Category: Uncategorized

Last place Rutgers did not show up at the Pav to play our Tied-for-3^rd place Gophers, citing non-covid medical issues. The Gophers get the win and Rutgers the loss. The big losers in this are the Gopher bench players who might have seen some action had the match been played.

Ticket holders were given the option of swapping for tickets to other Gopher events this weekend, including Men’s and Women’s Hockey, and Men’s Basketball. Maureen has some bizarre aversion to hockey, so we took the opportunity to check out Ben Johnson’s surprisingly successful all-transfer squad against Purdue-Ft Wayne.

Our V-ball tickets allowed us to sit anywhere in the balcony, so we hurried upstairs and grabbed a pair of mid-court seats in the 2^nd row of the balcony. This immediately took us back to our first year of marriage, when Maureen was still in school and we had student-season tickets and the entire balcony was student G.A. The doors opened 2 hrs before game-time; we’d be in line already (even in sub-zero weather, every game was sold-out) and race other students to the balcony, often grabbing the exact same seats we had tonight.

But we soon noticed that a few things had changed:

• The Gopher warm-up routine involved neither Sweet Georgia Brown, nor a guy on a unicycle.
• The starting lineup did not include Brewer, Behagen, or Clyde Turner.
• The 2021-22 Gophers, though earnest, did not seem as talented as the 1971-72 squad, missing their first 12 shots (maybe 11, I lost count). They did come back to beat PFW by 30 after spotting them a 9-0 lead. (I doubt that will work against the real Purdue.)
• And before long, I was reminded we gave up the regular season tickets we later held for years (downstairs, in the corner) when they remodeled Williams Arena. Oddly, given that it is a basketball arena, the “seats,” formerly bleachers, are spaced such that no one over 5-9 can sit in them, even the first 5 rows of the balcony. So after a few minutes of discomfort, we relocated up to row 6 of the balcony, mercifully still bleachers, and watched the game from there.

One last thing about this basketball team: Head Coach Ben Johnson gets the “stool” on the raised court, and presumably has the last word when he chooses to use it. But 95% of the coaching, both during the live action and during time outs, comes from Asst. Coach Dave Thorson. This is somewhat similar to Gopher Volleyball Games, where Asst. Coaches Laura Kasey and Matt Houk are often more animated than Head Coach McCutcheon – but it didn’t feel the same. Then again, if it works for Johnson and Thorson and the players, it’s fine with me; I assume Johnson will grow into the position. Either way, I wish Johnson’s squad, and Lindsey Whalen’s squad, all the best.

The Gophers are good, ranked #8 in the country coming in — but they aren’t good enough to beat another good team (Purdue came in ranked #9)  without playing their best. Purdue won in 4 sets, 25-18, 14-25, 25-16, 25-22. The Gophers have started slow all season (I think they are unbeaten when they win the first set) — FRUSTRATING. Purdue won the first point of the match, then served to Miyabe. Miyabe bumped it high, but to the wrong spot, near the intersection of the left sideline and the 10 ft line. Shaffmaster, not as quick as I would like, couldn’t get there –and no one helped her! Only 1 point, but an inexcusable mistake for a D-1 volleyball team, an an indication that they didn’t have their heads in the game.

SET 1: Purdue was almost flawless. I remember one error by Purdue the whole set. There might have been 2 or 3, but they were close to perfect. Are the Boilermakers that good? Or did the Gophers fail to put any pressure on them? Probably a combination of the two. Purdue jumped out to a 3-0 lead, which grew to 13-5, and traded side-outs the rest of the set for an easy win. The Gophers hit .028 for the set.

SET 2: A complete reverse – hard to believe these were the same two teams. The Gophers led 5-1, 10-4 before a long run (in the rotation with McGraw serving and Samedy and Wenaas are at the corners) making it 18-8. From there the Gophers coasted to an easy win. The Boilermakers did everything they could do to help; they hit the ball long, they hit it wide, and they missed serves.

SET 3: The Gophers started strong, leading 8-4, and then the roof fell in as Purdue went on a 17-5 run to take a 21-13 lead. The Gophers fell apart, Wenaas and McGraw shanked serve-receives, Myers missed serves, we even got called for an over-lap, another inexcusable mistake, Purdue blocked like demons, and the Gophers were clearly rattled.

SET 4: After 3 lopsided sets, the 4^th was the most competitive, tied most of the way until the score stood 20-20. The Gophers edged ahead 22-20 and appeared to take a 23-20 lead on a (Wenaas? I think) blast ruled a touch. Set 4 was in the Gophers hands, and I felt confident about Set 5. But Purdue challenged the touch, and won the challenge to change the Gophers’ lead to 22-21. And then ran 3 more to take the match.

