Sort of. I don’t guess they go by the nickname “Ruts,” and two of the three sets were close. But we did sweep the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, 25-22, 25-13, 29-27.
Set 1 was hard-fought, tied 7-7, 17-17, 22-22, the Gophers often trailing by a point or two, and our points coming off of Rutgers mistakes more than from our offense. We didn’t take our first lead of the Set (and Match) until running 5 from down 20-22. Set 2 was ugly, on the Rutgers side of the net, as though their hearts were broken by letting Set 2 get away. The highlight on the Gophers side of the net was Georgia Lee’s 4 service aces, three of them consecutive, adding to the heartbreak.
Set 3 was not as close as the 29-27 score suggests. Up a point or two mid-set, the Gophs went on a 12-5 run behind Lee & Stella’s strong serving. Outside Hitter Olivia Swenson is not part of any competitive rotation the Gophers can field, but she’s part of the team, and like any bench player in any sport, yearns to get into the game. So feeling confident, and maybe thinking about tougher upcoming opponents, Coach Cook decided that with a score of 21-13 in Set 3 would be an opportunity to play Olivia … as part of our Serve Receive instead of Thibault. Understandably, the Rutgers’ servers picked on Olivia. It was ugly, and in the blink of an eye it was tied at 23-23. Give credit to Rutgers for stiffening, and trading sideouts, even after Olivia returned to the bench. (Listen, I’m sure that Olivia is a fine young woman, and I assume that sister Stella wants her to get a chance.) Finally, at 27-27, Hanson rotated to the front row, got two good sets, and pounded ’em both to end the match.
The one spot where we have actual, can-play, depth, is at Outside Hitter, where we have 4 talented players to fill 3 positions. Recently (vs Loyola, maybe?) Hanson sat out an entire match. In the Big Ten Opener, vs Michigan State, Gilk started on the bench, with Kinney at Opposite – and I jumped to the conclusion that Hanson, Acevedo & Kinney were our “regulars.” But after a couple miss-hits in Set 2 vs MSU, Coach Cook benched Kinney for Gilk. Gilk played okay, but not noticeably better than Kinney. So I was surprised to see Gilk start today’s Rutgers’ match. Unlike Olivia, Gilk made the most of her opportunity, racking up 7 kills (one behind Hanson), 3 blocks (tying Myers for the Team-lead, and played an important role in the closing finish of Set 1. Does that mean that Gilk is the “starter” now? I dunno; KInney played Set 3 instead of Acevedo, and looked good. It could be that Coach Cook thinks of them as 4 “starters.”
RE BLOCKING: We finished the match, officially, with 5 “Team-Blocks,” mostly Taylor, Hanson and Gilk. But we also had a ton of “Denial-Blocks,” where we stuff the ball back in the opposing hitter’s face, someone pops it up, and play goes on. And we had at least 8 to 10 times where we stuffed our opponent’s hit and the ball went straight to the floor too quick for anyone to dig it – but landed out of bounds, usually by less than a foot. So, we were inches from having a dozen blocks – yielding a much more dominant match. In a sense, there is an easy fix, as this is just a matter of the angle at which our blockers are extending their hands – ten degrees would produce a better outcome. But it happens fast; that ten degrees has to be mastered by a thousand repetitions in practice. Hopefully, by the end of the season, we’ll see the majority of those balls hitting the line or just inside.
RE SERVING: I am, at least for now, very happy with our serving. Today, we had 11 aces vs 5 errors, which I’d take any day. I’d even be happy with 4 aces vs 5 errors, if we were consistently pressuring our opponents’ receive – and keeping them “out-of-system.” As we did today. Aces are great, but given that we don’t have anyone capable of a 90 mile-an-hour, top-spin, jump-serve, aces are sort of a random bonus. A consistent barrage of hard, flat, floaters, aimed at the back-line, and targeted at the opponent’s weak link, is good serving. That’s what we did today, and I loved it.
RE CONFIDENCE: After watching Gopher Teams coached by Hugh McCutcheon (for 11 years?), it is surprising to see the frequent substitutions made by Coach Cook, especially ones like not playing Hanson against Loyola and letting Rutgers back into today’s Set 3. McCutcheon did not coach like that. But these ‘25 Gophers have won 12 straight matches since the season opener vs Texas A & M, 9 of those in 3-set sweeps, including several sets that could have gone either way — but didn’t. Cook seems to have a lot of confidence in these freshmen, and these freshmen show no sign of panic when down a few points mid-set. I worried that we might miss the confidence that Shaffmaster had to take over a tight set or match. But maybe this whole freshmen-heavy team has that we-got-this confidence.
NEXT UP
Michigan at Michigan, Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. on BTN. Michigan is 10 & 3 overall, and were ranked in the top-30 at one point, and it will be these freshmen’s first BIG-Ten road game. On the other hand, we swept Michigan State at the PAV, and 3 nights later, Michigan State swept Michigan in East Lansing.
Northwestern at Northwestern, Sunday, 2:00 p.m. on BTN +
These are matches the Gophers SHOULD win, and it is exactly the sort of matches we NEED to win.