Our Gophers won in 3 sets, 25-22, 25-9, 25 15, outhitting the Hoosiers .296 to .031.
So what was weird?
- Taylor Landfair was held to 8 kills, breaking her 23-match streak of double-digit kills. (BTW, nothing was wrong with Landfair.)
- The Gophers muffed about 25 serve receives. Their official stat for “serve-receive errors” was only 5 – but that doesn’t include about 20 receives that were either overpasses or saved from out-of-bounds. This failure was shared by Landfair, Kilkelly, Wenaas and even McGraw.
- And yet we still won by a large point-differential.
The Hoosiers committed 9 service errors (at one point 3 in a row) vs 5 aces. I know this would have driven some readers of this blog nuts if they had been Hoosier fans. But here’s the thing: Indiana came into the match knowing that they could not match the power of Landfair, Wenaas and Booth at the net. So they committed, at least in Set 1, to neutralize the Gopher hitters with uber-aggressive serving. In Set 1, 4 of their 6 servers were jump-serving – as hard as they possibly could.
And it almost worked! Midway through Set 1, the Gophers were leading 14-6, and then the Hoosier servers got hot, terrorizing the Gopher receivers In a blink of an eye, it was 17-17, entirely on the strength of the Hoosier serving. Then they missed long, then short, then long again, allowing the Gophers to escape Set 1 with the 25-22 win.
Landfair had zero kills in Set 1. Personally, I thought Indiana’s “Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword” strategy was brilliant, given their talent deficit; and if I had been coaching the Hoosiers, I would have stayed with it.
But I wasn’t; and they didn’t. Two of their 4 jump-servers stopped jump-serving, and I felt the other 2 toned down a bit. The result was a 25-9 Set 2 win for the Gophs. By Set 3, the Gophers were comfortably back in rhythm, and Landfair, Wenaas, Booth and even Crowl were too much for Indiana.
Booth dominated all match, with 9 kills on 12 sets, and 4 blocks. Crowl, who played because Wooker remains on the bench in sweats, got better as the match went on, ending up with 4 kills and a block.
UP NEXT: Penn St. at Penn St. Friday, 7:30, BTN, and Rutgers at Rutgers on Sunday at Noon, BTN+. Two weeks ago, I said that the Gophs would need to win 6 of their last 8 matches to guarantee a good seed for the NCAA Tournament. And we won the first 4, so now it’s only 2 of the last 4.
But the schedule gets tougher. We shouldn’t have any trouble with Rutgers, but Penn St is the 5th place team, and always tough at home. Then we finish the regular season on Thanksgiving Weekend playing Ohio St at Ohio St, and Nebraska at Nebraska. (Wisconsin also plays Ohio St at Ohio St, and Nebraska at Nebraska that weekend.) The seeding committee looks for “signature wins,” home and away. The Gophers have signature wins at home over Wisconsin, Florida and Oregon, and a neutral-site win over Baylor; but we have no signature wins on an opponent’s court. And we need one!
SENIOR DAY
A long-standing Gopher tradition following the final regular season game at the Pav, is to recognize the parents of the seniors. (Post-covid, this includes those who have played for 4 years – even though they have a bonus-year of eligibility if they choose to use it.) This afternoon, parents recognized included those of:
- CC McGraw (she’s done)
- Rachel Kilkelly (bonus year available?)
- Ellie Husemann (a likely transfer candidate)
- Naya Gros (she’s done) and
- Miranda Wucherer (McKenna’s sister, she’s done)
Not surprisingly, they also brought out Coach McCutcheon’s family and said a few words about him. I halfway thought they would make a bigger deal of it than they did.
4 NEW STATE CHAMPIONS CROWNED
Well, new for some of the players I guess – but not for 3 of the 4 schools. Both Wayzata, in 4A, and Marshall, in 3A, cruised through a 9-set-sweep of their brackets to win yet another State Tournament. Cannon Falls, not an established dynasty, also won all 9 sets in the 2A Tournament. But Minneota, a Single-A dynasty, had to scrap through the Tourney, dropping a set to New Life Academy in the quarterfinals, and needing OT to overcome long-time rival Mayer Lutheran, 25-23, 25-23, 20-25, 19-25, 18-16.
I wish I had seen that Minneota – Mayer Lutheran match, but 44 H.S. matches on top of 2 Gopher matches at the Pav is a lot of of V-ball in one weekend, even for me. I did make back to the Xcel last night for the 3A & 4A 3rd place and Championship Matches.
Marshall is a machine. They lost 2 matches during the season; both to 4A Runner-up Lakeville North. I said 2 nights ago that I wasn’t that impressed with the Swenson Twins in the quarters, but I was very impressed with Setter-Stella last night; Gopher fans are going to love Stella. Sister & Outside Hitter Olivia also played well last night; Olivia doesn’t look quite D1 ready, but she’s only a H.S. Junior. She’s big and strong and she’ll get smoother. Freshman Setter Eva didn’t get to play with Stella on the floor.
And there were additional seniors who stood out to me (in no particular order) last night, who I hadn’t noticed on Wednesday or Friday (there are two matches going on simultaneously): Marshall senior Middle Hitter Anna Bider, Marshall senior Setter Laura Wheary, East Ridge senior Outside Hitter Makayla McDougle, Rogers senior Middle Hitter Hannah Bruiskiewicz (don’t hold me to spelling on any of these names), and Wayzata senior Opposite Katy Vogt.
Plus two names to remember: Wayzata sophomore Middle Hitter Katy Kalzenberg and Lakeville North freshman Middle Hitter Rayna Christianson. I excuse myself for not intially noticing Kalzenberg among the talent-loaded Trojans, but I should have noticed Christianson on Wednesday. She really stood out last night, giving Wayzata trouble. And this 6-1 freshman could still grow.