[Hieronymus]

1702072786[/url]']
Baird was off her game offensively.  I like Baird.  I'm an old-school guy.  I like the fact she doesn't engage in excessive celebration.   Her demeanor on the court is a modest, humble person.  I like that a lot.  But I'm not going to evaluate a player's performance based on whether I like or don't like the player.

The middles were also off their game at times.  In the fourth set Vicini imploring Hambly to challenge a net call when she clearly touched the net is a head-scratcher. 

This is a veteran, apparently healthy team playing at the end of the season when everything should be fine tuned.  Yet Stanford struggles to have everyone playing at an effective level throughout an entire match.  I don't have the answer for it.  Maybe there is something to wbb coach Close's focus on the mental aspect of sports.  For this Stanford team it's not a question of athletic ability.  It's a question of playing consistent ball every match the entire match.

Did a quick partial watch and it was interesting.  Not much changed offensively between set 1 and sets 2-4. The offense was mostly the same - Kipp and Rubin - though Kipp did slow some late. Fewer hitting errors obviously helped, but for me the big changes were blocking improved a lot - only 1 block I think in set1. Also, serve return got a lot better and that was mostly Baird. On top of a bad hitting night, she had a really bad set 1 receiving serve. 4 bad passes and 2-3 marginal ones. Sets 2-4, she was much better and reception mistakes looked about even across Rubin, Ogilve and Baird. A final lesser factor was Sami picked up a little in the middle as well.

Overall on Baird, last year she slumped badly second half of the year. We haven’t seen the same this year. She has a few bad games, but who doesn’t? I expect and hope this was a fluke day, and she wasn’t the only player off yesterday.

I do wish though some of the subs had played more just in case one of the core 3 pins has a rough day. But Hambly has clearly emphasized stability and comfort with the starters. Baird was never going to get subbed out. But if Baird hadn’t gotten her passing right after set 1, this was probably going to be a loss. This team will live and die on the core 7.

Last comment that the announcers called out as well, but it’s fascinating to me how Rubin clearly is the emotional spark plug now on a team where she is the youngest core player. It’s an interesting dynamic, but she has been on another level the last 2 matches and she was the one who got things going at the end of set 4 against Houston.

[Hieronymus]

1702072786[/url]']
Baird was off her game offensively.  I like Baird.  I'm an old-school guy.  I like the fact she doesn't engage in excessive celebration.   Her demeanor on the court is a modest, humble person.  I like that a lot.  But I'm not going to evaluate a player's performance based on whether I like or don't like the player.

The middles were also off their game at times.  In the fourth set Vicini imploring Hambly to challenge a net call when she clearly touched the net is a head-scratcher. 

This is a veteran, apparently healthy team playing at the end of the season when everything should be fine tuned.  Yet Stanford struggles to have everyone playing at an effective level throughout an entire match.  I don't have the answer for it.  Maybe there is something to wbb coach Close's focus on the mental aspect of sports.  For this Stanford team it's not a question of athletic ability.  It's a question of playing consistent ball every match the entire match.

Did a quick partial watch and it was interesting.  Not much changed offensively between set 1 and sets 2-4. The offense was mostly the same - Kipp and Rubin - though Kipp did slow some late. Fewer hitting errors obviously helped, but for me the big changes were blocking improved a lot - only 1 block I think in set1. Also, serve return got a lot better and that was mostly Baird. On top of a bad hitting night, she had a really bad set 1 receiving serve. 4 bad passes and 2-3 marginal ones. Sets 2-4, she was much better and reception mistakes looked about even across Rubin, Ogilve and Baird. A final lesser factor was Sami picked up a little in the middle as well.

Overall on Baird, last year she slumped badly second half of the year. We haven’t seen the same this year. She has a few bad games, but who doesn’t? I expect and hope this was a fluke day, and she wasn’t the only player off yesterday.

I do wish though some of the subs had played more just in case one of the core 3 pins has a rough day. But Hambly has clearly emphasized stability and comfort with the starters. Baird was never going to get subbed out. But if Baird hadn’t gotten her passing right after set 1, this was probably going to be a loss. This team will live and die on the core 7.

Last comment that the announcers called out as well, but it’s fascinating to me how Rubin clearly is the emotional spark plug now on a team where she is the youngest core player. It’s an interesting dynamic, but she has been on another level the last 2 matches and she was the one who got things going at the end of set 4 against Houston.