[I wrote this last night, but couldn’t post it because my bolg-host site was undergoing maintenance.]
Tonight’s match vs #27 Washington, our #14 Gophers’ 23rd match of the season, was only their 2nd 4-set match. And like their first one, at Southern Cal, the Gophers lost. Tonight 21-25, 23-25, 25-14, 22-25. The Gophers out-scored the Huskies 91-89 in the composite score, and in an even more striking anomaly, the Gophs decisively out-hit the Huskies .248 to .123.
How, one might ask, do you out-hit an opponent 248 to .123 and lose? Exactly what I suggested in my previous post scouting report: Washington is a very strong serving team, and serve-receive is the Gophers Achilles Heel. Hanson led the Gophs with 15 kills, 13 for Grote and 12 for Wooker (who had the best % at .286) But, officially (it was really worse than this), Washington served 13 aces vs 2 service-errors, compared to 6 aces and 11 errors by the Gophs. Hanson, with 4 service-errors was the leader in this negative category, but the real problem was our serve-receive. Wooker had a really bad night receiving. Palabiyik and Thibault contributed a few receiving-errors, but it was Wooker that killed us. Serving and receiving well in Set 3, we won easily.
Set 2 was the killer. From an 8-8 tie, the Gophs went on a nice run to reach 18-11. After committing 5 receiving-errors in Set 1, we had not made a single receiving-error on the way to this commanding Set 2 lead. And then the wheels fell off! The Huskies won 10 of the next 11 points, 6 of them on Aces, all served at Wooker. There were cries, in section 110, to bench Wooker, but for whom? The last time we saw Acevedo in serve-recieve was that disastrous loss at Southern Cal, when Acevedo was even worse than Wooker was tonight. Instead, Coach Cook made the only reasonable adjustment, leaving Wooker on the court, but taking her out of serve-receive, using Hanson instead.
ANOTHER PROBLEM: I wrote, in my write-up of the Michigan Match, that Minatee had been a non-factor. (I don’t get what’s wrong with Minatee, who has looked so good at times.) She was useless again this evening, through the first set and a half. I groaned when Cook replaced her with Kali Engeman, who I have been skeptical of from the get, based on her “nothing” career prior to the Gophers. BUT, Engeman, while not great, was okay, with 5 kills on 9 attempts, and a couple of blocks – definitely an improvement over Minatee’s recent play.
But I should give Wshington credit, Leftside Hitter Bush pounded out 19 of the Huskies’ 46 kills, they served really well (as I told you they would) and their D.S., Heard, while making little impression in the scorebook, had half-a-dozen spectacular second-touch saves on balls that we thought were already Gopher points. Washington trails the Gophs in the Big Ten Standings, is well behind the Gophs in the national rankings, and they can’t hit with the Gophers. But they beat us on our court.
UP NEXT: Saturday, 3:00, at the Pav, vs Oregon (finally BTN). They don’t serve as tough as Washington, but they’re higher-ranked, they run a high-tempo offense, which will challenge our Middles to run pin-to-pin to block, and despite being swept by the Huskers this evening, they seem a better team, on paper, than Washington or our Gophers.
Followed by a trip to Lincoln! We really need to beat the Ducks.