Purdue, now 10 & 1, is a good team. But not so good that they should sweep the Gophers in straight sets; we won one set at Texas! After the Gophers usual slow set 1, sets 2 & 3 were close, 18-25, 23-25, 30-32. Obviously there were opportunities to win sets 2 & 3, but the Gophers couldn’t get it done. And the problems that plagued the Gophers tonight were problems we’ve seen earlier.
Especially serve-receive, which was poor most of the night. Purdue had more service errors than the Gophs, because Purdue was serving aggressively all night, and we had a ton of playable, but just-barely, serve-receives. The first set, for example, was tied 11-11; Purdue won the next point, and then the Gophers made poor receives on the next 3 serves, leading to an 11-15 deficit from which the Gophs never recovered. Wucherer played back-row for the first time tonight, but it didn’t help; if anything, there was miscommunication between Wucherer and Wenaas. And meanwhile, our Gophs don’t have even one killer-server who can put opponents on their heels. Also (I don’t have a stat for this, but) it seemed to me that the Gophers were even-up, or even a bit better than Purdue, when in-system, and Purdue dominated the out-of-system points.
We were also out-dinked again. 5-1 teams are generally stronger when their setter is in the back-row, but Shaffmaster is a decent blocker (she had 2 in 3 sets tonight). We had more trouble when Wenaas (she also had 2 blocks) was blocking Right-side and Shaffmaster had responsibility for dinks. Purdue was constantly dinking over Wenaas. Shaffmaster had 2 or 3 beautiful digs, but there were a bunch she didn’t get.
And we were again over-reliant on our left-side hitters. I had Landfair with her usual 15 kills (in 3 sets), and Wucherer with 13. But Wenaas was named pre-season All Big Ten based on her performance last year as a Left-side hitter, and she started strong there while Wucherer was injured; yet so far (in 3 matches), she has not demonstrated the ability to produce from the Right-side.
We also didn’t get much from our Middles. Booth had the best night, with 3 kills and 3 blocks; Gros had opportunities but didn’t score; and Husemann made a couple of plays early then disappeared. Coach McCutcheon played 3 Middles tonight, in each set I think – which is hard to do. I would hope that I could understand what he was doing if the match had been at the Pav, but watching on TV, where they don’t show you the subbing, I got confused. Whatever the system, it left the Gophers vulnerable in set 3 when we ran out of subs and were forced to play Booth (likely the least capable back-row player of the 16 rostered players) back there.
So the Gophers are 5 & 4 and facing the Badgers at the Pav on Sunday. I actually think the Gophs will get their act together and beat the Sconies, but if they don’t, they’ll be a 5 & 5 team. Not an encouraging start for a team with championship ambitions! Then again, unbeaten and #9 ranked Penn State got swept by unranked Indiana tonight, so who knows?