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Volleyball 2014

DustRunner

DustRunner

Active member
It's going to be an interesting year in 2014 for the team, as there are 6 (count them, six) freshmen on the team. Obviously not all of them are playing this year, but they will have to rely heavily on their six seniors to carry the bulk of the load.

The Northwest Challenge tournament last week in Boise ended with three losses, unfortunately, 3-0 to 4th-ranked Washington, and 3-1 losses to host Boise State and Gonzaga.

Now they head off to Boulder, Colorado. Hope they can surprise the teams down there (Colorado, Georgia Southern, and Pittsburgh).
 
You're right, DR, introducing six freshmen is certainly going to be interesting. But I'm cautiously optimistic despite the 0-5 start. That was against a couple of the best teams in the nation, quite a test for a tune up. Starting Erin Clark, a freshman, as setter was key to the test, and she's done very well so far. She could be almost as good as Schlatter. Hataaja and Corrado are doing well as senior leaders at OH and OH freshman LaPierre is doing almost as well. So is freshman Liva. We'll see this weekend. We might get one of the two matches. This is all about getting ready for conference, win or lose.
 
Volleyball showed its youth tonight, losing to Colorado in three sets. Writ large, we were still in it for awhile:we lost the first set 25-20 and the second 26-24. Close sets. We collapsed in the third. Our outside hitting was mediocre at best. La Pierre led as usual with 9 kills, but at .02 percentage.Close to the miserable average team percentage. Oddly, Erin Clark, our freshman setter, killed 4 and at a .400 percentage. Schlatter used to do that, but while putting in 35-40 assists. Clark had only 15. That may be part of the problem with the outside hitters, not getting the ball properly set by Clark. The coach would know. Kasi had only a mediocre match, digging only 11.

It's not going to be any better tomorrow, playing Pitt - No. 10 in the nation.

One team at least came through today - the soccer team beat Colorado State 3-0. The next game will be a real test, playing Texas Tech, ranked no. 10 nationally.

By the way - our cross country team didn't do badly at the Delinger down in Eugene, with competition from UO, MSU, and UP (yes, UP: they're good!). As a team we placed 4th and fifth (Men/Women)The best men's runner came in first of the team, placing at 25. We'll hear more of him.
 
Came out swinging today, yet lost to Pitt in straight sets. Took the Panthers to 28-26 in the second set, so there is definitely fight there. However, it looks like things are falling apart in the third set, so I'm not sure if it's just that the other team is pulling away, or if the front-line Vikings players are tiring out.

Hitting percentage was negative last night, at least according to the live stats feature from Colorado, which isn't something you want to see. At least that improved today against Pitt. I think they have a chance to beat Georgia Southern if they can fight through the fatigue.
 
Taking a break from the football game. Western has what we don't have - a quarterback that can really throw. We might win this game, but it won't be because of coverage. Or is it because we weren't prepared for a five receiver offense?

I'm happy to report, however, that we beat Georgia today in volleyball, 3-1, a smooth efficient match, the way we should be playing when we hit conference. Great serving - 11 aces, with freshman Nicholson contributing 2. Erin Clark again killed 4 at .571 hitting percentage but this time also distributed 40, count them 40, assists. In kills, senior Chejne Corrado led with 13, followed by freshman La Pierre at 11, freshman Sara Liva with 9 and senior Haataja with 8. As a team, we were over .200 hitting average. If this keeps up, PSU is going to have a great season.
 
After losing to Cal State Northridge yesterday, we picked ourselves up and beat Lamar today 3-0. We hit .269 to Lamar's .118. PSU tallied 8 serving aces; Erin Clark distributed 31 assists while killing 5. LaPierre led with 11 kills. Our freshmen are doing a spectacular job blending in with the seniors. If they can do this consistently, we'll come in a lot higher than the 6th in conference that the coaches assigned us.
 
Wasn't at the match last night, but the team did pretty well against the Ducks. Lost 3-1, but kept sets 1-3 close until finally running out of gas in the fourth. Not bad at all.
 
This is arguably the most challenging pre-season we've played. After Oregon we face Loyola Marymount this weekend (No. 23) and Washington State, a solid Pac-12 team. This , while we try to integrate 5 freshmen into the team! We're losing, but we've played all of them close (except Berkeley, early on). I'll think we'll do well in conference.
 
Sort of unrelated, but a friend of mine with PSU Television has launched a program series focusing on the volleyball team. The first episode was released last week, and the new episode will be up soon, he says. The idea is to try and create a "story of a season" by following the exploits of the team through the eyes of a focus athlete.

The first episode is located here, on the PSU.tv YouTube page in case anyone is interested. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B94gChj6zNg&list=UU3cws9VEtQN1MOd2kTselag

Back on topic, I agree. The team should be prepared coming out of the preseason.
 
Thanks for that great youtube show, Dustrunner. We all should take a look at it. I'm looking forward to more of the same. Let us know when the second episode comes out. We played our first conference match last night against NAU on their court. They're at this point no. 1 in conference, and we lost to them 3-1 which can be expected in a road game. Haataja and Corrado did their thing, hitting 18 and 15 kills respectively. Erin Clark did a respectable 9 kills, impressive since she also had 42 assists and 9 digs. She's beginning to look like a candidate for Big Sky Freshman of the Year. As a team we hit at .202 percent, much better than previous matches. We play at Southern Utah tomorrow - should beat them, if we play as well against them as against NAU. A real test of consistency for the freshmen.
 
Watch the first two games of the NAU game last night. Real slow start, down 2-10 at one point but once they got out of the bad rotation they almost pulled the game off. Great comeback. The second game, they had moments where they looked good but then seemed to fall into predictable soft shots. Overall, the serving was excellent, good blocking, very impressed with our freshman. This is going to be a team that could take PSU into several rounds of the NCAA tournament in the future.
 
The volleyball team beat Weber State tonight, 3-1. Interesting match. Weber relied almost entirely on one player, Staker, who is very good. She had 20 kills and our two highest had 25 combined. Not much behind Staker though. Erin Clark did her usual thing as setter, hitting 41 assists - she also had 9 kills. Almost a double double. Still too many hitting errors, though.And I'd say our blocking is our weak point right now. 7 service aces - not bad. Clark had 3 of them. Good work, Vikings!
 
The third episode of "Winning Ways" has been posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46hTy5wgINc&list=UU3cws9VEtQN1MOd2kTselag

This episode looks into the beginning of conference play and the first homestand that is in progress.


I was finally able to get to my first match of the season last night, and while the team still looks raw in places, they were able to gut out the win. Good to see them take three sets in a row after letting that first one get away from them.
 
The women are certainly doing their best to win us the Dam Cup this year! First we beat them in soccer, 3-1, and then last night we took them out 3-0 in volleyball. It was perhaps our best match of the year so far; we out-hit them, out-blocked them, out-aced them, and out-dug them. And our hitting percentage was .196; the freshmen are learning. Interestingly, Miyashiro was in more than half the time and set 20 (Erin Clark set 10). Kasi Clark hit 15 digs, but she really made her mark with great serving. In the standings, Montana sits on top and there's a huge pile-up behind them with the next six teams. We're one of them. It should shake out over the next two weeks, and we're on the road for both of them. A real test.
 
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