A REVEALING DETAIL:

Samedy, who finished the match with 23 kills, had 6 in Set 1, which we lost, 6 in Set 3, which we lost, and 8 in Set 4, which we lost; but only 3 in Set 2, which we won. We can’t blame Samedy for being brilliant in Sets, 1, 3 & 4; the problem is that she wasn’t getting any help. And as great as Samedy is, she can’t beat a team as strong as Purdue all by herself. In Set 2: Wenaas had 5 of her 10 kills (plus a block), Miyabe had 2 of her 6, Myers had 2 of her 4 (plus 2 blocks and a beautiful assist on one of Miyabe’s kills), and McGraw had 2 aces. That’s the sort of balance necessary to beat a good team.

I started today’s blog expressing my frustration over the Gophers habit of starting slow. Are they not warmed-up? Is the problem psychological? Possibly; but here’s another theory. I think Coach McCutcheon knows he needs a balanced attack, and directs Shaffmaster to look for it right away in Set 1. But it just isn’t there. Eventually, Shaffmaster (and McGraw and Kilkelly) shifts gears to feeding Samedy – who adds to her astonishing career stats – but it’s too little, too late. The Gophers might play stronger in first sets if we just fed every ball to Samedy right away – but I think that McCutcheon thinks, that this is not a path to playoff success. So we keep looking for offensive diversity.

ONE ENCOURAGING SIGN:

One slightly diverse flavor, dating back a couple of seasons, is Samedy hitting from the back row. But that’s still Samedy. Starting at the beginning of this season, we were also setting Wenaas from the back row. At first it seemed pointless, the first third of the season she was hitting close to .000 from the back row. But now, in the 2^nd third of the season, Wenaas is starting to score from the back row. I think that at least 4, maybe 5, of her 10 kills against Purdue came from the back row – 2 of them back row dinks! (And while I’m on the topic of Wenaas, her passing is really excellent – maybe as good as McGraw’s and probably better than Kilkelly’s. I’m coming to understand why she was so highly rated coming out of high school.)

But we need more options. Miyabe has looked great in a set here and there, but she hasn’t established herself as a reliable option. Shaffmaster has also contributed as a hitter, and I’d like to see more of it. I think she had 2 kills today, on 5 attempts; I’d like to see her attack at least 2 balls per set.

And then there’s Landfair. She hasn’t played in a month, and maybe she never will this season, maybe never ever. But she seems to be getting closer:

• 4 weeks ago, she wasn’t even warming up;
• 2 weeks ago, she was participating in some of the warmup, but not the hitting drill;
• 1 week ago, she was participating in the hitting drill, but only for the timing, never hitting the ball hard;
• Today, she was participating in the hitting drill, and hitting the ball medium hard, 80% maybe.

Landfair isn’t going to help us at 80%, but it’s at least encouraging.

NEXT UP:

• Last-Place Rutgers at the Pav on Friday, 7:00 on BTN+, and
• The First-Place Badgers at the Pav on Sunday, 4:00 on BTN.

I got quite a bit of feedback re my reference to Stella Swenson, the next super-star setter from the Twin Cities. Apparently I was not the only one who didn’t know she existed.

New Reader R.N. and his wife, J.N., that I met at the H.S. Tournament, relays that J.N. spoke with Stella – and her twin sister, Olivia, in the stands after their quarter-final match. (An inside scoop!) The Swenson Twins haven’t officially committed yet, but J.N. felt they were definitely interested in becoming Gophers.

I didn’t mention Olivia, a 6-3, sophomore, outside hitter for Wayzata, because I didn’t notice her. I hadn’t seen Wayzata play before. Stella stood out immediately, but she had several good hitters to feed great sets to, there were two matches going on at the same time, and the other match was more competitive (Wayzata won handily). But it turns out that Olivia is the #2-ranked prospect in MN (after Stella) in the class of ’24.

Apparently, there was some bitterness in Hopkins, where Samantha played, when the Swenson Twins enrolled at Wayzata. I get it; there are those that don’t approve of kids transferring schools for athletics. Then again, if you are an elite athlete with legitimate professional prospects, I don’t know that’s any different than transferring schools for better academic opportunity. And it’s certainly not new, Hopkins (the “victim” in this complaint, has had a lot of basketball players, boys and girls, from North Mpls.

