Blog

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.

I got home late, and Reader R.A. had already submitted his report, so let’s go with that. I’ll have more to say in a “Dial Classic” roundup after Sunday’s match.

R.A.’s report: When I saw S. Florida small team, I thought 3-0. My seatmate — very knowledgeable told me they took Purdue to 5 sets … but we swept them anyway, 3-0. 25-13, 25-13, 25-19. Set 3 had 5 freshmen (Gilk, Kinney, Taylor, Garr, redshirt Stella.) on the court more than half the time. They played well, which is very encouraging for now and next two seasons. But they are freshmen, which is why SF got 19 pts in Set 3. still 3-0.

Key takeaways:

• Serving has gotten much better. No box score yet, but we got several aces, probably fewer SE for a change, plus our very good drop serves by several players kept them out of system.
• We hit around .350 to their -.100 or so.
• After a slow start, where Hanson hit right into defenders, she adjusted and, I believe, led with 7 or 8 kills.
• Acevedo had a very good match, about 6 kills, good hitting and improved receives, plus 2 aces and difficult serves that led to solid runs. She played like a starter.
• Crowl started with her typical soft dinks over the net, but mid-S2 started hitting HARD for a change. Got 5K and 2-3 good blocks at the net. Team outblocked around 11-3.

Our Gophers did not do anything extraordinary in sweeping the Lipscomb Bison, 25-18, 25-15, 25-19 on their home floor. We served reasonably well (7 aces versus 5 errors), received reasonably well (5 poor receives, mostly Acevedo, out of over 50 receives), fed Hanson (16 kills) & others ( 4 apiece for Myers, Acevedo and Kenney), blocked (9 total, widely distributed), and made a couple of excellent saves including one combo gem by Acevedo and Garr. And that was enough to sweep the Nashville Bible College (Based on their advertisement). Not impressed? Consider that Lipscomb goes into the season a Coaches-Poll favorite to win the D-1 A-Sun conference – consisting of other schools you’ve never heard of.

Highlights are thin, but here’s what I got:

• Back-up Setter Georgia Lee seems to have cemented her claim to the role of Designated Server. I wasn’t impressed when I first saw her serve, but she added 2 Aces tonight to her 3 last night. She also served a nice, multiple-pt run in Set 2. So, go Georgia!  Her likely competition for strongest server over the course of the season would include Acevedo, Garr, and maybe Kinney?
• Besides blocking, our Middles, collectively, had 7 kills on 16 swings. The thing to take note of is the 16 swings. So far this season, our Middles are being fed 7.33 times per set, versus 4.25 times per set for all of last season. This # might dip as we get into the grueling Big Ten schedule, but I like the trend as it takes some of the pressure off of our pins.
• As she did last night, Garr (not Thibault) wore the Libero Jersey. I doubt this was a random choice, so it might be permanent. And
• Kinney started and played Opposite ahead of Gilk and Crowl. But I feel the jury is still out on who our starting pins will be.

Quote of the night from the local ESPN+ broadcasting team: “Can you believe that this is Gopher Coach Keegan Cook’s first time in Nashville? That’s unbelievable!”

UP NEXT WEEKEND:

• South Florida @ the Pav, Friday at 6:00 (BTN+)
• #24 ranked Dayton @ the Pav, Saturday at 5:00 (BTN+)
• South Dakota State (who kicked our butts in last Spring’s exhibition season) @ the Pav, Sunday at 3:00 (BTN+)

I don’t know anything about South Florida, but Dayton & South Dakota State will be challenging.

Bad news first: Our #1 Libero and #1 high-spirit, Zeynep Palabiyik, is out for the season. She injured herself chasing an errant ball and was helped off the court late in the St. Thomas match. The play was right in front of me, and I didn’t think it was going to be that bad, but apparently she blew her ACL. Best wishes to Palabiyik, and we look forward to watching your return next year. (She should be able to call this year a red-shirt.)

The good news is that our Gophs swept the Vanderbilt Commodores on their own court, 25-23, 25-20, 25-21. Sets 1 and 2 were close all the way. The Gophs threatened to blow ‘em out in Set 3, until a late Vandy rally closed the gap. I had Hanson with 13 kills (2 back-row, 1 “six-pack”), and Myers with 6 kills and 5 blocks, including responsibility for 3 pts in a 7-1 run early in Set 3.

