in, and continued to look uncomfortable as the Rabbits surged ahead 14-17. The teams sort of traded sideouts until the Rabbits reached 23-19, but the Gophs weren’t quitting and fought back to send it in overtime – where they lost a tough challenge allowing the Rabbits to pull ahead 27-26. Then the Rabbits had a nice kill for the win.

Set 3 also started poorly at 2-5, but we pulled back to 7-7, Taylor continuing to look uncomfortable, then surged to a commanding 20-13 lead behind strong hitting by Acevedo and Hanson. 

Set 4 was tight most of the way, with scores of 4-4, 7-7, 10-10 and 19-18 before the Gophs pulled away behind two freshmen: Stella with 3 kills (of her 4 total) and Taylor with 3 blocks (of her 4 total). 

Overall, I had Acevedo as the offensive leader with 16 kills. Clearly, I had underestimated Acevedo in my preseason analysis; she certainly carried her weight today. I had Hanson with 12 kills, 4 blocks and 11 digs, including some tough ones. I had Myers with 8 kills and 6 blocks. And I had Taylor, who struggled early, ending the match with 4 kills and 4 blocks, most of them in Set 4. Also, Thibault dug well.  

Stella was our first server (a typical VBall strategy) in each set, with Crowl starting Sets 1 & 2 in the front row – I think because of her blocking skills? But when Stella rotated to serve her second time, Coach Cook sent Kinney in instead of Crowl, and, noting Crowl’s lack of production, Coach skipped Crowl entirely in Sets 3 & 4. If I was coaching the Gophs, I’d make a rule that Stella can dink, but everybody else, especially Crowl would be forbidden to dink. Nobody but is any good at dinking and we send over way too many free balls.

Today was a good win over a strong team. I posted Friday that a Dayton Coach was dismissive of the Jackrabbits claim to being ranked, but the only weakness I saw was that their setter is too short, 5-7 or 5-8 maybe, to block. It used to be common for Women’s VB teams to have vertically-challenged setters, but these days, a setter on a D-1 team playing the preferred 5-1 system has to be at least 6 ft. Libero is now the only option for a girl of normal height. 

NEXT UP: The Gophs finish the non-conference season with

Friday: Loyola at Loyola, 6:00 on BTN+

Sunday: Marquette at Marquette, 5:00 on FS1

A sweep is a sweep, but I’m calling it “skinny” because the scores were 25-22, 25-21, & 25-22. Set 1 was tied at 22-22 before the Gophs won 3 straight points, Set 2 was 23-21 before the Gophs won consecutive points, and Set 3 was tied at 19-19 before the Gophs won 6 of the last 8 points. Interestingly, the snakebit Flyers lost a surprisingly similar sweep yesterday, to tomorrow’s Gopher opponent, the Jackrabbits. 25-22, 25-23, & 25-17. As it happens, I had a chance to chat with one of the Flyers coaches after the Jackrabbit sweep, — who was not impressed with the Jackrabbits, “ They’re decent. But they’re no Top 25 Team.” I wonder what he thinks of the Gophers. Also wonder how he feels about Diet Coke after 6 tantalizing losses. (Plus Coke Zero tastes so much better.)

By the end of the match, the Gopher hitting was almost as evenly split as possible; Kinney, playing Opposite, had 12 kills, Acevedo had 11, Hanson had 10 plus 4 blocks, and Myers had 7 kills and 3 blocks. But individual sets were anything but balanced. 

Set 1 was the most productive set I can remember Acevedo having in Maroon & Gold; she had 4 early kills to keep the Gophs in the set, before Hanson and Kinney got rolling, plus a 5th kill in the final Set 1 push.

Then in Set 2, Kinney came alive, I think recording 5 of her match 12 in Set 2.

Set 3 was Myers’ turn to shine. I’m starting to feel like Myers running a slide is the most reliable weapon in the Gopher Arsenal.

Hanson didn’t seem to take over a set like these others, but she was a steady force throughout the match.

WHY SO CLOSE, one might ask?

And the answer was obvious. Gopher serving was dreadful, 12 service-errors vs 4 aces. Tonight’s 1:3 ration will kill our Gophs vs a strong team. And the carnage was spread around, Hanson missed 4 serves, vs 1 ace, Stella missed 3 serves, vs 1 ace, The only one of our 6 “regular servers” to finish the match with a positive ratio, was Lee with zero errors and 1 ace. I’m starting to see a significant role for Lee beyond backup setter.

NEXT UP: A very dangerous Jackrabbit squad, at the Pav, tomorrow at 3:00 (also on BTN+). A Dayton coach said “they’re no Top 25 Team,” but I’m not so sure. If they walk out of the Pav tomorrow with the Diet Coke trophy, they”ll be ranked on Monday.

Remember that they took two sets out of three from our Gophs in a Spring Exhibition Match. We were missing Hanson and Kinney that Spring Day, the two of whom contributed a combined 44% of today’s offense. But SDSU had a player in sweats that day, so they weren’t 100% either. Spring matches don’t count, but tomorrow’s match will impact Gopher seeding for the NCAA Tournament in December.