In 4, hard-fought, never a big lead for either team, sets, 23-25, 25-21, 21-25 & 21-25. We don’t think of Texas A & M as a marquee team in volleyball, but they opened the season ranked #9, they are a senior-dominated team led by a pair of legitimate stars, and were the better team tonight in Sioux Falls. I think the Gophers can play better, and I believe the Gophers will play better.
INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES: Coach Cook has some challenging decisions to make, here’s what I saw.
- Stella looked good. No obvious signs of first-match jitters. She wasn’t really setting Hanson that well for back-row attacks (resulting in too many free-balls), but we saw better Middle-Offense than we have seen in recent years, 15 kills in 4 sets by my count. And Stella’s blocking was better than I expected
- Minatee certainly appreciated Stella’s setting with 10 kills, 7 of those on “quicks.”
- Myers added 5, 4 on “slides,” plus 1 quick and 1 on an overpass.
- Star Freshman Taylor did not play (she might have served once). Hard to criticize our Middle-offense, especially Minatee’s, but I had Minatee and Myers with 1 block each. I think we need the taller Taylor in the lineup for her defense.
- Our serve receive and overall passing was definitely better than last year, with Thibault (getting the nod at D.S.) having several great digs.
- Hanson was great, as expected. I had her with 15 kills, 13 from the leftside and 2 backrow. (No tips.) But I don’t think her hitting % was great; I think we need to see more than just power from Hanson. (Maybe Stella can help by mixing up her sets.)
- Acevedo played well, and likely cemented her role as one of our two starting Leftsides, I had her with 10 kills, including one from Rightside.
- Wooker did not dress. Reader R.A. reports (below) that Wooker is healing but not quite ready. If she was recovering from an injury in July or even June, I would find this encouraging. But it’s been almost a year since she hurt her back – sort of hard to believe that another couple of weeks will make a difference. A red-shirt-year, maybe?
- Crowl was, unfortunately, Crowl. She played 3 sets and had one kill. And more than one hitting error, so a negative hitting percentage for the match, And her one kill came directly after one of her hitting errors – I don’t think the Aggies believed that Stella would set her again. nd she tips too often. To start Set 4, Cook benched Crowl for Kinney.
- Kinney had 2 kills in limited action. If tonight is an indication, Kinney could become our starting Opposite.
Our serving was poor. I counted 11 service errors vs 3 Aces, As I’ve said before, I’d be happy with an 1 to 1 ratio, maybe even 7 to 6 or something similar. An 11 to 3 ratio can make a difference in close matches, and it did tonight.
NEXT UP: Three home matches against unranked teams:
- Friday, 6:00 vs Cal Poly
- Thursday, 5:00 vs Ball State
- Sunday, 3:00 vs St. Thomas
PRIVATE PRACTICE INSIGHTS
Last week GopherVBallRocks Reader and frequent contributor R.A. had the opportunity to attend a “Private Practice.” (I didn’t know this was a thing.) This is his report:
Stella and Julia were top notch. Alex started shaky, but was stronger as day progressed. Defense and S-R were still good, but maybe not as stellar as against alums. Zeynep and Katie were good at saving balls away from and in front of them, but I felt that they both struggled with balls straight at them. Coach spent 10+ minutes hitting hard balls straight at Katie in succession, an indication that he agrees.
Coach also worked with Stella and opposites AFTER practice to get her to set balls closer to the net. Good stuff. We stayed a half-hour longer than anyone before we were asked to move along.
My friend confirmed with a coach at the scorer table that Wooker is still recovering from a back injury, thus they are moving her into play gradually, expecting her to be fine for matches. I think Wooker is the Wild Card on this team. If she can return to earlier form, this will be a much better team.
Based on how Coach used people today: Stella, Zeynep and Julia for sure. Other probable starters: Wooker (I hope!!!), two of three from Taylor, Lourdes and Calissa (I can’t decide), and Katie (maybe Garr).
Crowl, Gilk and Kinney were all solid off the bench. Acevedo looked good vs alums, but not right away. This is a very solid team. Another chance to hear Coach speak to a small group on Sept 14.