If you are struggling to remember how good Vandy was last year, it’s not you, it’s them. The Commodores apparently failed to field a Women’s Volleyball team for the past 44 years. But they were better than that sounds. According to the match announcer, they were picked to finish 12th in the 16-team SEC, and they lost in 5 sets to a Kansas Team that was rated #14 at the time.

LIBERO SHAKE-UP:

When Palabiyik got hurt in the St. Thomas match, it was Thibault who got the promotion to Libero, so I expected she would be the Libero vs Vandy. But that honor went to Garr instead. I haven’t seen enough of Garr to understand why she passed Thibault up, but we know how good Thibault is, and if Garr is even better, that’s great. (This is the end, for this year, of the 3-Libero look.)

OPPOSITE SHAKE-UP:

1. Crowl seemed to be our starting Opposite until she got hurt in the season opener vs Texas A & M, and was replaced by Gilk. Crowl was dressed and presumably available this evening, but Gilk got the call. (No big surprise.)
2. Then, when Gilk struggled a bit (she wasn’t horrible), Coach Cook benched her and put in – not Crowl, but Kinney! I expect Kinney to crack the starting line-up eventually, but I wasn’t expecting it so quickly. Kinney can play Leftside or Opposite, so in one sense she is in competition with Acevedo and Gilk for one of 2 starting roles.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT:

• Our Gophs once again struggled with our serve. I had us with 9 errors and 5 aces. I’d rather we could match our errors with Aces. But 9-5 isn’t horrible – except that 3 of the 5  aces were consecutive (a Turkey, maybe?) by back-up Setter Georgia Lee, in Set 4. For most of the match we had committed 3 times as many errors as aces.
• We have a pretty good serve-receive in general,  but Acevedo continues to  struggle – I had her with 5 of our 7 service-errors. Our opponents know and target her as often as possible. It didn’t hurt us tonight, but it could decide a tight match. Acevedo hit okay; I had her with a team-second-high of 7 kills.
• Stella played well, but not as good, yet, as we need her to.

Tomorrow night (6pm), we take on Lipscomb. Can I get a shout-out from all the Lipscomb alumni reading this?

If the ‘25 Gophs are as good as I want them to be, as good as I think they could be 3 months from now, they should have and would have swept all 9 sets this weekend versus the likes of Cal Poly, Ball State and cross-town rival St. Thomas. But they didn’t. They came out slow and lost Set 1 to the Mustangs on Friday, and they let Set 3 get away against the Tommies today – before holding on to win in four, 25-22, 25-20, 23-25, and 25-18.

St. Thomas is not a bad team, their roster is full of girls who were stars in Twin Cities high schools, and the day might come when they have the talent to beat a Big Ten Team. But that’s in the future. Inspired as they might have been, there is no good reason that this determined Tommie squad should have taken even one set from this Gopher Squad.

I’ll post some thoughts later regarding the ongoing battles, but for now, just a quick summary of today’s highlights:

• Hanson led the team in kills, with 18, 4 of them back-row;
• Kinney, getting the start in front of Acevedo, contributed 11 kills; 
• Acevedo, who didn’t play in Sets 1 or 2, and barely played in the Set 3 debacle, played Set 4 without attracting much attention until she rotated to serve with the Gophs stumbling along at 10-7, and put the Tommies out of their misery with a 6-point serve-run which included 3 Aces.
• A back-row “six-pack” from Hanson, i.e., a ball hit so hard that a would-be digger couldn’t react quick enough and took it in the face. Ouch!

Today’s lowlights included:

• Multiple examples (at least 6) of timing problems between Stella* and her Middles, ball set too high, or too late, too early;
• Stella committing 3 service errors – for the second match in a row,

* Reader D.S. reports that Stella was spoken to by a member of the coaching staff when exiting the court after one of these mistakes – and seemed unhappy about what was said.

But the biggest concern in my mind as I left the Pav was a serious left-leg injury to our Libero Zeynep Palabiyik, late in Set 3, as she dove for a save at the edge of the playing surface and crashed into the bleachers. Palabiyik was helped to the locker room and wasn’t seen again. As usual, there is no information on her condition; I sure hope she’s okay.

I missed it, but  in the preliminary match today at the Pav, Cal-Poly beat Ball State in a 5-set thriller, 26-28. 23-25, 27-25, 26-24, 15-11. Wish I had seen it. 

Next up for the Gophers:

• At Vanderbilt, Friday, Sept 5, 7:00 on SEC Plus
• Lipscome, At Vanderbilt, Saturday, 6:00 on ESPN Plus

Next up for GopherVBRocks:

• More of my thoughts (others, maybe?) regarding the ‘25 depth chart.

