Our Gophers pulled out a 5-set nail-biter at Illinois, 25-15, 16-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-13. And to make it even harder on an old guy, they did it at almost the exact same time as my second favorite team, the Vikings, pulled out their own nail-biter. My Gopher V-Ballers don’t generally play at the same time as the Vikings, and I don’t remember them ever finishing a close one at the same time. The llini tied the volleyball match at 2 sets apiece at almost the exact same time that the Vikes tied the Commanders at 17-all, late in the 4th quarter.
Illinois is an aggressive serving team, one capable of exploiting the Gophers weakness at serve-receive; and also an aggressive hitting team, who tallied 68 total kills vs 54 by the Gophs. So it was a tough, hard-fought win for a Gopher squad still not at full-strength. Wooker was still in sweats, pulling Wenaas to Left-side and Crowl in the line-up at Opposite. Crowl did not impress, and Julie Hanson replaced her to start Set 3, but Hanson didn’t impress either and Crowl came back to finish the match. And for the 2nd match in a row, McCutcheon played Arica Davis as the “other” Middle opposite Booth (7 kills, 6 blocks, and a dominate presence throughout), while Gros and Husemann, both apparently healthy, remained on the bench. Davis delivered another decent performance, with 6 kills and 5 blocks, so I don’t know if Gros is slightly injured, or in the doghouse, or if Davis has played her way into the line-up.
Landfair, as usual, led the Gophers with 19 kills, including at least 4 from the back-row. But she remains (frustrating to me) reluctant to attack a poor set. And without Wooker in the line-up, it feels, especially in a close, back & forth match, that the Gophers can get over-dependent on Landfair.
Fortunately, Wenaas, more comfortable I think hitting Left-side, picked up the slack, with 14 kills, including 5 back-row kills. (I can’t recall Wenaas ever getting more than 1 back-row kill in a match.) Wenaas got 2 of her back-row kills early in Set 1, leading the Gophs to an easy win over the apparently over-matched Illini. The Gophs hit .417 in Set 1, and I was thinking straight sets.
But the Illini completely flipped the switch in Set 2, serving at Landfair and blocking ferociously to shut down the Gopher offense. Down 5-10, the Gophs got back to within 1 at 10-11, but Illinois cruised to an easy win.
Illinois stayed hot to start Set 3, winning the first 3 points. But the Gopher offense came back to life with a 17-9 run for a 17-12 lead, and coasted to the win, again hitting around .400.
Set 4 involved trading runs. The Gophs led 6-2; the Illini tied it at 8. The Gophs led 15-11; the Illini tied it at 15. The Gophs led 20-16; the Illini tied it at 20. Tied at 23-23, I felt relatively confident that the Gophers would get the next 2 points; but it was Illinois that got the next 2 points.
There were no runs in Set 5. It was tied 2-2, 5-5, 7-7, 9-9 & 11-11 — before the Gophers finally took over; Wenaas getting the kill at match-point.
With the win, the Gophers advance to 10 & 4 in the Big Ten, retaining solo possession of 4th place; and 15-7 overall. The Gophers spent the week ranked #9 in the country, and with wins over Michigan and Illinois, we should rank no lower than #9 when the new rankings come out tomorrow. I said that the Gophers needed to win 6 of their last 8 to lock-in a top 16 seed; they won the first two, so now it’s only 4 of 6.
NEXT UP: Maryland (Fri, 6:30, BTN+) and Indiana (Sun, 2:00, BTN+) at the Pav. I haven’t seen much of either team, but their records suggest that both are almost as good as Illinois. The Gophers need to win both matches. It would be nice to have Wooker back.