A hard-fought sweep, 25-23, 25-20 & 25-22, evening our Big Ten record at 3 & 3. I thought, going into this road-trip weekend, that the Ohio State match would be tougher than the Rutgers Match. In one sense, it was; we won 54.1 % of the points vs Rutgers, vs 53.6% of the points vs OSU. But that’s an obscure, perhaps irrelevant, statistic – we lost a set in Piscataway, but not in Columbus.
Our offense was fairly balanced:
- Wooker led the way, as usual, with 13 kills at a .313 clip.
- Kinney almost matched her with 12 kills at a .241 clip.
- Hoecke had 9 kills (mostly on slides) at a .500 clip, plus 4 blocks, and
- Gilk had 7 kills at a .375 clip.
- Taylor had 2 kills at .182. Not great.
Hoecke had been benched against Rutgers. I predicted that, based on her season performance, she would be back in the starting lineup. And she was.
Starting Opposite is the other position which remains unsettled. Versus Rutgers, Crossen, who had been playing great, started and played Sets 1 & 2; then was benched in favor of Gilk for Sets 3 & 4. The individual results were similar, but Set 2 was the Set the Gophs lost. I wasn’t sure who would start this afternoon, and I was confused by BTN announcing Crossen. It turned out that Gilk played Opposite for the whole match, but Crossen served for her.
On this blog, we have debated service-philosophy at length, aggressive vs cautious. The Gophers reportedly lead the Big 10 in Aces, and I have argued that even roughly equivalent numbers, e.g., 8 aces vs 9 errors, is good serving – because aces and errors only tell part of the story. Aces vs errors does not tell us how often an aggressive, almost-an-ace serve, took the receiving team out-of-system; and how often a lollipop serve turned into a quick side-out – a result equivalent to a service-error. But I won’t make that argument today, because we had 4 aces and 13 service errors. Not good. Hoecke made 4 of them, maybe someone should be serving for her.
MISCELLANEOUS:
- The challenges went our way today. Coach Cook was 4 for 4, and the Buckeye Coach was 0 for 2. I thought that 5 of the 6 were correctly resolved (I couldn’t tell about the other one), but right or wrong, that was a 6-point swing – in a match that was 75-65 in total points. Good thing we won ‘em all.
- Wooker went down halfway through Set 2, and didn’t get up right away. I always think the worst – it’s her back – and the season is lost. But it was her ankle, and she got a kill on the next point.
- In a long volley, Stella likes to set the same hitter two, three, maybe four times in a row. I like it; this hitter has her rhythm going and is likely to get a kill on the next one. Gilk did.
- Middle Calissa Minatee made a brief appearance late in Set 2. It was a brief appearance; I don’t think she touched the ball. But it was significant in that it was her first live action since she blew out her knee a year ago. Undersized for a Middle, Minatee hasn’t ever been much of a blocker. But she has been a very effective quick-hitter, which could give the Gophers a weapon they haven’t had this season.
NEXT UP: Back to back matches, both at the Pav:
- Michigan, Friday, Oct 16, 7:00, BTN+, and
- Maryland, Saturday, Oct 17, 6:00, BTN+
READERS WRITE:
Reader and frequent contributor RA didn’t think much of Stella’s performance vs Rutgers. “I thought that many of Stella’s sets vs RUT were too low or too far from the net, making it hard for our hitters. Other times, her sets had such high arcs the defense got in position to block our hitters, sometimes even waiting in place. I don’t understand, is Stella getting poor passes? It moved too fast for me to track full sequences. Bottom line: this team shows signs of mediocrity that can keep them out of NCAAs entirely.