UTVballfan
100+ Posts
The B.O.C. was a nice shake-down cruise. McNeese State in particular was small, sort of a Reese’s Pieces-sized team. But TCU was pretty game for a while, and so was Houston, so we got to test some stuff out.
The frosh setter continues to perform. She’s very nimble, and gets to the ball in a jiffy. Also, there was a real “a-ha” moment with her.
It came late in the 2nd set against McReese’s. Hannah had taken a little mental snooze for a minute. Had a ball-handling error, and also kind of a lazy dump attempt – not very well disguised and no pace. But then she snapped back in. She was chasing a ball out towards the outside hitter, got under it, and then shot it back over her head on two to the 4-spot on the other side.
999 times out of a 1,000, that ball would have been set to the OH. All the McNeese girls were cheating up to overload on the hitter. Hannah’s ball landed in an area of the court as wide open as Kansas. No one even tried to get it.
Half my section went “wow.” I said to myself, dang, that looked like a shot Ashley Engle would have made. A shot that is surprising. Very creative. The McNeese head coach turned his head to his assistant and raised his eyebrows.
Hmm, pretty awesome to make a court-savvy shot like that in your 2nd match as a collegian. We’ll have to stay tuned.
Meanwhile, as far as hitting goes, the game plan is to replace Destinee by committee. Look, Destinee was special. She’ll be six-packing Chinese and Brazilians in 2012. No one human can replace her. But we have Sha’Dare, Amber, Rachael, Juliann, Jen, Lauren, Haley and Ashley B. to step up on O – phew that took a long time to write - and Hannah is distributing pretty doggone well.
Serve reception, you ask? Last year our three seniors handled well over 50% of the balls, even with Ashley setting. But so far Sydney, Sha’Dare and Juliann have all stepped up. Sha’Dare deserves a special shout out; she hardly passed at all last year and is doing well so far with a much heavier load.
Anyhow, next week will be fun. The Illini will be especially interesting, and we’ll get a look at Florida transfer Colleen Ward. How about this report from Illinois’ match Friday night:
"After dropping the first set 27-25 to an aggressive BYU team, Illinois needed a spark. Enter junior Colleen Ward, who put forth a serving barrage that led to a standing ovation from the 2,688 fans at Huff. She served 11 straight points, including eight aces in set two as Illinois rebounded for a 25-27, 25-9, 25-16, 25-16 victory."
Long Beach State won’t be any Reese’s Pieces, either, not with a 6-6 middle blocker who just hit .447 and had 12 blocks against St. Mary’s, and Caitlin Ledoux. Gimmillaro will probably bring the Beach here ranked in the top 25.
So it’ll be game on. Let’s pack out Gregory!
The frosh setter continues to perform. She’s very nimble, and gets to the ball in a jiffy. Also, there was a real “a-ha” moment with her.
It came late in the 2nd set against McReese’s. Hannah had taken a little mental snooze for a minute. Had a ball-handling error, and also kind of a lazy dump attempt – not very well disguised and no pace. But then she snapped back in. She was chasing a ball out towards the outside hitter, got under it, and then shot it back over her head on two to the 4-spot on the other side.
999 times out of a 1,000, that ball would have been set to the OH. All the McNeese girls were cheating up to overload on the hitter. Hannah’s ball landed in an area of the court as wide open as Kansas. No one even tried to get it.
Half my section went “wow.” I said to myself, dang, that looked like a shot Ashley Engle would have made. A shot that is surprising. Very creative. The McNeese head coach turned his head to his assistant and raised his eyebrows.
Hmm, pretty awesome to make a court-savvy shot like that in your 2nd match as a collegian. We’ll have to stay tuned.
Meanwhile, as far as hitting goes, the game plan is to replace Destinee by committee. Look, Destinee was special. She’ll be six-packing Chinese and Brazilians in 2012. No one human can replace her. But we have Sha’Dare, Amber, Rachael, Juliann, Jen, Lauren, Haley and Ashley B. to step up on O – phew that took a long time to write - and Hannah is distributing pretty doggone well.
Serve reception, you ask? Last year our three seniors handled well over 50% of the balls, even with Ashley setting. But so far Sydney, Sha’Dare and Juliann have all stepped up. Sha’Dare deserves a special shout out; she hardly passed at all last year and is doing well so far with a much heavier load.
Anyhow, next week will be fun. The Illini will be especially interesting, and we’ll get a look at Florida transfer Colleen Ward. How about this report from Illinois’ match Friday night:
"After dropping the first set 27-25 to an aggressive BYU team, Illinois needed a spark. Enter junior Colleen Ward, who put forth a serving barrage that led to a standing ovation from the 2,688 fans at Huff. She served 11 straight points, including eight aces in set two as Illinois rebounded for a 25-27, 25-9, 25-16, 25-16 victory."
Long Beach State won’t be any Reese’s Pieces, either, not with a 6-6 middle blocker who just hit .447 and had 12 blocks against St. Mary’s, and Caitlin Ledoux. Gimmillaro will probably bring the Beach here ranked in the top 25.
So it’ll be game on. Let’s pack out Gregory!