I am also reminded of the story of Marcus LeVessure. LeVessure, who grew up in the Mpls Roosevelt neighborhood, was a star wrestler (in the late 90s?) – I think he was undefeated in his high school and college careers, winning 5 MN State Championships, and I guess 4 NCAA (D-3) Championships (at Augsburg). But Mpls City Conference Wrestling wasn’t very strong in those days, and no one would wrestle him in Conference Meets.  LeVessure would try to wrestle up a weight-class, or sometimes 2 or 3 weight-classes, and still the other team’s coach would decline to send anyone out to wrestle LeVessure. Eventually, LeVessure transferred to Bloomington Kennedy – not the strongest wrestling program in the area, but at that time part of the powerful Lake Conference – just to find competition.

I give Mother Swenson the benefit of the doubt regarding the Twins H.S. career – as long as she steers them to the Gophers.

As expected, the Gophs beat the Hawkeyes for the 48^th straight time, 25-22, 25-15, 25-17. Not much excitement on or off the court. BTN-broadcast matches get a BTN announcer, and BTN+ matches are generally announced by a student or something. But tonight’s match at Iowa had no announcer, and virtually no fans – maybe 100 people? So sort of – is this a real Big Ten Match?

SET 1: The Gophers have not been a great first-set team all season, and they stayed with the script again tonight. We scored the first point, then Iowa tied it up — repeated until it was 15-15. The Gophs, with Kilkelly serving, ran 4 to go ahead 19-15, but then the Hawkeyes, serving at Kilkelly, tied it again at 19-19 and the teams traded 3 more side-outs to 22-22. Finally, behind 2 of Miyabe’s 3 kills for the set, the Gophers put it away. For a change, the offense was well-distributed; I had Wenaas with 4 kills, Miyabe and Rubright(!) with 3 each, Myers and Samedy with 2 each, and Shaffmaster got 1. The Middle slides weren’t working, but the “quicks” were.

SETS 2 was less close. The Gophers led 11-5, 14-7 and 24-14, and the scoring was once again balanced. SET 3 was tied at 5-5 before the Gophs pulled away to18-12. Either Coach McCutcheon got tired of forcing Shaffmaster distribute the ball evenly, or maybe Shaffmaster did, because Samedy had 7, SET 3 kills, and none from the Middles.   

Throughout SETS 2 & 3, the Hawkeyes gave the Gophers the most trouble with soft, short serves. Soft, short serves sound like they would be easy to receive, but I remember a match at the Senior Nationals in Cleveland, where my 65 & over team got killed by a team that kept dropping soft serves on the 5-ft line. We should have been able to adjust; never did. But I expect more from the Gophers.

RECRUITS, 2022 AND BEYOND

Recruiting is a critical component of any successful college program. We got a bonus year from Samedy, Miyabe and Myers, but we won’t get another one for those 3 – they’re out of eligibility for sure in December, and have to be replaced.

The Gophers’ 2020 recruiting class, Landfair, Wenaas, and Shaffmaster (plusand a libero that never arrived on campus) was the #1-ranked 2020 recruiting class in the country, which bodes well for coming seasons, but we need to keep filling the glass.

Yesterday’s signings included:

• Carter Booth, a 6-7, first-team High School All American middle-blocker from Denver;
• Julia Hanson, a 6-1, second-team High School All American outside-hitter from Prior Lake; and
• McKenna Wucherer, also a 6-1, second-team High School All American outside-hitter from Brookfield, WI.

Booth began her H.S. varsity career at Breck, where she started as a 7^th grader, and Benild-St.Margaret’s, where she started as a 8^th grader, before relocating to the Denver Area. McCutcheon’s quote was “Carter has the ability, work ethic and experience to have an impact right away.” I think that means he sees her as a starter, next year, replacing Myers.

Hanson is the Strib’s Metro Player of the Year, a two-time, first-team All-Metro Player, and was the MVP of  an American 17 & under team in a European tournament.

Wucherer was a 2020 U17 first-team All American and was first team all-tournament at the U18 World Championships.

I doubt that anyone can “replace” Samedy, but someone will join Wenaas and (hopefully) Landfair as the 2022 Gophers’ third outside hitter. I’m guessing it will be Hanson, Wucherer or current freshman Glenn.

FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD

Between playing Geezer volleyball and intensely following the Gophers and the Washburn 9^th-grade team (plus other sports my G-kids are in, like soccer and swimming and football and wrestling) I don’t get to as many H.S. volleyball matches as I used to. But I was at the Excel Center yesterday for part of the State Tournament.

