25-21, 25-22, 25-27, 20-25, 15-10, in front of a Pauley Pavillion crowd of about 100 people, half of them Grote’s relatives. With Wooker still not dressed, and having lost faith in Acevedo (her passing, presumably, not her serving or hitting), Coach Cook played Grote at Left-side, and Crowl at Opposite.
Sets 1 & 2: Not much offense from any of our pins. (I like Lauren Crowl, but), Crowl is rarely productive, Grote is much less productive from Left-side, and Hanson might as well been riding the bench with Acevedo. But with help from Minatee’s slides, and strong blocking from Awoleye, Shaffmaster was able to will the Gophers to narrow victories. I think she had 5 kills, 2 blocks and two aces in these first 2 sets, both Aces while bringing us back from a 3-9 deficit to 13-13 in Set 2.
Set 3: We played the Bruins even – except for terrible serve-receiving. Crowl was especially in-effective en route to a 16-21 deficit. Crowl had a couple of kills in a mini-comeback, but too little too late.
Set 4: Desperate, Cook went back to Acevedo, Crowl to the bench. Acevedo didn’t do much, and he even tried Schnickels, also a non-factor. But at least we got, more production from Grote, back at her more normal Right-side position. As even as the 2 pt margin suggests, from down 15-17, there were 13 consecutive side-outs; we earned a point on our serve to tie it at 23-23, but then at 25-25, the Bruins got the side-out and stole a point for the win.
Set 5: The Bruins were led all evening by their big Middle, Dotson. But at 6-6, she rotated out and after a side-out, McGhie came in to serve for the Gophs and ran 5 pts – nothing fancy, just putting the ball in play. Acevedo got a couple of kills. The Bruins scraped back to 13-10 and got Dotson back on the court, but then made two unforced errors to give the match away. It was their 2nd 5-setter of the season, vs 7 for the Gophs. An ugly win, but we’ll take it. (The Lynx won too.)
It was Midnight, here, by the time the match ended, and our gals internal clocks are on Central time; hard to imagine we’ll have much left in the tank tomorrow night vs the underrated Trojans.