This is getting posted late because I experienced a health emergency almost immediately after the match. Coincidence? hmmm.
Our 10th ranked Gophers looked confident winning Set 1, and then the wheels fell off, Michigan in four, 25-18, 12-25, 14-25, 12-25. The Gophers have had off-nights in recent years, losing matches we thought they should win, but I don’t remember a Gopher team playing as poorly as they did tonight.
It didn’t help that this was the first Big Ten Road match for this freshman-laden squad, it didn’t help that this team does not (yet anyway) have a leader who can put the team on her shoulders when the going gets tough (as Shaffmaster did these past two seasons), and it certainly didn’t help to play the match short Garr.
We started the season with 3 liberos, and planning to play all 3. Then we lost Palabiyik for the season, so down to 2. Then, with Garr injured, we played with 1. Thibault wore the Libero jersey, and did okay, but we didn’t have anyone picking up Thibault’s normal role at D.S. Time after time, there were balls off our blockers or Michigan’s blockers that Thibault-playing-D.S. would have dug up – and nobody even touched the ball.
Our 3 Libero receive of Palabiyik, Garr and Thibault looked pretty good; our 1 Libero receive of Hanson, Acevedo and Thibault was horrible. I usually try to keep track of bad receives, but I gave up halfway through the match. In an earlier blog, I had speculated that if we lost the services of Garr or Thibault, perhaps plan B would be Gilk at D.S. I have no idea how well that would have worked, but it could hardly have worked worse than Coach Cook’s plan B – to go without a D.S.
Instead Coach benched Kinney and used Gilk at Opposite – and Gilk was a modest bright spot among the chaos. Coach also benched Stella a couple of times (this was a double-sub, Crowl in for Stella to play Opposite and Georgia Lee in for Gilk as back-row setter) to limited effect. Coach even benched Hanson for Set 4, which didn’t work at all, As I said – a disaster.
I have no idea what Garr’s injury was; I hope she can play Sunday at Northwestern.