The Gophers sweep of Ball State, 25-16, 25-18, 25-15, was just as dominant as the previous evening’s 3-set sweep of Cal Poly – except that the Gophers didn’t give Set 1 to the Cardinals , like they did with the Mustangs. Through the past 6 sets, the Gophers have looked like a top 16 team taking care of business against mediocre teams. And I expect this to continue tomorrow vs the Tommies. Which raises the question, what the heck happened during that bad Set 1 vs Cal Poly? The obvious answer, which we know isn’t always right, is that we played our true-freshman Opposite Gilk the entire match. 

As I mentioned in my summary of the Cal Poly match, Crowl was replaced, late in that dismal first set. I assumed, at the time, that Crowl had been benched because of her complete ineffectiveness. I saw Crowl’s dejected body language on the bench as Gilk played great, but the idea that Crowl had been injured had not occurred to me. Today however, Crowl was in sweats, presumably injured late in yesterday’s Set 1. I don’t know anything about Crowl’s injury, or how serious it is, but Gilk’s answer was clear, “It doesn’t matter much because I’m the starting Opposite.” Figuratively of course, I don’t imagine she said that to Crowl. But I think it’s true. I feel bad for Crowl, second string for 4 years, and maybe now a fifth.

Back to today’s match, the big story was the balance of Stella’s highly efficient (.523 as a team) attack:

• Hanson recorded 12 kills on 19 swings and zero errors (.632);
• Acevedo recorded 11 kills on 18 swings and 1 error (.556); 
• Gilk recorded 9 kills on 18 swings and 2 errors (.389);
• Minatee recorded 7 kills on 11 swings and 2 errors (.455);
• Myers recorded 5 kills on 9 swings and zero errors (.556); and even
• Taylor recorded 4 kills on 7 swings and zero errors (.571)

Victories are more important than stats, but in an early match against a lesser team, we couldn’t ask Stella to do anything better than to get 6 of her 7 hitters (Kinney barely played) contributing. And we have every reason to believe that this sort of balance will not be a fluke, but rather a signature of our ‘25 Gophers. Okay, I’ll ask one more thing of Stella: Get your serve in (she had 3 of the Gophers’ 4 service errors).

The freshmen also led the squad in blocks, with 6 of the Gophs 8-block match. Gilk had 3, Taylor had 2 and Stella 1. I still think Taylor will break into the starting line-up eventually , but Minatee and Myers are holding the door for her.

And I would be remiss not to mention the Gophs outstanding “floor game” (i.e., the serve-receive and overall digging). Hanson recorded the only serve-receiving error of the match. (Could you imagine such a thing these last few seasons.) I thought Palabyiyk had 1 poor receive and Acevedo a couple), but our passing was terrific. Even much better teams than Ball State are going to be frustrated with this Gopher team’s ability to over and over again dig-up what looked like strong kill attempts.

Reader NP became a GopherVBRock reader last season, and was recently inspired to attend the first volleyball match of his life.

I (John, here) find  it interesting that this VB-novice immediately picked up on the “team aspect.” The first bar-league VB team I organized was a bunch of guys I played bar-league softball with. Softball is a summer sport, outdoor broomball is a short season, and they weren’t interested in basketball, so I was able to talk them into VBall. Though some thought they had, I was the only one who had played real VBall, and though several were excellent athletes, we were a terrible team those first couple of years. Halfway through the season, desperate to be slightly more competitive, I brought in a “ringer” from another team I was on. At the bar after his first match (we were slaughtered as usual) he politely asked if any of them had ever played team sports. The immediate response was, “Of course, we’re an excellent softball team.” The Ringer’s response was, “So that’s a no?”

NP’s report: I attended the Gopher Volleyball game for their home opener Friday against Cal Poly. This was not only the first Gopher Volleyball game I ever attended, but probably the first volleyball game I ever attended, period. The first I can recall anyway. 

Volleyball is not completely foreign to me. I have seen Olympic sand volleyball, and more recently, even caught snippets of collegiate games on TV, but not enough to have anything sink in. 

So, my first takeaway from being there in person watching every serve, bump, set, and spike, is just how much of team game six verses six really is. That probably seems like an obvious point for those familiar with the nuances, but my main exposure to volleyball up to this point had been being forced to play the game as part of middle school gym. I enjoyed playing volleyball, but the inability of those I have ever had the pleasure of playing with to bump, set, spike as intended meant it was not much of a team game. 