If you have never been to a State Volleyball Tournament, you should; if not this year, then next year. One admission, and a seat multiple rows up from the curtain (it’s general admission and there are plenty such seats) provides the opportunity to watch simultaneous action on two courts, featuring 24 of the best teams in MN, starting at 9 a.m. and running until approximately 9 p.m. (You don’t have to watch all-day.) When a match concludes on one court, there is a half-hour gap while the next pair of teams warm up, but usually there is a live match going on the other court. I brought the Strib along to read during “down-time,” was there roughly 6 hours, and didn’t get half the paper read.

The quality of volleyball is amazing. Even the matches in Class A (the smallest schools) consolation rounds are really good — skilled athletes playing their hearts out. The best match I saw Wednesday was Eden Prairie’s 5-set AAA quarter-final win over Forest Lake – the 5^th set, to 15, ended 21-19.

And oddly enough, among all these great players, the two best players I saw were a sophomore and a freshman. The freshman was Rogers’ Anya Schmidt, a 5-9 setter/opposite (I think they were playing a 6-2). She set well and hit well (though, at 5-9, she couldn’t be a D-1 hitter; but she’s only a freshman, she might still grow), but she dominated the match with her top-spin, jump serve. Perhaps I am misled by the fact that Schmidt was serving at High School girls, but I would swear she has a more powerful serve, right now, than any Gopher — at least since Daly Santana. And Schmidt’s serve will get better, over the next 3 years, whether she grows or not.

And then there was Wayzata’ sophomore, 6-1 setter, Stella Swenson – who just happens to be the younger sister of the Gophers’ 3-time, first-team All American setter, Samantha Seliger-Swenson. Again, it’s a distinctly different level of competition, and I could be biased by my admiration of Samantha, but I thought Stella, the Strib’s All-Metro setter (the only sophomore on an all-senior team) played better than Shaffmaster has some matches this year.

The Strib listed Stella’s choice of college as “undecided,” which makes sense since she hasn’t finished her sophomore season. But surely the Gophers, the Badgers, and probably every top program in the country will want her. I think that Samantha had a good experience, not only as a Gopher, but playing for Coach McCutcheon, and I think her mom enjoyed the convenience of watching Samantha’s entire career at the PAV. Keep your fingers crossed.

NEXT UP:

Our 8^th-ranked Gophers host the 9^th-rated Purdue Boilermakers at the PAV, Sunday @ 3:30 on BTN.

IN FOOTBALL.

Coach McCutcheon’s 2nd place in the Big Ten volleyballers, on the other hand, had little trouble in sweeping the Illini in Champaign, 25-22, 25-16, 25-14. As the scores indicate, Illinois played the first set tough, leading the Gophs 15-11 (giving the Gophers trouble with their aggressive serving), and tying the set at 22-22, before a Rubright block finished them off.

Illinois’ disappointing first set loss seemed to take the fight out of the Fighting Illini. (Can anyone explain why they can still be the Fighting Illini, but the team in Grand Forks had to change their name?) It didn’t help the Illini that, midway through the 2nd Set, 3 consecutive, apparent, Illinois points were turned into Gopher points by McCutcheon challenges. I think it would have been tied-up, but instead the Gophers were ahead by 6. It seemed to me that the challenge-review got it right all 3 times, but it had to be hard, emotionally, on Illinois. Set 3 was never close, the Gophers leading 12-4 and 19-8 before putting the Illini out of their misery.

Led, as usual, by Samedy (15 kills), Wenaas (13) and Miyabe (9), and with help from the rest of the squad (Rubright, Myers and even Shaffmaster), the Gophers hit a sizzling .330.

I’m not being as specific as I sometimes am, because I had trouble with BTN+. I tried to tune my big-screen to BTN+ at 6:00, but all I got was a blank screen. I was able to get it on my laptop, but I missed the first few points (7-8, Illinois, when I got in). Later, my laptop froze up, causing me to miss the first few points of Set 2. And when I did get it back, I somehow had a live (I think) video feed, but a delayed audio. And then the match started on my TV. So now, I’ve got Set 1 playing (audio & video) on TV, Set 2 audio from my laptop, and Set 3 video on my laptop screen – all at the same time. And I’m reluctant to turn any of the 3 off for fear I won’t get it back. Sort of a confusing way to watch volleyball.

