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Volleyball 2012

P

pdxfan

Active member
The women lost a squeeker to Gonzaga in volleyball tonight. With a few less service errors and a few more blocks they would have won. And speaking of blocks, where was Katie O'Brien tonight? And what about Corrado? Are they injured? Both very good MBs. Let's hope they're on the floor tomorrow. And by the way, Jaklyn Wheeler, the new transfer from Oregon, was terrific tonight. With O"Brien and Corrado back, we're going to be very good this year.
 
This morning PSU volleyball took on Boise State and beat them 3-2. That last-minute recruit, transfer Jacklyn Wheeler, is provng to be a gem; she picked up 21 kills against Boise State. The Northwest Invitational is a real dogfight, with evenly matched teams. It'll be interesting to see how we do against UW later today. O'Brien and Corrado came in late in the last two sets - didn't do much. O'Brien did pick up a block. First game jitters? They're both good players.
 
It's a different game this year. After losing to Pacific (one of the better teams in the country) we swept UNI and Nevada. The team's beginning to jell. 4 very good outside hitters now with the addition of Wheeler. Schlatter's kills are down as she feeds to the OHs. She'll be more of a straight setter this year. Sophomores O'Brien and Corrado, as good as they can be, will have to play backup. We need to work on blocks, and cut down on serving errors. We always start out slowly - comes from playing Pac-12 and the equivalent early on - but I'm confident we'll be up with UNC come conference time. Sure points in the Dam Cup competition.
 
Well, pre-season is almost over; we stand at 4-6 with a match against UO this coming weekend, then on to conference. In the last two matches, we won one and lost one (Utah and BYU respectively). The regular lineup has gradually emerged: Wheeler and Ellis as OH, O'Brien and Olden as MB, Clark as libero and Schlatter as Setter. The nice thing is, we can bring Haataja in for, say, Elllis with no drop-off in hits. Or DeMots for Olden. We have the individual parts of a good team. Will they play well together as we enter the conference season? The main difficulty as I see it is fitting Wheeler in. She's too good to leave out, but she is in fact the new player this year. Team's got to get used to her, and she with them. There are still some rough edges there. Katie O'Brien has been playing more and more over the last five games, and she's been getting better and better. She had 11 kills at .647 in the BYU match. Spectacular! Beyond that, we're doing a little better with blocks, but hitting errors are consistently too high. Same thing with serving errors. Serving is much more complicated than shooting free throws, but there as well repetitive practice will help.

So far, no sign of Miyashiro (freshman) or Kawashima. Miyashiro is coming in to back up Schlatter, Kawashima to back up Kasi Clark. Both will see some minutes, presumably, as we move down the line.

On to Oregon!
 
The Viks won their opening conference match of the season tonight, beating Sacramento in Sacramento 3-2.
We took the first two sets, lost the next two, and squeeked out the 5th set 16-14. Didn't see the game, can't comment on the play, but by the stats: Wheeler led the kills with 23, followed closely by Mitchell, Ellis, and Haataja. O'Brien contributed 5 kills and 4 blocks; she also had the highest percent kills to attempts at .267 (she does this regularly). This match shouldn't have gone to 5 sets: we took the first two fairly comfortably. There's always the temptation to ease off when you're leading by two. Now it's on to EWU, which should be a sweep: EWU has yet to win a match.
 
As expected, PSU swept EWU tonight 3-0. The kills were more balanced between Ellis, Wheeler, Mitchell and Haataja, with Kasi leading as usual with the digs. We still need to improve considerably in blocks and serves, and the next couple matches - on the road - will be a moderate test - Montana and Montana State. Interestingly, right now Idaho State seems the team to beat this year; they're playing very well. We're starting out with four on the road at relatively easy teams - the luck of the draw. But - blocks, blocks, blocks!! For what it's worth, we're tied for first now. And by the way, with this match we picked up our first point in the Dam Cup competition.











s'state
 
At Montana, the volleyball team tonight pulled off a 3-2 win. Much is made of the difficulty of road games, and this seemed to prove the point. In the first three sets we were hitting .07 and barely managed to win one of the three. By the fourth set we seemed to get the hang of things, leading all the way, and in the fifth after letting Montana lead most of the way came from behind to take the match 15-13. For the match we hit .167 while Montana hit .184 - one of those rare matches where we won despite being out-hit. What is it about road games?! Tired from travelling? Hostile crowds? (You get that at Montana) Did we play down to Montana? (They've won a total of two matches this season). What ever it is, we'd better be a lot better tomorrow night against MSU- they're playing better by far than Montana.
For what it's worth, Idaho State took UNC tonight (at home) 3-2, For what may be a brief moment, we're tied with Idaho State for first, and UNC drops down to second.
 
A further note - hidden in the miserable attack percentage (.167) is the individual percentage of Kate O'Brien - .375 (6 kills). A team high. And she lead the team in blocks. And Wheeler managed to improve her percentage to .234 with a whopping 26 kills, her career high. Kasi Clark picked up 28 digs, while Schlatter had 54 assists --- key numbers.
 
