I went into the weekend feeling that a split on this Northwest road trip would be good, but after last night’s embarrassing loss to the Ducks, I wasn’t feeling very optimistic. But the Gophs flipped the switch and beat the Huskies in four, 14-25, 25-17, 25-20, 25 12. Were the Gophers jet-lagged last night? Were the Huskies still celebrating last night’s 5-set win over Penn State? Did the Gophs “win one” for Coach Cook, who’s last job was at Washington? We know it wasn’t because Oregon is much better than Washington; Washington beat Oregon last weekend. Was this the match that will change the course of the season? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Set 1: The Gophers were terrible. Most of our third touches were free-balls, and on the rare occasion that we actually spiked one, the Huskies dug our lips off, Honestly, 14-25 sounds closer than it felt. Hanson had 3 kills, which was only slightly encouraging.
Set 2: Tied 10-10, the Gopher Pins, especially Hanson, Gilk and Myers, fueled a long service run by Garr, reaching 17-10, and not looking back.
Set 3: This was tighter, tied 7-7 and 15-15, behind Hanson and Gilk, Kinney and Myers got going as well and Washington had no response.
Set 4: The Gophers jumped out to an 8-0 lead — and the Huskies seemed eager to get to the locker room.
Serving was dramatically different one night later. Last night the Gophs killed almost any chance they might have had with horrible serving. Tonight, we had 6 aces vs 4 errors (I’ll take that any night). But more importantly, it was the Huskies who couldn’t serve, finishing with 4 aces vs 14 errors! I don’t know how well Washington served last night, but they couldn’t have served that bad while beating Penn State.
And as mentioned, Hanson (the leadership we’ve been looking for?) and Gilk showed up big time. Last night was one of the worst matches in Hanson’s career; tonight she had 15 kills and a .306 percentage. And Gilk had her breakout match as a Gophers, with 11 kills and a .550 percentage. And Myers, who came on a bit in last night’s fourth set, got started earlier and racked up 12 Kills (5 on overpasses) and 5 blocks. Strangely, things went the other direction for Taylor; last night she was the Gophers’ lone bright spot, and tonight she barely made the box score. But she’s a freshman, so let’s give her a break.
NEXT UP:
At #22 Indiana on Friday, 5:00, BTN
At #12 Purdue on Sunday, Noon, BTN+
I’d be thrilled with another split.
Reader R.A. had shared his views before I even got home. His take on the match itself was pretty much the same as mine — except that R.A. was incensed by the endless babbling of the play-by-play announcer. I get it, the guy was a clown; but here is a tip for R.A. and anyone else annoyed by the admittedly amateur announcers we get on BTN+ — that’s what the MUTE button is for.