volleyball

[pdxfan]

Our volleyball team lost its first match of the season against a very good Santa Barbara this aftrernoon, 3-1. Except for the first game the match was close to the end, auguring well for the rest of the season. Past seasons we've won the first games, but they were against D-II and worse teams. This one was against a D-I NCAA regular, and we showed we could play even with them.

 

[pdxfan]

This time, almost a year exactly after my first posting here,we won our first volleyball match of the season tonight, beating Seattle U. 3-1. Phillips made a spectacular 32 kills in the match; she'll be in the top five in the nation in kills again this year, it looks like. The freshmen didn't play; they will maybe tomorrow against Mercer U.. Olden did get a couple minutes, and redshirt freshman Schlatter played all four sets and did very well indeed. It's going to be a stellar year. Go Vikings!

 

[ash_sk8s]

Volleyball beats Mercer this morning, 3-0

Seattle game: http://goviks.com/news/2010/8/28/WVB_0828103016.aspx
Mercer game: http://goviks.com/news/2010/8/28/WVB_0828105413.aspx

 

[pdxfan]

After those two wins, we can maybe say something about the team though it's still early days yet to see much set patterns. 1) One thing obvious - redshirt Garyn Schlatter's already well-established as starting setter. The neat thing is, Kristinikova also starts as setter - we've got two setters now! And it looks like Schlatter's good for more than setting - a couple kills, digs and even blocks. The redshirting didn't hurt her - in fact, she's certainly playing better than she would have last year. 2) Last year we had one certain national calibre player in Phillips. This year we may have two or at least, one and a half. Kaeli Patton, our freshman recruit from Hawai'i, seems to be everything she was billed as in terms of jumping kills. She's 2 inches shorter than Phillips, but her jumping makes up for it. She only played a little in one set against Mercer, but the 3 kills in the little time she had is promising. No one can replace Phillips, but she might ultimately give it a good try.

Hamilton, Rosendale, Zielke and Kristinikova are the other sure starters. It ill be interesting to see how, where and whn Seeman fits the others into the mix. They're toying with the 6-2 formation and that will take time to install. But it looks very good at this point.

 

[pdxfan]

Anyone have any idea how long Bateham is going to be out? That's a lot of pressure on Villalpando.

 

[pdxfan]

We beat Montana State tonight, 3-1. Phillips recorded 28 kills, which will move her up a little from her national ranking in 7th place. Schlatter did another terrific job, with 41 sets. It will be interesting to see how we do against Montana tomorrow night. Though they were tied with us in the coaches poll at the beginning of the season, they've had a miserable pre-season. I haven't seen the stats yet, so don't know if Bateham played or not. But Villalpando did a solid job.

The Big Sky video of the game was good but frustrating - they only showed the score during time outs. Hope they remedy that.