The freshmen-heavy Ducks have struggled this season, but the Gophers were the cure, Ducks in four, 19-25, 25-23, 14–25 & 18-25. There was a brief moment of hope, after the Set 2 win, that we might have turned things around; but we stunk it up again in Set 3.
Just one match after serving very well against Ohio State, we served horribly. I had us with 6 aces vs 12 errors. And our serve-receive was worse. It felt like less than half of our receives gave Stella the ball where she wants it, and less than half of Stella’s sets were where our hitters wanted it, and I’d swear we ended up dinking or bumping the third touch more often than attacking it. Kinney led the team (I had her with 9) kills — primarily because she’s the only strong dinker on the team. Hanson finished with 6 kills, two of those from the back row. I haven’t seen the official numbers, but I’m guessing Hanson’s hitting percentage was in negative numbers.
The lone bright spot on the team was Taylor, who I had with 6 kills and 6 blocks, and who dominated the net when she was on the floor, She had an especially strong Set 2, finishing with a kill for set-point. Myers was invisible for the first 3 sets, before getting hot in Set 4, finishing with 7 kills (6 slides and 1 OP). That was it for bright-spots; not much from our outside hitters
We know it can be tough for a freshman-heavy team to play well on the road — and it doesn’t get any easier. Not tomorrow night at Washington or when we get back to the Pav to host better teams than Oregon. I know that some Readers were looking forward to the transition from the Shaffmaster-era to the Stella-era. But one thing that Shaffmaster provided was leadership when the going got tough, and I’m not seeing that, so far, on this ’25 squad. I worry that a long losing streak will cause these freshmen to lose their confidence.
Taylor stepped up tonight. We need her to continue to play at that level — and for a couple more, freshmen or not, to join her. Washington at Washington will be tough, but we have the talent to play a lot better than we did tonight.