Since losing Set 5 (by 2 pts) to TCU two weeks ago, the Gophs have won 6 straight matches, each convincingly in 3 straight sets, including today’s victory over a scrappy Chicago State squad (led by 6-4 Argentinian Middle Juliette Sandez), 25-16, 25-15, 25-18. The total-composite score was almost identical to yesterday’s sweep of North Dakota, except that the Chi-State Cougars made the Gophers earn their points. By my count, 41 of the Gophers 75 points came on kills by Gopher hitters, vs roughly half that number vs NoDak.
For the second straight day, Wooker was not dressed. Yesterday, I didn’t know why, but today I saw that Wooker was wearing a corset-type wrap around her waist. My experience suggests that a wrap like that indicates a lower-back injury. She may have been wearing this all season, but I hadn’t noticed it before. ANYONE? We need a healthy Wooker, let’s hope Coach Cook, with Wisconsin coming up on Wednesday, was not playing Wooker merely out of an abundance of caution.
For the 3 matches in Green Bay, (9 sets), Hanson led the Gophers with 24 kills, including multiple WOW-kills. Grote added 19, Minatee 12, Acevedo 11 and Awoleye 10. Wisconsin Green Bay turned out the toughest opponent, but they lost today’s finale, in 5 sets, to St. Thomas. In retrospect, I probably would have enjoyed being in Milwaukee for the Stanford & Texas matches more than I enjoyed being in Green Bay for UWGB, UND and Chi-State, but that’s hindsight. And those early matches were televised, which not all of these matches were. It also gave me an opportunity to watch some of the Gopher reserves. Today, our # 3 Opposite Schnickels had a kill and a block, # 3 Middle Engeman had 2 kills and 2 blocks, but most impressive today was #2 Opposite Crowl, with 5 kills and a block.