Our #20 Golden Gophers got their first road win of the season, taking down the unranked Scarlet Knights in Piscataway, 25-20, 23-25, 25-22 & 25-16. The air went out of the Rutgers balloon about halfway through Set 4, but neither Maureen or I felt comfortable until then. And based on a coaching move that surprised me, I don’t think Coach Cook felt comfortable either. After dropping Set 2, Coach pulled both his freshmen, Crossen and Hoecke, replacing them with Gilk and Blazkova.
I’d been telling you since January that Gilk was our every-set Opposite. But when Gilk’s performance was inconsistent through the non-Conference and into the beginning of the Big 10, Coach gave Crossen a look. I thought, and still think, that Crossen is a Left-side, but she has been terrific at Opposite – much more effective than Gilk. And Crossen was great in tonight’s Set 1! Crossen wasn’t great in Set 2, but our Middles were the ones getting outplayed in Set 2, so I wasn’t expecting the switch. But Gilk came in and played Sets 3 & 4 as well as Crossen had played Set 1.
Even more surprising was Hoecke getting the hook. Pre-season, I predicted our depth-chart at Middle as Taylor, Minatee, Blazkova, and Hoecke #4 – but Hoecke has been far and away our best Middle. Hoecke wasn’t great in tonight’s Sets 1 or 2, but I thought she had been playing well enough to earn more rope. But Coach didn’t think so and played Blazkova in Sets 3 & 4. Blazkova wasn’t much better – but we won both sets with her on the court.
Sets 1 & 2 were both relatively close – and yet very different. The Gopher Pins were the story of Set 1, I had Wooker with 6 kills, Kinney and Crossen with 5 each. 16 is a lot of pin-kills in a single set. But the Rutgers Middles were the story of Set 2. I wasn’t tracking their stats set-by-set, but Set 2 was clearly their best set and they finished the match with 25 kills at a .500 clip – vs 8 kills at a .200 clip for the Gopher Middles.
The obvious explanation for benching Hoecke is that she, and Taylor, were outperformed by their Rutgers counterparts in Set 2. The other explanation is that the Gophers had lost their only previous road match, to then unranked Illinois, so neither Hoecke or Crossen had ever won on the road, and maybe Coach thought his two freshmen were rattled. Maybe a little of each.
Wooker was the dominant player we have come to expect, with another 20-kill match (inc 2 from back-row), at .320, plus 5 blocks, 3 excellent saves – the saves telling me that her back wasn’t bothering her, plus 2 aces. Kinney’s hitting was consistent, 13 kills at .387. Crossen had 7 kills before she was benched, and Gilk 7 after. A good match for our pins: 47 kills at .345. And Stella added 4 kills.
Wooker’s 2 aces were offset by 2 service errors,. The Gophers overall had 7 aces vs 7 errors. I’ll take 7 & 7 any day. Gilk, who continues to struggle with her serve, was 1 & 2, and Coach brought Crossen back in to serve for her. Coach had Olivia serving for Kinney most of the match. Olivia serves okay, 2 aces, 1 error, but I don’t like it because when Olivia gets neither an ace or or an error (i.e., most of the time), now she has to place back-row defense, which she’s not great at. But, giving credit where credit is due, The Gophs strung a long service-run in Set 3, and another in Set 4, with Olivia serving – so maybe she deserves some credit for that.
MISCELLANEOUS:
- A Rutgers Set 2 surge, coming from behind to take a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, came while serving at Kinney.
- As noted above, our 3 Middles, Taylor, Hoecke & Balzakova were dominated by Rutgers Middles. Maureen thinks Taylor wasn’t healthy, as she seemed to be out-of-breath already in Set 1.
NEXT UP: Sunday, 3:00 at Ohio State, on BTN. I expect to see Hoecke back in the starting line-up. But I don’t know whether Coach will start Gilk or Crossen. We might not see that settled for a while – plus Acevedo is supposed to be back soon, which could scramble the picture further. Acevedo won’t play Opposite, but Kinney sure can.
READERS OBJECT
There was more objection, than usual, to my post re the loss to the Badgers. Either I was way off the mark, distracted perhaps by reports that the Vikings were unnecessarily running up the score with a fifth field goal – or readers really hate losing to the Badgers.
MC writes, “You’re wrong about this Badger team being great. They’re overrated. Not as good as recent Badger teams. I thought the match was pretty even.”
SM writes, “You’re wrong about Palabiyik playing great. Every time she was called upon to make a set, Wisconsin got the point. This isn’t true of our opponent’s Liberos. And you’re wrong about Stella being coached to deliver quick, flat sets. If that were true, why isn’t that being communicated to the hitters? The problem is that Stella telegraphs her sets – allowing the blockers to set up.”
JOHN: It’s encouraging to know that women’s sports have advanced to the point that fans can argue about who was at fault for a loss. And encouraging to know that people are reading GopherVBRocks. Keep ‘em coming.( A majority of the responses to GopherVBRocks appear to be spam.)
Specifically on SM’s point regarding Palabiyik: I wasn’t tracking the results of plays where Palabiyik was called upon to make a set. If SM is right about this, I didn’t catch it. Of course it’s harder to get a kill on a bump-set from the Libero – that’s why it’s called “out of system” – meaning not the way your offense is designed to work. If the Wisconsin hitters had significantly better results on sets from their Libero – I guess I missed that also.
Specifically on SM’s point regarding the connections between Stella and her hitters: I wrote, “It could be that Stella just isn’t that good – but I have a different theory. Take it or leave it, I guess. But what I’ve been seeing, and in several matches, not just vs Wisconsin, there has been excessive (and unproductive) dinking. Which appears to be caused by our hitters reaching the ball too late – the opposite of telegraphing.