Gophs defeated Northwestern at Northwestern in 4 Sets, 25-19, 25-22, 17-25, 26-24. Still don’t know what Garr’s injury was (concussion protocol maybe?). She was reportedly listed as “questionable” going into warm-ups, but played the entire match. Hard to pinpoint what Garr did that made so much difference, but the Gophs certainly looked better with her in the lineup.
Interesting match for Hanson. Without Palabiyik, Hanson is part of all 6 of our serve-receives. The Wildcats picked on her all match, and she struggled. I had her with 7 poor-receives. But Hanson’s serve-receive struggles didn’t affect her hitting, I had her with 18 kills (leading all hitters, 3 of the 18 back-row), and a solid .361 percentage, including 2 consecutive kills to finish off a close Set 2
The BAD NEWS is Acevedo. She started hot (as she often does), carrying the Gophs through Set 1 and part of Set 2 (7 kills, .316), then, late in Set 2, hurt her knee and had to be helped off the court. I haven’t heard anything official, but it looked bad – maybe another season-ender. I remember seasons in the recent past where the Gophs played an entire season without a major injury, and in typical seasons, no more than one per season. If Acevedo is out-of-action for a sustained period, she would be the fourth starter to go down. In one sense, we are fortunate that our most recent injury came at Outside Hitter, because it was the last remaining position where we had depth. Now, we have no depth anywhere, if anyone else goes down, even temporarily, we will be in big trouble.
Gilk started at Opposite and played okay, 7 kills. Kinney started the match on the bench, came in for Acevedo, and also had 7 kills. Kinney in for Acevedo is not much of a drop-off – but the next injury will be a huge drop-off.
Myers continued to play well, as expected, with 7 kills and 2 blocks, but the Freshman Taylor was the big story, with 6 kills and 6 blocks. Her kills were all off “quicks,” as the timing between her and Stella, on attempted “slides,” is not close to working. (The opposite of Myers, whose kills all come off “slides.”) The Stella-Taylor timing on slides is so bad that we are lucky to pop a free-ball over the net when we try one. Taylor also continues to take first-touches away from Garr & Thibault when we would rather she didn’t, and she continues to be late getting to the edges to set double blocks. But green as she is, she is a major presence at the net. Not sure how long it will take to clean some of her deficits up, but Taylor is going to make the All Big Ten Freshman Team this year, and All Big Ten Honors are in her future.
NOTES: 1) After 3 service-errors in the first two sets, Thibault was relieved of her serving duties for Sets 3 & 4, yielding to Gilk. Gilk also had 2 service-errors in 2 sets, but she also had 2 aces. 2) I don’t cringe when I see KInney attempt a dink or some other off-speed shot – because she’s good at it.
UP NEXT: Opening the Big Ten Season with MSU and Rutgers at Home, and Michigan and Northwestern on the Road, was about as easy as it could have been.
Now the Meat Grinder starts, with our next six matches vs
UCLA (Wed, 7:00. BTN) and Ohio State, (Sun, 1:00, BTN+) both at the Pav, then
Oregon at Oregon (Fri, 10/17, 8:00, BTN+),
Washington at Washington (Sat. 10/18, 9:00 BTN+),
Indiana at Indiana (Fri, 10/24, 5:00, BTN), and
Purdue at Purdue (Sun. 10/26, Noon, BTN+)
Oregon and Purdue are very good, and Washington on the second night of a back-to-back on the road will be tough, but I think a healthy (as healthy as now) Gopher squad could win any one of these matches, and therefore, conceivably all 6. But one more injury could leave our Gophs weakened enough to lose all 6. Cross your fingers and keep ‘em crossed.