Being nine rows up from the action also made me appreciate the speed in which the game plays out, and the reactions times needed to get things flowing. This is something a bit lost on TV. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why the first set went so badly for the gophers compared to the last three, but given how fast-paced the action is, I couldn’t help think there wasn’t much room for error– as would be true of any sport played at a really high level. Just the timing of a jump and a set seemed to require the utmost precision, and that precision being key to trajectory, which to this layman seemed to result in how returnable or not a hit would be. And that the deciding factor of a set comes down to momentum, which team was maintaining it and which team was killing it. 

Lastly, I enjoyed the atmosphere in the arena. It’s not the biggest arena, there weren’t tens of thousands packed  in screaming their heads off, but the energy was palpable throughout. Even following set one. It was especially palpable once the Gophers started rolling.  

I, and presumably many GopherVBRocks readers entered the Pav for the Home Opener vs Cal Poly with high expectations of our ‘25 Gophs – only to see them get drubbed 17-25 in Set 1. A set in which our defense looked decent, especially Myers blocking, wall-like at times, and the great digging of our triple-Libero defense. But our pin-offense (Hanson, Acevedo & Crowl) was barely visible. Acevedo recorded  zero kills on 5 swings, Crowl recorded 1 kill and 1 error on 11 swings, half of them dinks ( a combined .000 for the pair of them). And even Hanson with 3 kills got one of the from the back row and one on a dink (easier for Hanson to score on a dink than Crowl because the opponent fears her power), so almost nothing from our pins.

As expected, and as he had done in the season opener vs Texas A & M, Coach Cook started the match with Acevedo at Leftside and Crowl at Opposite. But it didn’t take him long to plug the freshmen in to stop the bleeding, Gilk for Crowl and Kinney for Acevedo. WOW, what a difference! Gophs in four, 17-25, 25-12, 25-21, 25-17.

The highly rated Kinney came in at the tail-end of Set 1 and went on to record 9 kills and 1 error on 20 swings, for a solid .300, but it was Gilk, starting Set 2, who stole the show with 11 kills and 3 errors on 18 swings, for a very impressive .444! Hanson picked up the pace, finishing with 21 kills and 5 errors on 47 swings, for a strong .340. Maybe Hanson wasn’t fully warm to begin the match, or maybe she had some tough luck in Set 1. But the obvious explanation for her turn-around was Hanson feeding off the freshman energy, plus not needing to carry the team by herself.

We shall see how this plays out in non-conference matches to come, freshmen are freshmen, and Cal-Poly’s isn’t ranked (be interesting to see how they do vs St. Thomas & Ball State these next 2 days). But it seems like the question of which of our pins can produce has been answered: Hanson, Kinney and Gilk The thought goes through my mind, did Cook wait too long? Should he have pulled the trigger early in the Texas A & M match? But then I remember Hanson not getting the opportunity to play front row during her entire freshman and sophomore years, National Player of the Year Sara Wilhite riding the bench her entire freshman year, and #1 recruit in the country Landfair struggling and benched repeatedly during her freshman year – all under Coach McCutcheon. Cook displayed a much quicker trigger than I can imagine from McCutcheon.   

Remember that Stella is also a freshman, as is Garr, playing the role of second-DS, so our 9-woman lineup that dominated Cal Poly in Set 2 through 4 included 4 freshmen and only 2 seniors (Hanson & Myers). And that doesn’t included Jordan Taylor, who impressed the heck out of me during the recent 19-U World Games. Could this be a freshman-dominated squad that gets better and better as the season progresses?

Okay, take a breath John, it will be a season of ups and downs. But I left the Pav flying high. 

Speaking of Middles, I expected, and clearly implied in previous postings, that Taylor would, of our 4 true freshmen, be the first to crack the line-up. But she didn’t step on the court during tonight’s match. Neither Minatee, with 10 kills, zero errors on 15 swings (.667) plus 1 block, and Myers, with 9 kills, 2 errors on 23 swings  (.304) and 2 blocks, opened the door for the freshman Taylor. I still expect, before the season ends, that Taylor will have her own burst into the starting lineup moment (likely for Minatee), because of Taylor’s blocking prowess. But Taylor may have to work harder at it than Gilk & KInney did tonight. 