I did pick up some interesting data:

• The Buckeyes, whom the Gophs beat in 4 sets on Thursday, gave Nebraska their 3^rd conference loss, and dropping the Huskers into a 2^nd place tie with our Gophs.
• The Gophers are 11 & 0 when they win the first set.
• The Gophers have now won 8 of their last 9 matches;
• And 4 of their last 5 against teams ranked in the top 25, nationally;

It seemed plausible that the Gophers, who, 2 weeks ago, were sitting at 6 & 3 and facing 4 matches against nationally ranked teams, would lose at least one of the 4. Maybe we, or at least I, underestimated this team.

NEXT UP, a trip to Iowa City to play the Hawkeyes. I think we’ll make it 6 in a row..

— On the Gophers weekend trip to #7 ranked Ohio State & #25 ranked Illinois. But after watching the Gophs squeak out a 4-set, 25-23, 16-25, 25-15 25-23 win in Columbus, I’m feeling greedy. A sweep on the road against two nationally-ranked teams would be sweet!

I say “squeeked out a win” because the total score for the match was only 91-86 in the Gophers favor. But I’m not complaining, not even about the Gophers mediocre 2^nd set; any win on the road against a highly rated team is an accomplishment to be proud of. (Also a “signature win” when NCAA seeding time comes around.)

As we’ve said often, this was Steph Samedy’s Match. I had her with 4 kills in the Gophers’ Set 1 win, 2 in the Set 2 loss, 4 again in the Set 3 win, and an astonishing 9 kills in the close-out Set 4! Plus 7 blocks (a season high?), and a ton of digs to go with her 19 kills. According to one of tonight’s BTN announcers, Samedy has more digs for the season than 3 Big Ten starting Liberos! That’s a heavy workload; good thing the Gophs get a day off before playing at Champaign,

Miyabe had 13 kills and Wenaas 11. (Wenaas had a tough night at the serve, with several service error and a foot-fault. And she still can’t dink. But she dug great.)

And Rubright had a nice match, with 3 kills and 6 blocks. Once again a BTN announcer (possibly the same one from 2 weeks ago) explained that, “Rubright is in the line-up because she is the biggest offensive threat of the Gophers’ Middles.” Rubright is not yet reminding me of the Badgers’ Roettke, or even the 2019 Gopher’s Taylor Morgan, but 3 kills and 6 blocks in a 4-set win is a good match by current Gopher standards.

The announcer also reported that the Gophers rank last (among 14 teams) in the Big Ten in the % of sets to their Middles. (13% compared to #1 Wisconsin’s 33%.) I’ve written extensively about the Gopher’s struggle to diversify their offense. One new wrinkle tonight was an unprecendented number of times Shaffmaster attacked on the 2^nd touch. She only got 2 kills out of maybe 8 or 9 attacks, but I was happy to see it. You expect a short setter to dump the ball over “on 2” about once a set just to keep the opponent off balance; but Shaffmaster is 6ft-3 (and maybe not the quickest setter in the Big Ten, which is part of the no-middle-offense problem), so she ought to attack more. She didn’t attack as often, or as successfully as I had hoped, during her first season, or early this season; but maybe tonight’s performance indicates growing confidence. And even if her kill % isn’t great, one-kill-a match by our setter would do a lot to improve the diversity of our offense.  

Reporting on the Gophers’ 4-set win over the Buckeyes a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the amazing digging, all-match long, by C.C. McGraw and her teammates, and their Buckeye counterparts. Once again there were countless balls seemingly down for a point, only to be kept alive by spectacular saves. These two teams are fun to watch.

UP NEXT:

#25 Illinois (losers tonight at home to Nebraska) at Champaign, Sat @ 6:00 on BTN +   Sweeping the weekend won’t be easy, but if Samedy plays as well as she did tonight, it’s doable.

The paper, or the Big 10 website, gives us the overall standings, Wisconsin & Nebraska on top at 10 & 2, the Gophers tied at 9 & 3, and a 4-way tie between Penn State, Ohio State, Purdue & Illinois at 8 & 4. Let’s call these “The Top 7.”

But given that some of these teams have already played each other twice, and other pairs not at all, I thought it would be interesting, just past the halfway mark in this grueling Big Ten Season, to look at how The Top 7 have fared against each other.

TOP SEVEN STANDINGS:

Wisconsin       6 & 1*   with 3 games remaining  

PURDUE          4 & 3    with 3 games remaining       

NEBRASKA     3 & 2    with 5 games remaining  

MINNESOTA    2 & 2*   with 5 games remaining  

PENN STATE   2 & 4    with 3 games remaining  

ILLINOIS          2 & 4    with 3 games remaining       

OHIO STATE   1 & 4    with 4 games remaining

* Also lost to a team in the bottom 7.

