Our tied-for-6th-place-in -the-Big-10, 6-seed in the region, Gophers, on the road at the SEC Champion, 3-seed Kentucky Wildcats, weren’t supposed to win, and we didn’t, Kentucky in four, 11-25, 25-23, 22-25 & 24-26. The set-scores tell the story as well as I can; we were horrible in Set 1, very competitive after that, with long, hard-fought points featuring spectacular saves on both sides. But not quite enough, so, for the second year in a row, no Sweet Sixteen.
And tonight’s Gophs looked very much like the team we’ve been watching all season:
- Hanson led our hitters with 15 kills (inc 2 from the back-row);
- Grote had 13 kills;
- Wooker 11 (inc 3 dinks);
- Shaffmaster added 5 kills;
- Awoleye had 4 blocks and Minatee (a pleasant surprise) 4 also; and
- Acevedo led the Gophs in both aces (3) and service errors (4).
No Gopher was off their game; but nobody really stepped up – the way we needed to pull off the upset. Thinking back, Awoleye and Minatee were unexpectedly dominant in our upsets of Texas and Wisconsin, but merely competitive, tonight, vs good Wildcat Middles.
I’ve written often about our one, weak, half-rotation, the one where our serve-receive is Hanson-Palabiyik-Wooker and our front-row hitters are Grote at Leftside and Wooker Rightside.
Set 1: We started the match with this as our first-receive, and were down 0-4 before the crowd was seated – poor choice, I think, by Coach Cook. Set 2: Grote’s best set. We were tied 4-4, 7-7, 11-11, before falling behind 11-18, but pulled ahead 18-17 with Shaffmaster serving (same front row, but Grote and Wooker can switch across to their natural positions on our serve). When Kentucky finally put a ball down, I thought uh-oh, here it comes. But the Wildcat’s star, SEC Player-of-the-Year, Brooklyn Deleye served long, we rotated, and Acevedo served back-to-back aces for a 3-pt lead, Kentucky pulled within one at 24-23, but then served into the net. Set 3: Down only 5-6, Kentucky ran 4 points vs our weak rotation to make it 5-10, and we basically traded sideouts the rest of the set. Set 4: As in Set 2, we were tied 4-4, 7-7, 11-11, before Kentucky ran 4 points vs our weak rotation, as in Set 3, to go up 12-16. Back in better rotations, we went ahead 20-18, and we could taste a fifth set. But it didn’t happen. The existence of a chronically weak half-rotation is not necessarily poor coaching; your roster is your roster, and the rules require you to rotate. But I wouldn’t have started the match in that rotation.
In a week or two, I’ll post my thoughts (and yours if you’ll send them to me) about the 2024 season, and also my thoughts (and yours) about next year. John