And one more thing about Myers’ performance. Myers recorded 2 official “blocks” over 4 sets, which probably doesn’t sound amazing. But remember that an official “block” in V-Ball is only awarded when it results directly in a kill. It doesn’t count the times (I’d swear it was twenty) that Myers negated Cal Poly’s kill attempts. There was a volley in Set 1, where Myers stuffed the ball back in a Cal Poly hitter’s face on 3 consecutive swings. Cal Poly was able to keep the play alive each time, but take it from me, 3 consecutive stuffs can get in a hitter’s head. I think Myers is a keeper, productive on offense and defense. That’s why I see Taylor replacing the undersized and less productive-on-defense, Minatee.

And last but not least, let’s talk about Stella. I had suggested, in my pre-season postings, that we would miss Shaffmaster’s offense, her blocking,and her leadership, but Stella recorded 7 kills & zero errors on 17 attempts (along with 48 assists). 7 kills would have been a better than average match for Shaffmaster, and I strongly doubt that Shaffmaster ever finished a match with 17 attempts. Stella, in the second D1 match of her career, was very attack-minded. And I think the leadership will come.

Stella also played a huge role in the production of our Middles; 19 kills on 38 swings in 4 sets might be more than any match in Shaffmaster’s 5 seasons as our Setter. In fairness to Shaffmaster, the first passes Stella was getting from our 3-Libero receive was much better than what Shaffmaster was working with, but either way, I think it is safe to say that Stella is going to engage our Middles much more frequently than what we’ve seen in recent years.

THE UGLY: It was far from a perfect night, even Sets 2 through 4:

• Our serving was terrible, 12 errors vs 2 kills, Hanson and Myers were particularly bad. If you’ve been a reader for a while, you know that I favor aggressive serving, but a 2 to 11 ace-to-error ratio will kill us against good teams. The bright spots tonight were Thibault, with 1 of the 2 aces and a long serving-run in Set 4, and Garr with the other ace and multiple serves that kept Cal Poly “out of system.” 
• We continue to be inept on putting away opponent’s “over-passes” (the play where the opponent accidentally plays the first or second ball over the net where we can  attack it). The Gopher web-site doesn’t track this sort of detail, nor can I while watching live, but our effectiveness on over-passes is pitiful.
• Although Stella is off to a great start setting quicks and slides to our Middles, her connection with Hanson on back row sets continues to need work. 

All in all, an exciting and encouraging Home Opener.

NEXT UP : Tomorrow (Sat) we host

• Ball State at 5:00, and  
• St. Thomas on Sunday at 3:00 

:

REVERSAL OF FORTUNES

I, and presumably many GopherVBRocks readers entered the Pav for the Home Opener vs Cal Poly with high expectations of our ‘25 Gophs – only to see them get drubbed 17-25 in Set 1. A set in which our defense looked decent, especially Myers blocking, wall-like at times, and the great digging of our triple-Libero defense. But our pin-offense (Hanson, Acevedo & Crowl) was barely visible. Acevedo recorded  zero kills on 5 swings, Crowl recorded 1 kill and 1 error on11 swings, half of them dinks ( a combined .000 for the pair of them), and even Hanson with 3 kills got one of the from the back row and one on a dink (easier for Hanson to score on a dink than Crowl because the opponent fears her power).

As expected, and as he had done in the season opener vs Texas A & M, Coach Cook started the match with Acevedo at Leftside and Crowl at Opposite. But it didn’t take him long to plug the freshmen in to stop the bleeding, Gilk for Crowl and Kinney for Acevedo. WOW, what a difference! Gophs in four, 17-25, 25-12, 25-21, 25-17.

The highly rated Kinney came in at the tail-end of Set 1 and went on to record 9 kills and 1 error on 20 swings, for a solid .300, but it was Gilk, starting Set 2, who stole the show with 11 kills and 3 errors on 18 swings, for a very impressive .444! Hanson picked up the pace, finishing with 21 kills and 5 errors on 47 swings, for a strong .340. Maybe Hanson wasn’t fully warm to begin the match, or maybe she had some tough luck in Set 1. But the obvious explanation for her turn-around was Hanson feeding off the freshman energy, plus not needing to carry the team by herself.

We shall see how this plays out in non-conference matches to come, freshmen are freshmen, and Cal-Poly’s isn’t ranked (be interesting to see how they do vs St. Thomas & Ball State these next 2 days). But it seems like the question of which of our pins can produce has been answered: Hanson, Kinney and Gilk The thought goes through my mind, did Cook wait too long? Should he have pulled the trigger early in the Texas A & M match? But then I remember Hanson not getting the opportunity to play front row during her entire freshman and sophomore years, National Player of the Year Sara Wilhite riding the bench her entire freshman year, and #1 recruit in the country Landfair struggling and benched repeatedly during her freshman year – all under Coach McCutcheon. Cook displayed a much quicker trigger than I can imagine from McCutcheon.   

