Penn State beat the Gophers 25-18, 27-25, 25-22, in a match between 2 relatively evenly-matched teams. The Gophers came out slow in Set 1, spotting the Nittany Lions an early 2-7 lead, then losing 25-18, so only losing 18-16 the rest of the way, and obviously Sets 2 & 3 were close. That said, when a team comes into your gym and beats you in 3, it’s hard to deny that they were the better team. Worse yet, the Gophers led 21-16 in Set 2, and got outplayed 4-11 the rest of the way; and led 18-16 in Set 3, and got outplayed 4-9 at the end of that set. In other words, the Gophers played PSU even – except when it mattered the most.
Several thing were consistent throughout the match:
- Miyabe played, and Landfair did not. Miyabe had 14 kills in 3 sets, so I am not blaming her for the loss, but Miyabe cannot take over a set the way a healthy Landfair might.
- Not only were the sets close, except as noted, but mostly the teams just traded side-outs. If the match had been played under the old-fashioned, to 15, but only score when you serve system, they might still be playing yet.
- The Gopher blockers were getting a ton of touches, but only 5 blocks (at least 4 of those by Myers). Time-after-time, the PSU hitters appeared to hit the ball out of bounds, only to get the point due to a Gopher touch. It appeared that the PSU hitters were blasting high and hard, counting on a Gopher touch.
- Once again, the Gopher Middles produced minimal offense, with our Pins, Wenaas (15), Miyabe (14) and Samedy (12) accounting for 89% of the Gophers 46 kills. I think Myers had 4 of the other 5, and Rubright, who looked so good last week against Indiana, only 1 kill in 3 sets. The Middle-Offense that seemed to emerge against Indiana did not show up against Penn St.
- The above, in part, because of poor serve-receiving by the Gophers. Teams generally come into a match with a plan to “target” certain of their opponent’s serve-receivers. Tonight, PSU went after Kilkelly and Wenaas. I thought Wenaas did okay, but Kilkelly had a bad night. She only gave up a couple of “shanks,” but she consistently failed to deliver the ball within 15 feet of where Shaffmaster wanted it, forcing a bump-set. Not only did this prevent the Gophers from getting their middle offense going, it led to a lot of mediocre sets to our Pins. The Gophers (mostly our Pins) hit .289 for the match – which isn’t bad for a team that got beat in 3; but I think our Pins hit around .500 on really good sets, the kind they could tee-off on. Most of the night they were hitting ineffective roll-shots off of mediocre sets.
It was a triumphant return for Adanna Rollins, who played (and started) for the Gophers for 3 seasons, before transferring to the Nittany Lions for her senior and bonus year — reportedly because the Gophers either couldn’t or wouldn’t promise her a 5th scholarship-year, which PSU apparently did. I wouldn’t say that Rollins out-played Wenaas or Miyabe; not in any aspect of the game nor overall. BUT, Rollins played for the Gophers last spring when the Gophers beat PSU twice at the PAV, and tonight she played for PSU when they beat the Gophers at the PAV. So Rollins is 3 & 0 in MN-PSU matches at the PAV in 2021. And nobody else can say that.
NEXT:
The Gophers have a chance, on Sunday, to redeem themselves when they host the OSU Buckeyes, who lost in 4 sets at Madison tonight. A “split” against these two highly-rated teams would be respectable. Another loss would drop the Gophers to 6 & 4 in the Big Ten, certainly out of contention in the conference, and perhaps headed for the dreaded “NCAA Bubble. ”