What does this tells us?

Maybe not much that we didn’t know. The Badgers’ 6 & 1 record confirms that they are probably the cream of the crop – exactly what I thought from watching them crush the Gophers and Nebraska.

It also suggests that our Gophers, who have played the fewest Top 7 matches, and have the most left, have a tough road the rest of the way through the schedule, starting with matches this weekend. (Thursday, 6:00 @ Columbus. on BTN. And Saturday, 6:00 @  Champaign, on BTN+.)

Ohio State and Illinois currently sit at the bottom of the Top Seven, but they are both very good teams. The hype about the Big Ten being the toughest volleyball conference in the country is exaggerated, of course, you can’t count on two Big Ten teams in the Final Four every year. But if you set up a tournament for just the 6^th and 7^th best teams in each conference, I would definitely bet the Buckeyes and the Illini.

I’d feel good about my Gophs if they could finish “the Top 7” at 5 &4. A split this weekend keeps that hope alive, but a sweep would be better..

24 hours ago, our 3-loss Gophers were in 3^rd place in the Big Ten, two full games behind co-leaders Wisconsin & Nebraska. But last night the Gophers gave Nebraska their 2^nd loss, in a tight 5-set match at the PAV, and minutes ago, Purdue gave Wisconsin their 2^nd loss (Roettke had an off-day, but Barnes was incredible), in a tight 4-set match in West Lafayette, reminding us that road wins are tough to come by in the Big Ten – and leaving the Gophers still in 3^rd place, but now only one game behind the co-leaders.

READERS WRITE:

READER R.A. writes

Minnesota’s hitting % of .168 and Nebraska’s .135 would normally indicate poor performance. In last night’s match, however, it signalled strong defense.  Long volleys and great digs forced both teams to try many more times, plus lots of forced errors (36 NE, 26 MN).

It was an exciting and gut-wrenching match, especially when the Gophs repeatedly blew leads near the end of sets. I sat there thinking, “The Gophs would be great if the sets were to ’24.'”

Service errors are momentum killers; I truly see little excuse. Again last night, one of Myers’ service errors came when she was serving at 24 in the 2^nd set, allowing Nebraska back in the set, which they eventually won 30-28.  Ahead at the end of the set is not the time for overly aggressive serves.

I also was pleased by Rollins’ transfer, due to her poor service-receiving. 

JOHN: Nobody likes to see their team miss serves. And yes, they can be momentum killers. And yes, there is a time for aggressive serving and a time for safe serving. But keep in mind that most points, at the Big Ten level, are won by the receiving team. If Myers rotated to the serve at 29-19, she should have served “safe.” But if she rotated to the serve at 25-24, after we had already lost the momentum, then I would have wanted an aggressive serve. (I don’t which it was.) And every Gopher server gets a signal from an assistant coach indicating the coaching staff’s expectation for the up-coming serve. If Myers is serving aggressively when you think she should be serving safe, your beef might be with the bench.

Also, Purdue missed a ton of serves in today’s win over Wisconsin — but their agressive serving kept the Badgers out of system.

READER G.U. writes

Your synopsis is pretty good of the match with them Huskers.  If NEB could serve correctly I still believe our beloved Gophers would still be crying.  Also glad to hear you tried out the new eatery in your area, you saved my wallet a big hit in case I wanted a burger and beer for $75.   

For the last 6 points of the match, that is. Three hours into the match it was tied 9-9 in the 5^th set, as close and as hard-fought a match as you’ll ever see. Reader and friend G.U. told me at Geezer Volleyball that he doubted The Gophs could take even 1 set from the powerful Huskers, but they did a lot better than that.

The Huskers jumped out to early leads in Sets 1 & 2 (the Gophers had early leads in sets 3 & 4), but the Gophers outplayed the Huskers in the middle portion of every set. Unfortunately, the Huskers out played our Gophs every time the score reached 20. We led 24-17, in Set 1, then hung on by the skin of our teeth, 25-22. Set 2 was worse, we led 24-19, then lost 28-30.

Except for the early leads, this pattern was repeated in the next two sets. We led 24-18, in Set 3, then hung on, 25-21. We were up 21-19 in Set 4, before losing 23-25. For whatever reason, the Huskers were clearly the better team late in these sets, beating the Gophs 25 to 8 at the back end of these four sets.