I eased my frustration over the football game by watching the volleyball match on live stats. We won, of course. I've got to watch that "of course"; we may be 4-0 and in first place, but there are at least three other teams that could win the conference this season. Montana State should have been a challenging opponent, especially as the home team. They did take the first set, but it was all PSU from there on. We played much better than the Montana match. The over all attack percentage was .234. 8 service aces! With only 5 service errors. Blocking improved, though it's still down a little. The core team is now well established: Schlatter setting, Clark digging, Wheeler pounding. Add to this the hitting of Ellis, often better at this than Wheeler (she had a spectacular hitting percentage of .356 last night), Haataja, good for 8-10 kills any given night, the careful up-front play of O'Brien, leading the team in blocks. Add Mitchell (she didn't play last night) and Olden (she did), Kristinikova and Patton. 4 matches into the season, and we're in good shape.
 
We swept Northern Arizona tonight 3-0. Try "wiped". We led in every category: hitting percentage .226 - .141, blocks 14-4, service aces 10-1, kills 46-31 and digs 68-52. Seeman's done great job bringing them along as a team. Wheeler as usual has the majority of the kills, but O'Brien, Haataja, Ellis hit their share. Ball distribution by Schlatter is spot on. 5 aces by Clark! I'm more confident we'll do fine against Idaho State after tonight's match.
 
We're now at 6-0, beating Southern Utah 3-1 tonight. It took a set lost to adjust to their system, and after that it was all PSU. We hit .220 for the match against SUU's .062, which tells you a lot about our three sets. Except in blocking, we led in all categories. 7 Service aces, three of which were Clark's. The key was taking their super hitter Mailoto out of her game, and we did that; she hit 12 kills (normally has 18)at a miserable .118 hitting percentage. Kasi Clark even managed to get a kill! Don't know how she manages - she the smallest on the team at 5'7".
 
Pdxfan... thank you for keeping us posted on the girls progress. I'm a big fan of the volleyball program at PSU, I'm thrilled they are doing so well.
 
Thanks. I admit it sometimes seems like talking to the wall. On the other hand, it's hard NOT to write something, they're playing so well. And note: the match this Thursday against UNC at the Stott will be one of the more important matches. They and ISU are the teams to beat.
 
pdxfan said:
Thanks. I admit it sometimes seems like talking to the wall. On the other hand, it's hard NOT to write something, they're playing so well. And note: the match this Thursday against UNC at the Stott will be one of the more important matches. They and ISU are the teams to beat.
Click to expand...

Look forward to more of your updates.
 
Wonder why UNC is our greatest challenge this year?

UNC's Strong, Spaustat and Armold lead the conference in hitting percentage. On the other hand, PSU has the lowest opponent hitting and kills percentage. Strength against strength.

PSU's Schlatter is 4th in assists, UNC's Hughes is 6th.
PSU's Clark is 2nd in aces, Hughes is 10th.
PSU's Clark is 1st in digs, UNC's Johnson is 9th.
UNC's Strong is 2nd in blocks, PSU's O'Brien is 4th.
PSU's Wheeler is 1st in kills, Arnold is 4th.

Both teams are playing 2 seniors, the rest juniors and sophomores. Evenly matched in experience.

UNC probably has the edge on blocks, and will try to take Wheeler out of her game. On offense Arnold is good, but UNC also does a good job distributing the ball to other OHs for kills. PSU will need to watch carefully for this.

I'd say this is a toss up, with the advantage to PSU with their home court. UNC just got back from UND, where they won by the skin of their teeth 3-2.
 
UNC went down in flames tonight at the Stott, 25-17, 25-17, 26-24. It looks like I was much too cautious going in to this match. In the first two sets it was all PSU. In fact, we hit .500% the first set, surely one of the highest percentages of the year. This is against a team ranked no. 1 in conference in holding opponents to a low percentage?! For the match we hit .355; UNC managed a .263. A solid win. We led UNC in all the categories except blocks: PSU kills 48-36, attacks 107-95, assists 42-33, aces 9-4, digs 42-38, but UNC blocks 12-4. What's impressive is the distribution of hits: Ellis, Wheeler and Mitchell killed respectively 14, 12, and 11. We don't have one super killer, as we did a couple years ago with Phillips - we have three. And we have one super floor manager/setter in Schlatter to set it up for them. And we have libero Clark all over the floor passing it to Schlatter who sets to the OHs. Team work!

Holding the home court is critical. We have yet to play UNC on their home court, but we're one up now, and 7-0. Saturday we have UND here, and if we keep our focus we'll beat them comfortably. Next week will be another major challenge - ISU (now sole occupier of 2nd place at 6-1) in Idaho. Another nail biter. For now, congratulations Lady Viks on a terrific job!
 
Very solid win on Thursday. We set the tempo the entire time, and despite the "struggles" (if you can call it that) in the third set, it was a pretty straightforward win.
 
I don'[t know that you'd say that about today's game vs UND. Yes, we won, 3-0. The first set looked like we'd do with UND what we'd done to UNC, hitting .500. But then it turned very messy; in the last two sets we hit under .070. We managed to win, but it wasn't pretty.

8-0; next up is on the road against ISU.
 
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