Not the Gophers, to sweep Loyola, 25-19, 25-10, 25- 15. Hanson never played a set. But don’t panic; I am fairly certain that Coach Cook “rested” Hanson so as to create the opportunity to play Kinney at Leftside (plus Acevedo) and Gilk at opposite.
And it worked; these 3 Gopher Outside Hitters dominated the Ramblers. Kinney and Acevedo both reached double-figure kills, and Gilk was close. And roughly half of Kinney’s kills were off-speed shots. I have long lamented that the Gophers have, for years, been weak at off-speed shots (Samedy was okay at it, and the Tapp Sisters knew how to dink an overpass, but generally). Stella is good at it also so we have two players who can score with an off-speeder. I still don’t want Hanson or Acevedo trying it, and I cringe when Crowl does it.
The Gopher Middles, Myers and now Taylor in her debut as a starter, also looked good – I had them near double figure kills combined. One concern is that their kills came mostly on slides, which Myers excels at; Minatee was better at quicks. I’m high on both Myers and Taylor, but it would be helpful for quicks to be part of a diversified attack.
Loyola didn’t really test our serve-receive. Look for more competition from Marquette on Sunday.