Bad news first: Our #1 Libero and #1 high-spirit, Zeynep Palabiyik, is out for the season. She injured herself chasing an errant ball and was helped off the court late in the St. Thomas match. The play was right in front of me, and I didn’t think it was going to be that bad, but apparently she blew her ACL. Best wishes to Palabiyik, and we look forward to watching your return next year. (She should be able to call this year a red-shirt.)
The good news is that our Gophs swept the Vanderbilt Commodores on their own court, 25-23, 25-20, 25-21. Sets 1 and 2 were close all the way. The Gophs threatened to blow ‘em out in Set 3, until a late Vandy rally closed the gap. I had Hanson with 13 kills (2 back-row, 1 “six-pack”), and Myers with 6 kills and 5 blocks, including responsibility for 3 pts in a 7-1 run early in Set 3.
If you are struggling to remember how good Vandy was last year, it’s not you, it’s them. The Commodores apparently failed to field a Women’s Volleyball team for the past 44 years. But they were better than that sounds. According to the match announcer, they were picked to finish 12th in the 16-team SEC, and they lost in 5 sets to a Kansas Team that was rated #14 at the time.
LIBERO SHAKE-UP:
When Palabiyik got hurt in the St. Thomas match, it was Thibault who got the promotion to Libero, so I expected she would be the Libero vs Vandy. But that honor went to Garr instead. I haven’t seen enough of Garr to understand why she passed Thibault up, but we know how good Thibault is, and if Garr is even better, that’s great. (This is the end, for this year, of the 3-Libero look.)
OPPOSITE SHAKE-UP:
- Crowl seemed to be our starting Opposite until she got hurt in the season opener vs Texas A & M, and was replaced by Gilk. Crowl was dressed and presumably available this evening, but Gilk got the call. (No big surprise.)
- Then, when Gilk struggled a bit (she wasn’t horrible), Coach Cook benched her and put in – not Crowl, but Kinney! I expect Kinney to crack the starting line-up eventually, but I wasn’t expecting it so quickly. Kinney can play Leftside or Opposite, so in one sense she is in competition with Acevedo and Gilk for one of 2 starting roles.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT:
- Our Gophs once again struggled with our serve. I had us with 9 errors and 5 aces. I’d rather we could match our errors with Aces. But 9-5 isn’t horrible – except that 3 of the 5 aces were consecutive (a Turkey, maybe?) by back-up Setter Georgia Lee, in Set 4. For most of the match we had committed 3 times as many errors as aces.
- We have a pretty good serve-receive in general, but Acevedo continues to struggle – I had her with 5 of our 7 service-errors. Our opponents know and target her as often as possible. It didn’t hurt us tonight, but it could decide a tight match. Acevedo hit okay; I had her with a team-second-high of 7 kills.
- Stella played well, but not as good, yet, as we need her to.
Tomorrow night (6pm), we take on Lipscomb. Can I get a shout-out from all the Lipscomb alumni reading this?