A week ago, the Gophs were 1 & 3, with all 4 matches in 5 sets (so we were 9 & 11 in sets, and each 5th set by 2 points). Now we’re 4 & 3, (9 & 0 this week). Obviously, St. Thomas isn’t a v-ball power (yet), and Long Island was terrible, but Auburn who walked into the Pav with a 6 & 0 record, including a 4-set win over Florida St (who is supposed to be good), and walked out humiliated, after a 25-21, 25-22, 25-16 Gopher victory. And it wasn’t as close as the scores make it sound.
Set 1 was tight. After an early 7-4 Gopher lead, the Tigers pulled ahead 7-8 on strong serving/poor receiving (more about this below). At 12-12, Hanson got hot, pushing the Gophs to 16-12, but Auburn pulled back to within one at 16-15, and it was not clear to me that the Gophs would prevail. But we pulled back ahead at 21-16, and traded side-outs for the win.
The Tigers came out strong in Set 2, 0-5 on the strength of their back-row hitter. But after a timeout, we finally got a side-out on a strong kill by Hanson. And a 7-point serving-run by Alex “ACE” Acevedo put the Gophs back in front at 8-7. Then, surprisingly, Auburn stopped looking like a D-1 team, and the Gophs were 17-11. The teams traded side-outs for a while to reach 24-18. Then, with the set seemingly inn the bag, we rotated to our one weak rotation (more about this below), squandering 4 straight set-points.
Auburn seemed overwhelmed in Set 3. The Gophers led 4-0, 12-1, and 17-4 before getting complacent. The Tigers got to 22-16, but no closer. In each of the 3 sets, set point came on an unforced Auburn error. (Where was that generosity when we had match-point vs TCU?) All in all, the Gophs beat the Tigers, representing the Mighty SEC, by a composite score of 75-57 – the exact same score we beat poor little St. Thomas by.
HIGHLIGHTS:
- Reader RA, who did submit his notes on the St. Thomas match, but just seconds too late to make the blog-post, noted that Acevedo had individual serving runs of 5 points, 6 points and 7 points, with 4 aces for the match (vs 1 service error).
- I’d like to add that this rotation has Wooker (7 kills for the match) and Minatee (also 7 kills) both on the bench, with a front row of Owoleye (zero kills), Shaffmaster (who is supposed to be setting) and Hanson (Shaffmaster’s only real option, should NOT be a strong rotation for us.
- But (RA again) in addition to Acevedo’s 4 aces, she had a lot of near-aces, keeping the Tigers out-of-system.
- I’d add that Hanson, our only real hitter in this rotation, who led the match with 12 kills, and Shaffmaster, who finally (in her 5th season as the Gopher Setter) is finding her attack-mode, contributed to Acevedo’s service-runs.
- I am so impressed by Stella Swenson that I spent the off-season wondering what role Shaffmaster would play during the ‘24 season. Shame on me. Shaffmaster has gotten better each season to the next; why didn’t I expect this trend to continue. Shaffmaster is the reason this team is going to be better than I thought they would be.
- And this team digs like no previous Gopher team in memory. CC McGraw was a very good Libero (when completely healthy) and Wenaas was an excellent passer, and someone else on that team would make a nice dig once in a while. But the team I watched tonight digs your lips off! The whole team, Shaffmaster, Grote, Wooker, Hanson, Acevedo, Thibault and Palabiyik. These seven players recorded 80 digs in 3 sets, and half of them were spectacular. And I don’t think the official digs include some amazing “saves” made above their heads. I think there were individual points where the Gophers made 6 to 8 spectacular digs.
LOWLIGHTS:
- We have one very scary half-rotation, when Shaffmaster has lost her serve and our front row includes Grote, Minatee and Hanson. This is exactly the half-rotation that cost us the Baylor and TCU matches (maybe the Stanford match?) A front row of Grote, Minatee and Hanson sounds strong (a lot stronger than Owoleye, Shaffmaster, and Hanson sounds), but it’s Grote hitting Leftside, Minatee hitting quicks, and Hanson hitting Rightside. Hanson, who is hitting great from the Left, and decent from back-row, has not yet become effective on the Right. And Minatee, who is looking great on slides, is not great on quicks, plus the Gophers prefer to run the slides when Shaffmaster is front row (it gets crowded), and Grote has been inconsistent, at best, from the Left. It seems illogical that Grote, who is right-handed, is so much less effective from the Left, but the great Steph Samedy was the same way. Our backrow, in this half-rotation, includes Shaffmaster, Palabiyik and Wooker; Shaffmaster is one of our best weapons, but it’s illegal for her to hit when she’s backrow, Palabiyik is 5 ft tall, and Wooker hasn’t recorded more than 3 or 4 backrow kills in either of her previous seasons. So we’re left with Grote’s inconsistent Leftside attack, and praying for a service-error from our opponents. [An option that occurs to me is to flip Wooker and Hanson in the lineup. Wooker isn’t any better than Hanson at Rightside, but at least we’d have back-row attacks by Hanson as an option. But Coach Cook probably won’t want to disrupt a lineup that’s clicking in the other 5 and one-half rotations. Long-run, Grote and/or Minatee and/or Hanson have to get better.
- I said throughout the off-season that Cook had to find a strong Middle from the Portal; and he was unable to do this (I assume he tried). I thought Owoleye, a 5th-year senior was the stronger of our two returning Middles, but I was wrong. The Sophomore Minatee is okay, but Owoleye played all 3 sets and finished the evening with zero kills .The kills she has earned in previous matches are almost exclusively off quicks or over-passes; she can’t score a slide to save her life. – and that’s gonna kill us against stronger teams.
DILEMMA: There is also the dilemma of how to use Acevedo. She didn’t play front-row tonight; she served for Wooker and was immediately back on the bench when she lost her serve. Wooker struggles for consistency on serve-receive, but she’s doing it with Acevedo on the bench. Folks in Section 110 are wondering why?
NEXT UP: Three matches in three days in Green Bay to finish the non-conference schedule lLet’s plan to finish strong), UWGB on Thursday, North Dakota on Friday, and Chicago State (I think this was UI-Circle when I used to play them in Water Polo) on Saturday. The UWGB will be available on ESPN+, but I’m not sure if the Friday & Sat matches will be televised at all. Fortunately, Maureen and I will be there in person to cover these matches.