Hoosier left-side Breanna Edwards is a powerful hitter, and there are surely other fine athletes on the University of Indiana Volleyball Team, but overall, the Hoosiers offered little resistance to the Gophers at the PAV this afternoon, 25-15, 25-16, 25-21.
The Gophers came out strong behind Steph Samedy’s 6 kills (back-row, front-row, dinks) of the Gophers first 11 points of the match (14 for the match) and cruised to an easy first set win. The Gophs gave the Hoosiers the first 4 pts in Set 2, but then, trailing 11-12, went on a 10-1 run in rotations 1 & 2* to take a commanding 21-13 lead, and a second easy win. (Indiana hit .000 in Set 2**) Set 3 was closer; the Gophs trailed 10-14 (prompting the Gophers only time out of the match) and were tied 20-20 before pulling away. It is often difficult to maintain your intensity when you feel very confident.
* The Gophers’ Rotation 1 is the rotation they start in if they’re serving, and the rotation they rotate to after the first side-out, when receiving to start the set. Rotation 1 features Katie Myers serving, Melanie Shaffmaster at front-right, Airi Miyabe front-center, Shea Rubright (today, anyway) front-left, Samedy back-left, and Jenna Wenaas at middle-back. CC McGraw comes in for Myers as soon as she loses her serve, Shaffmaster is the 2nd server, and D.S. Rachel Kilkelly (playing back row for Miyabe) is the 3rd server.
This is slightly unorthodox in that teams generally like to start with their strongest rotations, and for most teams employing a 5-1, that means having their setters serving in Rotation 1 (which gives them 3 front-row hitters) OR they start their most powerful hitter (Samedy in our case) at front-left. But the Gophers achieve both of these advantages in Rotation 2. One reason they delay this is that Myers has emerged as their strongest server. But also true is that the Gophers count on Samedy to hit from anywhere, front row or back.
** Hitting % equals klils minus errors divided by attempts. So Indiana hittting .000 doesn’t mean they didn’t have any kills, it means that they had as many errors as kills.
C.C. McGraw, who I thought had a fantastic match, was a big part of Indiana’s offensive futility. The Hoosier hitters struggled to get the ball past the Gopher blockers (we seemed to have a distinct height advantage), and even when they did, McGraw (officially 14 digs for the match), dug them up, often with spectacular efforts.
One encouraging development was the emergence of the Gophers Middle Attack. I’ve been saying that the Gophs need to generate offense from their Middle Hitters, and either they’ve been reading this blog (unlikely) or they came to the same conclusion. Shaffmaster is clearly making an effort to involve her Middles, and since Rubright replaced Husemann during the Northwestern Match, we’ve seen some positive results. (Maybe Rubright was injured earlier in the season; maybe Husemann is injured now, maybe Shaffmaster is more confident, who knows?) The “Pins,” Samedy, Wenaas and Miyabe are still dominate feature in the Gopher Offense, but there’s a lot better balance than there was.
And two plays this afternoon revealed another encouraging, though more minor, development. Strong hits or serves often force imperfect digs, and some of these turn into “overpasses,” i.e., balls intended for the opponent’s setter that carry over the net to our hitters. Stewartville’s Tapp sisters, who handled both Middle positions for the Gophs from 2013 through 2016, were particularly effective at scoring off of overpasses. They didn’t wind up and crush the ball, which can be great fun but often result in a hitting error (you don’t get a lot of practice reps on overpasses), nor did they just passively block the ball back into the opponent’s court, as the Gophers have been doing in recent years; the Tapp sisters would use both hands to direct the ball down and to the side, almost always scoring a point. I don’t know if they learned this from Coach McCutcheon or if they brought it with them from Stewartville, but this play has been rare since the Tapp sisters moved on to professional volleyball. But today, I saw Rubright and Wenaas score with this technique. I hope we see more of it.
Speaking of Shaffmaster: Now, in her second season as the Gophers’ setter, today was my 7th opportunity to watch her in person (none last season), and I think I am gaining a better understanding of her skill sets. She’s big, of course; maybe not the biggest setter in women’s volleyball history, but certainly the biggest the Gophers have even had, and probably the biggest in Big Ten history. And this is a major advantage in blocking; so far this year she has 40 official “blocks,” i.e., blocks for points, in 60 sets, trailing Samedy (43) only slightly, and more than Wenaas (37) Middles Myers (63) and Husemann (54) have more, but .67 blocks per set is really good for a setter.
And, she has really good hands. She doesn’t have the quickest feet, but today I saw her hand-set balls that were below her shoulder level, which is tough to do. Last season, watching exclusively on TV, I felt that she was bump-setting way too much; but today I felt she was getting under balls that she would have bump-set last season. A really good sign.
And then there’sLandfair, once again on the bench in a jacket, not even warming up. I was right about Miyabe, she is truly a super-sub, 13 kills today. But she’s no Landfair. The Gophers have some tough matches ahead, including two next weekend, and I would feel much better about our chances with Landfair in the line-up. Whatever is wrong with her, it isn’t obvious as she dances to the between-set music, but reportedly it’s her back. That could mean she will play sparingly the rest of the season – or maybe she’s at 95% and they wanted to give her a few more days rest. We’ll know more next Friday.
NEXT UP:
- Penn St. at the PAV, Friday at 6:00 (Maureen has a conflict, so I have an extra ticket for this one; anyone interested?)
- Ohio St. at the PAV, Sunday at 4:00
(Both teams tied with the Gophers, and Purdue, for 3rd place in the Big Ten at 6 & 2.)
READERS RESPOND:
Reader G.C. writes, “The good news is that perhaps we’re developing a more diverse offense.”
Reader G.H. writes, “We are on the road a lot, so we don’t get to see every match. We see the scores, but we really appreciate your more detailed notes on how they played.”