11-07-2014, 11:50 PM
Okay, that troubling trend? Yeah, it's still troubling.
Stanford survived with its unbeaten season intact, for at least one more match, basically on the right arm of Jordan Burgess. For whatever reason: bad passing, poor serve receive, off-kilter setting, almost no one was on tonight. Hitting percentages: Boukather .167. Ajanaku .200. Lutz .042. Two more positive numbers: Brittany Howard, with at least half of a good match tonight: .226. Not great, but light-years ahead of her sub-.100 in the last two matches.
Oh, and Jordan Burgess. .375. A career-high BY SEVEN KILLS of 27 kills against only 3 errors on 64 attacks. My goodness.
Her only competition tonight was on the other side of the net: Madi Kingdon took EIGHTY-NINE swings for Arizona. She only hit .169, and seemed to tire in the fifth set a bit, but an outstanding effort.
And that was the problem. UofA was essentially Kingdon, an occasional dose of Arizobal - and that was really about it. Stanford got 13 total blocks (4 solo and 18 assists), but against a team that was relying on essentially two hitters, that's not that great.
Again, it started well. Stanford won set 1 25-20, riding a nice serving run by Megan McGehee from 20-19 to 23-19, then closing out the set. And I thought they might be back on balance after the ASU scare.
But set 2, the Cardinal pulled one of their craptacular runs to open the set, falling behind 6-1. Most worryingly, Merete Lutz and Madi Bugg were not connecting AT ALL - every set was low, or off, or out of rhythm, and very few led to actual solid hits by Merete. And we were getting stuck in her rotation with a still unwilling to swing Brittany Howard as the other primary offensive option. Brittany, who the announcers were even getting on for her propensity to dink, talking about how her defender was not even thinking about a solid hit down the line or over the block. Stanford rallied to tie it at 17, with another great service run by McGehee, but a couple of crucial late errors by Jordan hitting long and Lutz not getting solid contact on a dump by Arizona's setter Snuka turned a 22-22 tie into a 25-23 Arizona error.
Stanford came out of the break and again rolled in set 3 - getting out from 11-10 to 17-10 behind a great serving run by Brittany Howard, then protecting the lead to see out the set 25-16.
And you would think that would do it. Especially when Stanford broke on top 14-7 in the fourth set. With a couple of really nice swings by Brittany Howard starting the set.
Then the service return absolutely fell apart. We weren't able to set middle, every serve receive was forcing Madi to set from 20 feet off the net or bump set on the run, and a 14-7 lead dwindled to 16-16, all in two rotations where our only offensive options seemed to be Jordan. Stanford broke back on top 21-18, but Lutz looked totally lost, and every time she rotated through the front line, it felt like early in the season - just please rotate to get Inky back out there. And Morgan Boukather had a couple of bad plays - hitting wide to give Arizona a point and pull them from 2 down to 21-20, then with Stanford down 23-22, she tried to hit a brobdingnagian angle she had executed earlier in the match and never cleared the net. 25-22, Wildcats.
Set 5. For the second time in 3 days. No surprise, Inky Ajanaku started in front. And with a block. then another.
With the score 3-2 Stanford. Jordan Burgess had SIX kills in the next eight points. Taking the lead to 9-4. Kyle Gilbert gave up early on a serve, drawing UofA to 9-6, but then a bad service error by the Wildcats gave Stanford a 4 point lead again, at 11-7. Then another positive sign. Brittany Howard took a big swing, then got an overpass, and took ANOTHER big swing. It was the first time in months I've seen her take two big swings in a row, and the second one went straight down. That seemed to start something - because she decided to score the final two points on a great dink and another big swing.
Phew.
I don't know, I think the resurrection of Brittany Howard's swing may be worth the anxiety this match caused. But there are still a lot of troubling signs: the continuing issues with setting the middle (Lutz not getting a good contact point; Inky getting set too short and too inside on the slide a lot); the tendency of our serve receive to fall apart team-wide in certain rotations. Most troublingly, Morgan Boukather seems to have hit a rough patch.
Now part of that is that UofA has a big team, which is probably the closest to a physical match for our middles. Another was that their setter, Penina Snuka (for those of you of a certain age, her grandfather was Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, of professional wrestling fame in the 1980s, and her uncle is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) showed off her athleticism with some truly amazing play tonight.
But still. Dunning will definitely have some things to work on. The commentators said that he had a really tough practice after the ASU match. Think another one may be in order, but they also are going to need a break - two five-set matches back to back is really tough.
Especially considering that next week, for some unknown/bizarre reason, Stanford is playing on WED and THUR back to back against $C and UCLA in Los Angeles. I can understand the Wednesday match, given the Pac12 net's desire for Wednesday night content. But why Thursday? It's at UCLA's Wooden Gym, not Pauley. And it's not being broadcast on Pac-12 network, it appears. Bob, any idea?