Remember that Stella is also a freshman, as is Garr, playing the role of second-DS, so our 9-woman lineup that dominated Cal Poly in Set 2 through 4 included 4 freshmen and only 2 seniors (Hanson & Myers). And that doesn’t included Jordan Taylor, who impressed the heck out of me during the recent 19-U World Games. Could this be a freshman-dominated squad that gets better and better as the season progresses?

Okay, take a breath John, it will be a season of ups and downs. But I left the Pav flying high. 

Speaking of Middles, I expected, and clearly implied in previous postings, that Taylor would, of our 4 true freshmen, be the first to crack the line-up. But she didn’t step on the court during tonight’s match. Neither Minatee, with 10 kills, zero errors on 15 swings (.667) plus 1 block, and Myers, with 9 kills, 2 errors on 23 swings  (.304) and 2 blocks, opened the door for the freshman Taylor. I still expect, before the season ends, that Taylor having her own burst into the starting lineup moment (likely for Minatee), because of Taylor’s blocking prowess. But Taylor may have to work harder at it than Gilk & KInney did tonight. 

And one more thing about Myers’ performance. Myers recorded 2 official “blocks” over 4 sets, which probably doesn’t sound amazing. But remember that an official “block” in V-Ball is only awarded when it results directly in a kill. It doesn’t count the times (I’d swear it was twenty) that Myers negated Cal Poly’s kill attempts. There was a volley in Set 1, where Myers stuffed the ball back in a Cal Poly hitter’s face on 3 consecutive swings. Cal Poly was able to keep the play alive each time, but take it from me, 3 consecutive stuffs can get in a hitter’s head. I think Myers is a keeper, productive on offense and defense. That’s why I see Taylor replacing the undersized and less productive-on-defense, Minatee.

And last but not least, let’s talk about Stella. I had suggested, in my pre-season postings, that we would miss Shaffmaster’s offense, her blocking,and her leadership, but Stella recorded 7 kills & zero errors on 17 attempts (along with 48 assists). 7 kills would have been a better than average match for Shaffmaster, and I strongly doubt that Shaffmaster ever finished a match with 17 attempts. Stella, in the second D1 match of her career, was very attack-minded. And I think the leadership will come.

Stella also played a huge role in the production of our Middles; 19 kills on 38 swings in 4 sets might be more than any match in Shaffmaster’s 5 seasons as our Setter. In fairness to Shaffmaster, the first passes Stella was getting from our 3-Libero receive was much better than what Shaffmaster was working with, but either way, I think it is safe to say that Stella is going to engage our Middles much more frequently than what we’ve seen in recent years.

THE UGLY: It was far from a perfect night, even Sets 2 through 4:

• Our serving was terrible, 12 errors vs 2 kills, Hanson and Myers were particularly bad. If you’ve been a reader for a while, you know that I favor aggressive serving, but a 2 to 11 ace-to-error ratio will kill us against good teams. The bright spots tonight were Thibault, with 1 of the 2 aces and a long serving-run in Set 4, and Garr with the other ace and multiple serves that kept Cal Poly “out of system.” 
• We continue to be inept on putting away opponent’s “over-passes” (the play where the opponent accidentally plays the first or second ball over the net where we can  attack it). The Gopher web-site doesn’t track this sort of detail, nor can I while watching live, but our effectiveness on over-passes is pitiful.
• Although Stella is off to a great start setting quicks and slides to our Middles, her connection with Hanson on back row sets continues to need work. 

All in all, an exciting and encouraging Home Opener.

NEXT UP : Tomorrow (Sat) we host

• Ball State at 5:00, and  
• St. Thomas on Sunday at 3:00 

:

Not a total surprise as I had suggested this in a recent post, but The Wooker, whose back has not healed, will not play this season, delaying her final year of eligibility to next year. Wooker was a higly rated recruit in ’21, an All Big Ten Freshman in ’22, first string All Big Ten in ’23, and started off great in “24. But then, in September of last year, she injured her back, and has never been the same. Now she once again has almost a year of recovery ahead of her. The ’25 Gophers have depth at Leftside, but it is not clear that we have anyone that can perform at the level that Wooker did when she was completely healthy. We hope this works.