For the last 6 points of the match, that is. Three hours into the match it was tied 9-9 in the 5th set, as close and as hard-fought a match as you’ll ever see. Reader and friend G.U. told me at Geezer Volleyball that he doubted The Gophs could take even 1 set from the powerful Huskers, but they did a lot better than that.
The Huskers jumped out to early leads in Sets 1 & 2 (the Gophers had early leads in sets 3 & 4), but the Gophers outplayed the Huskers in the middle portion of every set. Unfortunately, the Huskers out played our Gophs every time the score reached 20. We led 24-17, in Set 1, then hung on by the skin of our teeth, 25-22. Set 2 was worse, we led 24-19, then lost 28-30.
Except for the early leads, this pattern was repeated in the next two sets. We led 24-18, in Set 3, then hung on, 25-21. We were up 21-19 in Set 4, before losing 23-25. For whatever reason, the Huskers were clearly the better team late in these sets, beating the Gophs 25 to 8 at the back end of these four sets.
Set 5 was tied at 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 9 apiece. At this point, it certainly seemed as though either team could win. The Gophs got a side-out to lead 10-9, and then, with Samedy serving and Wenaas blasting away from the left-side, the Gophers, improbably, ran 5 more to close out the match.
Two surprising things happened during this final 6-point run:
- Wenaas scored on a dink, definitely the first of the night, and possibly the first of Wenaas’s Gopher career, despite scores of attempts.
- And on the final point of the match, a Husker receiver, a player who hadn’t made a mistake all night, shanked an easy receive out of bounds. Only the 2nd unforced error of the night for the Huskers.
It felt fortunate that the tie-breaking 5th set is only to 15; even leading 15-9, the way thing were going, I wouldn’t have put much money on the Gophers winning a 25-point 5th set.
The Gophers were led all night by Wenaas, 22 kills & 19 digs, her best night so far as a Gopher, and of course the fantastic Samedy, 20 kills and 26 digs. Miyabe added 10 kills and several spectacular digs.
Speaking of digs, the Gophers, these 3 plus Shaffmaster, McGraw and Kilkelly made amazing digs all night – and Nebraska was even better! Time and time again, the Gopher hitters blasted ball down the throats of Husker blockers, and caromed balls off of Husker diggers toward the stands generating thunderous cheers from the Gopher faithful – only to have the cheer silenced when a Husker would make a diving one-hand save to keep the point alive! (This wasn’t just John thinking the ball was down, this was every person in the PAV.) Often, there would be 3 or 4 miraculous saves on each side of the net, on the same point. With the exception of a few missed serves (mostly by the Huskers, the one aspect of the game in which the Gophers were clearly superior) both teams had to scarp and claw for every point.
There might be more power and higher skill at the pro or Olympic levels, but you won’t see longer, harder-fought points anywhere. (There’s a reason I call this blog “GopherVBall Rocks.” Also, s’why the match went 3 hours.)
Speaking of which, the match lasted past 10:00, my normal bedtime, and then we stopped to celebrate* on the way home, so I was foggy when I started this post, and expect to be worse by the time I finish.
* We stopped at “The Sidecar,” formerly Adrian’s. The Sidecar’s a bit more upscale than Adrian’s was back in the day when the under-estimated Super Value softball team’s lightning-quick leadoff man Jimmy Frazer ran the joint, 3.2 beer and frozen pizza heated in a toaster-oven. We had a cocktail each and split an appetizer — $50.
But I digress. This was two incredibly well-matched teams; you can’t beat the entertainment value. Besides her first successful dink ever, Wenaas also had 2 back-row kills. The Gophs attempt to compensate for their continuing lack of Middle-hitting by setting Samedy in the back-row. They’ve been trying all season to also use Wenaas from the back-row, but I don’t recall it ever working until tonight.
And although Wenaas did get one dink down, and Samedy a couple, the Gophers continue to get out-dinked by every team they play. (I didn’t see the St. Thomas match, but the newly-invented Tommies probably out-dinked us too.)
Wenaas also received serve well. A couple of match back, an opponent (Penn St., maybe) served at Kilkelly every chance, and Kilkelly struggled. Apparently Nebraska didn’t see the tape of that match because they served at Wenaas and Miyabe all night. Miyabe shanked a couple, but Wenaas, who must have handled at least 50 receives, shanked only one that I can recall.
On the other side of the net, the Gophers started out picking on Nebraska’s D.S, Akana, who quickly shanked at least 3 receives. But after a time-out, Nebraska started hiding Akana (#6) behind one of their 6-rotation hitters, an extraordinary strategy. I think I would have kept going after this struggling D.S., even in hiding, but the Gophers went looking for a different soft-spot. (Maybe that’s why I’m not in the International Volleyball Coaching Hall of Fame, as McCutcheon is.)
Shaffmaster had a pretty good night. She’s no Seliger-Swenson – but we need to let go of that. Along with 45 assists, Shaffmaster had 21 digs (a couple of them spectacular), 4 blocks and 3 kills. (I doubt Seliger-Swenson recorded many 4 blocks and 3 kills nights.)
And Myers had a good match, 3 kills (but only one that I recall on a pass from Shaffmaster), 7 blocks and 2 Aces. Reader R.A. responded to my praise of Myers in the recent win over Indiana, pointing out that Myers has way too many service errors. And Myers does indeed lead the team with 37 service errors, compared to 29 for 2nd-place McGraw, whereas, Kilkelly, for example has made only 9 service errors.
McGraw and Myers also lead the team in Aces, 22 and 17 respectively, compared to 9 for Kilkelly. And one might say that 9 Aces against 9 errors sounds a lot better than 17 Aces against 37 errors. But Myers and McGraw are consistently the most aggressive of the Gophers’ six regular servers, and aggressive serving pays off in other ways than just Aces. Aggressive serving can take an opponent “out-of-system” resulting in a free-ball or a weak attack. At this level, a server who can produce 10 Aces for every 20 errors – and also force the opponents out-of-system 10 times, is a valuable weapon. I like aggressive serving; it’s a trade-off.
NEXT MATCH:
AT OHIO STATE
11/4/2021 | 6:00 PM
BTN