09-03-2024, 11:53 AM
Yesterday was fun. Not only watching us win and play significantly better than against Minn, but also watching Texas lose badly in the fifth set.
I have been writing since the end of last season that this team would be good and could be better than last year. My primary reason was because I felt the last few years, Stanford has not been mentally tough. Their stars didn't come through in the 5th set against USD and they gave up against Texas last year in the last set (like Wisconsin did against Texas on Sunday). The one pin that played mentally tough and gritty (great word as I once had a dog named Grit) was Rubin, and she's got two years left. I was hoping that Kurt, Jordan and Blyashov would be gritty as well. The first two seemed calm under pressure all weekend. I loved that we played tough when the teams hit 20 in most sets, and came back in a few of them. That's what a winning team does.
Offense v Defense and 6-rotation players. Hambly ideally would like 3 6-rotation players as he did last year. He likes have the extra offensive options out of the back court, rather than just 2 or 3 offensive options. Keeps the defense guessing more. BUT that requires decent back court skills from those 6-rotation players. Rubin is solid. She did have 4 or 5 service return errors and was keyed on my Wisconsin, but does as well in the back court as our DS do. Kurt and Harvey have started the season weaker in the backcourt, so Hambly first went pretty quickly replacing Kurt w/ Beaven in the back row, and later Cawa (our likely libero next year) for Harvey. It worked well against Wisconsin. I'm sure we all noticed longer rallies when we have a better back row and fewer offensive options. Blyashov is supposed to be a solid 6-position player. See when she gets healthy and see if she gets put into the starting line-up.
I liked that a lot of freshman got action, Cawa as a DS, Yu as a serving specialist, and obviously Andrew as the starting MB. I love the verbal leadership from Rubin (at nearly every timeout) and also Francis, as well as the core stability of Miner and Oglivie. This WILL BE an exciting and fun year to watch Stanford VB whether we make it to the Final Four or not. I'd say it's a coin flip between Pitt, Louisville and us on who will win the ACC with most people predicting Pitt or Louisville. Can't wait to see every match I can, and looking forward to our home opener against Texas on the 15th. Hope we are undefeated heading into those final 3 tough OOC matches of UT, Nebraska and Kentucky.
I have been writing since the end of last season that this team would be good and could be better than last year. My primary reason was because I felt the last few years, Stanford has not been mentally tough. Their stars didn't come through in the 5th set against USD and they gave up against Texas last year in the last set (like Wisconsin did against Texas on Sunday). The one pin that played mentally tough and gritty (great word as I once had a dog named Grit) was Rubin, and she's got two years left. I was hoping that Kurt, Jordan and Blyashov would be gritty as well. The first two seemed calm under pressure all weekend. I loved that we played tough when the teams hit 20 in most sets, and came back in a few of them. That's what a winning team does.
Offense v Defense and 6-rotation players. Hambly ideally would like 3 6-rotation players as he did last year. He likes have the extra offensive options out of the back court, rather than just 2 or 3 offensive options. Keeps the defense guessing more. BUT that requires decent back court skills from those 6-rotation players. Rubin is solid. She did have 4 or 5 service return errors and was keyed on my Wisconsin, but does as well in the back court as our DS do. Kurt and Harvey have started the season weaker in the backcourt, so Hambly first went pretty quickly replacing Kurt w/ Beaven in the back row, and later Cawa (our likely libero next year) for Harvey. It worked well against Wisconsin. I'm sure we all noticed longer rallies when we have a better back row and fewer offensive options. Blyashov is supposed to be a solid 6-position player. See when she gets healthy and see if she gets put into the starting line-up.
I liked that a lot of freshman got action, Cawa as a DS, Yu as a serving specialist, and obviously Andrew as the starting MB. I love the verbal leadership from Rubin (at nearly every timeout) and also Francis, as well as the core stability of Miner and Oglivie. This WILL BE an exciting and fun year to watch Stanford VB whether we make it to the Final Four or not. I'd say it's a coin flip between Pitt, Louisville and us on who will win the ACC with most people predicting Pitt or Louisville. Can't wait to see every match I can, and looking forward to our home opener against Texas on the 15th. Hope we are undefeated heading into those final 3 tough OOC matches of UT, Nebraska and Kentucky.