In any case, if they play like they did this weekend, they're not coming back from LA still undefeated.
VG
Stanford survived with its unbeaten season intact, for at least one more match, basically on the right arm of Jordan Burgess. For whatever reason: bad passing, poor serve receive, off-kilter setting, almost no one was on tonight. Hitting percentages: Boukather .167. Ajanaku .200. Lutz .042. Two more positive numbers: Brittany Howard, with at least half of a good match tonight: .226. Not great, but light-years ahead of her sub-.100 in the last two matches.
Oh, and Jordan Burgess. .375. A career-high BY SEVEN KILLS of 27 kills against only 3 errors on 64 attacks. My goodness.
Her only competition tonight was on the other side of the net: Madi Kingdon took EIGHTY-NINE swings for Arizona. She only hit .169, and seemed to tire in the fifth set a bit, but an outstanding effort.
And that was the problem. UofA was essentially Kingdon, an occasional dose of Arizobal - and that was really about it. Stanford got 13 total blocks (4 solo and 18 assists), but against a team that was relying on essentially two hitters, that's not that great.
Again, it started well. Stanford won set 1 25-20, riding a nice serving run by Megan McGehee from 20-19 to 23-19, then closing out the set. And I thought they might be back on balance after the ASU scare.
But set 2, the Cardinal pulled one of their craptacular runs to open the set, falling behind 6-1. Most worryingly, Merete Lutz and Madi Bugg were not connecting AT ALL - every set was low, or off, or out of rhythm, and very few led to actual solid hits by Merete. And we were getting stuck in her rotation with a still unwilling to swing Brittany Howard as the other primary offensive option. Brittany, who the announcers were even getting on for her propensity to dink, talking about how her defender was not even thinking about a solid hit down the line or over the block. Stanford rallied to tie it at 17, with another great service run by McGehee, but a couple of crucial late errors by Jordan hitting long and Lutz not getting solid contact on a dump by Arizona's setter Snuka turned a 22-22 tie into a 25-23 Arizona error.
Stanford came out of the break and again rolled in set 3 - getting out from 11-10 to 17-10 behind a great serving run by Brittany Howard, then protecting the lead to see out the set 25-16.
And you would think that would do it. Especially when Stanford broke on top 14-7 in the fourth set. With a couple of really nice swings by Brittany Howard starting the set.
Then the service return absolutely fell apart. We weren't able to set middle, every serve receive was forcing Madi to set from 20 feet off the net or bump set on the run, and a 14-7 lead dwindled to 16-16, all in two rotations where our only offensive options seemed to be Jordan. Stanford broke back on top 21-18, but Lutz looked totally lost, and every time she rotated through the front line, it felt like early in the season - just please rotate to get Inky back out there. And Morgan Boukather had a couple of bad plays - hitting wide to give Arizona a point and pull them from 2 down to 21-20, then with Stanford down 23-22, she tried to hit a brobdingnagian angle she had executed earlier in the match and never cleared the net. 25-22, Wildcats.
Set 5. For the second time in 3 days. No surprise, Inky Ajanaku started in front. And with a block. then another.
With the score 3-2 Stanford. Jordan Burgess had SIX kills in the next eight points. Taking the lead to 9-4. Kyle Gilbert gave up early on a serve, drawing UofA to 9-6, but then a bad service error by the Wildcats gave Stanford a 4 point lead again, at 11-7. Then another positive sign. Brittany Howard took a big swing, then got an overpass, and took ANOTHER big swing. It was the first time in months I've seen her take two big swings in a row, and the second one went straight down. That seemed to start something - because she decided to score the final two points on a great dink and another big swing.
Phew.
I don't know, I think the resurrection of Brittany Howard's swing may be worth the anxiety this match caused. But there are still a lot of troubling signs: the continuing issues with setting the middle (Lutz not getting a good contact point; Inky getting set too short and too inside on the slide a lot); the tendency of our serve receive to fall apart team-wide in certain rotations. Most troublingly, Morgan Boukather seems to have hit a rough patch.
Now part of that is that UofA has a big team, which is probably the closest to a physical match for our middles. Another was that their setter, Penina Snuka (for those of you of a certain age, her grandfather was Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, of professional wrestling fame in the 1980s, and her uncle is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) showed off her athleticism with some truly amazing play tonight.
But still. Dunning will definitely have some things to work on. The commentators said that he had a really tough practice after the ASU match. Think another one may be in order, but they also are going to need a break - two five-set matches back to back is really tough.
Especially considering that next week, for some unknown/bizarre reason, Stanford is playing on WED and THUR back to back against $C and UCLA in Los Angeles. I can understand the Wednesday match, given the Pac12 net's desire for Wednesday night content. But why Thursday? It's at UCLA's Wooden Gym, not Pauley. And it's not being broadcast on Pac-12 network, it appears. Bob, any idea?
In any case, if they play like they did this weekend, they're not coming back from LA still undefeated.
VG