Set 5 was tied at 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 9 apiece. At this point, it certainly seemed as though either team could win. The Gophs got a side-out to lead 10-9, and then, with Samedy serving and Wenaas blasting away from the left-side, the Gophers, improbably, ran 5 more to close out the match.

Two surprising things happened during this final 6-point run:

• Wenaas scored on a dink, definitely the first of the night, and possibly the first of Wenaas’s Gopher career, despite scores of attempts.
• And on the final point of the match, a Husker receiver, a player who hadn’t made a mistake all night, shanked an easy receive out of bounds. Only the 2^nd unforced error of the night for the Huskers.

It felt fortunate that the tie-breaking 5^th set is only to 15; even leading 15-9, the way thing were going, I wouldn’t have put much money on the Gophers winning a 25-point 5^th set.

The Gophers were led all night by Wenaas, 22 kills & 19 digs, her best night so far as a Gopher, and of course the fantastic Samedy, 20 kills and 26 digs. Miyabe added 10 kills and several spectacular digs.

Speaking of digs, the Gophers, these 3 plus Shaffmaster, McGraw and Kilkelly made amazing digs all night – and Nebraska was even better! Time and time again, the Gopher hitters blasted ball down the throats of Husker blockers, and caromed balls off of Husker diggers toward the stands generating thunderous cheers from the Gopher faithful – only to have the cheer silenced when a Husker would make a diving one-hand save to keep the point alive! (This wasn’t just John thinking the ball was down, this was every person in the PAV.) Often, there would be 3 or 4 miraculous saves on each side of the net, on the same point. With the exception of a few missed serves (mostly by the Huskers, the one aspect of the game in which the Gophers were clearly superior) both teams had to scarp and claw for every point.

There might be more power and higher skill at the pro or Olympic levels, but you won’t see longer, harder-fought points anywhere. (There’s a reason I call this blog “GopherVBall Rocks.” Also, s’why the match went 3 hours.)

Speaking of which, the match lasted past 10:00, my normal bedtime, and then we stopped to celebrate* on the way home, so I was foggy when I started this post, and expect to be worse by the time I finish.

* We stopped at “The Sidecar,” formerly Adrian’s. The Sidecar’s a bit more upscale than Adrian’s was back in the day when the under-estimated Super Value softball team’s lightning-quick leadoff man Jimmy Frazer ran the joint, 3.2 beer and frozen pizza heated in a toaster-oven. We had a cocktail each and split an appetizer — $50.  

But I digress. This was two incredibly well-matched teams; you can’t beat the entertainment value. Besides her first successful dink ever, Wenaas also had 2 back-row kills. The Gophs attempt to compensate for their continuing lack of Middle-hitting by setting Samedy in the back-row. They’ve been trying all season to also use Wenaas from the back-row, but I don’t recall it ever working until tonight.

And although Wenaas did get one dink down, and Samedy a couple, the Gophers continue to get out-dinked by every team they play. (I didn’t see the St. Thomas match, but the newly-invented Tommies probably out-dinked us too.)

Wenaas also received serve well. A couple of match back, an opponent (Penn St., maybe) served at Kilkelly every chance, and Kilkelly struggled. Apparently Nebraska didn’t see the tape of that match because they served at Wenaas and Miyabe all night. Miyabe shanked a couple, but Wenaas, who must have handled at least 50 receives, shanked only one that I can recall.

On the other side of the net, the Gophers started out picking on Nebraska’s D.S, Akana, who quickly shanked at least 3 receives. But after a time-out, Nebraska started hiding Akana (#6) behind one of their 6-rotation hitters, an extraordinary strategy. I think I would have kept going after this struggling D.S., even in hiding, but the Gophers went looking for a different soft-spot. (Maybe that’s why I’m not in the International Volleyball Coaching Hall of Fame, as McCutcheon is.)

Shaffmaster had a pretty good night. She’s no Seliger-Swenson – but we need to let go of that. Along with 45 assists, Shaffmaster had 21 digs (a couple of them spectacular), 4 blocks and 3 kills. (I doubt Seliger-Swenson recorded many 4 blocks and 3 kills nights.)

And Myers had a good match, 3 kills (but only one that I recall on a pass from Shaffmaster), 7 blocks and 2 Aces. Reader R.A. responded to my praise of Myers in the recent win over Indiana, pointing out that Myers has way too many service errors. And Myers does indeed lead the team with 37 service errors, compared to 29 for 2^nd-place McGraw, whereas, Kilkelly, for example has made only 9 service errors.

McGraw and Myers also lead the team in Aces, 22 and 17 respectively, compared to 9 for Kilkelly. And one might say that 9 Aces against 9 errors sounds a lot better than 17 Aces against 37 errors. But Myers and McGraw are consistently the most aggressive of the Gophers’ six regular servers, and aggressive serving pays off in other ways than just Aces. Aggressive serving can take an opponent “out-of-system” resulting in a free-ball or a weak attack. At this level, a server who can produce 10 Aces for every 20 errors – and also force the opponents out-of-system 10 times, is a valuable weapon. I like aggressive serving; it’s a trade-off.

NEXT MATCH:

AT OHIO STATE

11/4/2021 | 6:00 PM

BTN

There are a 8 Big Ten teams in the top 31 ranked teams in the country; Indiana is not one of them. Ten days ago, the Gophers swept the Hoosiers 25-15, 25-16, 25-21. But that was at the PAV, where the Gophers play better. No matter, the Gophers swept the Hoosiers 25-20 (the Gophers led this 1^st set 24-16), 25-14, 25-16. Maybe one reason home-court didn’t help the Hoosiers was that attendance appeared to be under 100 – V-ball hasn’t caught on in Bloomington. As I write this, by comparison, I am watching Wisconsin at Nebraska – 8,100 seats plus 400 standing-room tickets sold-out.

The first 2 sets were all-Samedy, 6 kills in the first set and 7 kills plus 2 blocks in the second set, plus a bunch of digs. Between sets 2 & 3, the BTN announcer reported that Samedy was hitting over .600. I recently wrote that the Gophers are terrible dinkers, but Samedy is sort of the exception. Tonight, at least 4 or 5 of her match-leading 18 kills were “roll-shots,” i.e., full swings, but half-speed with a lot of top-spin.

The 3^rd set was closer for a while, with the Gophers trailing 6-7 & 11-12 before getting serious. As I’ve said before, it is difficult (not impossible) to maintain intensity when you feel your opponent is no threat to beat you.

Other highlights:

• Wenaas had zero kills in the first set, 2 in the second and 5 in the third, when the Gophs fed Samedy less often, but her digging and serve-receives were great. Indiana served at Wenaas all night – with minimal success.
• Like most D-1 VB teams, the Gophers play a 1-5 with a Libero and a Defensive Specialist. This typically means that one Left-Side Hitter (in our case, Miyabe or Landfair) plays only front-row, replaced by the D.S. (Kilkelly) in the back-row; and the other Left-Side Hitter plays all 6 rotations. In recent seasons, our 6-rotation Left-Side Hitter was Adanna Rollins, now playing for Penn State. One of the reasons I wasn’t too upset when I heard that Rollins was transferring was that I felt she was an inconsistent hitter, and a mediocre back-row player. Wenaas is also an inconsistent hitter, but I think she is a much better back-row player than Rollins was.
• Myers had a good match, with 4 kills & 5 blocks. The BTN announcer referred to Rubright as the strongest offensive threat among the Gopher Middles, but I don’t see it. I counted 4 kills for Rubright (same as Myers), one on a slide and at least 2 on over-passes. I don’t want to discount slides or over-passes, a point is a point; but teams automatically try to avoid over-passes, an opponent capable of exploiting your over-passes doesn’t affect your defensive strategy the way quick-set kills by your opponent will. I’d like to see Rubright crush a few quicks.
• Shaffmaster also had a good match, with 36 assists (at least a couple of them one-handed), 10 digs, a couple of kills and a couple blocks. It helped that the Gopher serve-receive was strong – probably because the Indiana servers didn’t put much pressure on it.

READERS WRITE:

READER G.U. writes (re the loss to Penn St):
“Penn State seemed to get 2 blockers in front of every Gopher attack, compared to the Gophers only getting one most of the time.”

JOHN: Penn St. gets offense from their Middles (at least one of them), which makes it harder to double-block their pins.

READER G.C. writes (re the loss to Penn St):

“Blowing that lead late in the second set was awful. Then on top of that, we weren’t even able to extend it to 4 sets, at home. Our middles are virtually non-existent, so other teams are ready for our outside hitters.
We still have 6 ranked teams on the schedule. If the Gophers don’t figure something out, we could finish 11-9.  Their strength of schedule should get them into the dance, but I certainly don’t see them going very far.

READER R.S. writes (re this blog):

“Your posts are too long. I didn’t sign up for a book club.”

NEXT UP: First-place Nebraska. Tied for first-place now, they just got swept by the Badgers in Lincoln.