[ColoradoTree]

What is Gordon's record in these team competitions?  As a casual observer, I feel like she's always eking out a tie or more often than not on the wrong end of the tally.  Am I just misremembering/missing data?  If not.  Are we happy for these results (since the team still seems to win) or should we expect or hope for more?

Just curious where to set the bar of expectations for her.

This year, Gordon's record in dual matches is 4-1. She played in the #1 position in all of those matches.

Last year, her record was 4-3, all at #1.

In 2019, her record was 15-5, including 12-5 at #1 and 3-0 at #2.

In 2018, her record was 12-9, all at #1.

Her career totals: 35-18, including 32-18 at #1 and 3-0 at #2.

An interesting question. Gordon is, without question, our best player. She’s a worthy #1. But lots of teams have one or two great players, while they can’t come close to matching our depth. From a recruiting perspective, we have a team full of blue chips, while a team like Arizona might have one. So, Gordon is always going to catch the toughest match, almost by definition. 

She was ranked #10 in the preseason for a reason. She’s got the gear to beat anyone in the country, though as we’ve discussed previously, she lacks the power and the serve to dominate. But while her ceiling is high—and higher than some past #1s of ours, she’s also got a lower floor than some of those past #1s. 

We should expect, in almost every team match, that Gordon will be pressed harder than anyone else, because she’s the one getting the other team’s best shot. And as we go down the lineup, each player should get progressively more dominant. If Gordon had played vs. Kozyreva, I wouldn’t have been at all mad if Gordon lost a close one to Kozyreva, provided the rest of the team rolled. 

All that said, it’s a bit of an embarrassment to drop a point to a team like Arizona, and to drop two? Well, it’s a disappointing scoreline, no question. But while I’m a bit bummed that Gordon lost a close one, that’s nothing compared to how disappointing the Arbuthnott loss was. Arbuthnott has shown us that she can hit a gear where she beats some top players nationwide, but it’s her lack of consistency and how she takes some puzzling losses that makes me shrug helplessly. She needs to be better if this team is going anywhere this season. If we have designs on a postseason run, we can’t be dropping two points to teams of Arizona’s caliber. 

Of course, everything we saw from Blake, Choy, and Higuchi was perfect. And I’m glad Shin fought back, but she shouldn’t have had to fight back. She should’ve rolled in straight sets. The fact that she can’t dominate lesser opponents consistently doesn’t give me a lot of hope for how she’ll do against good teams.

[ColoradoTree]

What is Gordon's record in these team competitions?  As a casual observer, I feel like she's always eking out a tie or more often than not on the wrong end of the tally.  Am I just misremembering/missing data?  If not.  Are we happy for these results (since the team still seems to win) or should we expect or hope for more?

Just curious where to set the bar of expectations for her.

This year, Gordon's record in dual matches is 4-1. She played in the #1 position in all of those matches.

Last year, her record was 4-3, all at #1.

In 2019, her record was 15-5, including 12-5 at #1 and 3-0 at #2.

In 2018, her record was 12-9, all at #1.

Her career totals: 35-18, including 32-18 at #1 and 3-0 at #2.

An interesting question. Gordon is, without question, our best player. She’s a worthy #1. But lots of teams have one or two great players, while they can’t come close to matching our depth. From a recruiting perspective, we have a team full of blue chips, while a team like Arizona might have one. So, Gordon is always going to catch the toughest match, almost by definition. 

She was ranked #10 in the preseason for a reason. She’s got the gear to beat anyone in the country, though as we’ve discussed previously, she lacks the power and the serve to dominate. But while her ceiling is high—and higher than some past #1s of ours, she’s also got a lower floor than some of those past #1s. 

We should expect, in almost every team match, that Gordon will be pressed harder than anyone else, because she’s the one getting the other team’s best shot. And as we go down the lineup, each player should get progressively more dominant. If Gordon had played vs. Kozyreva, I wouldn’t have been at all mad if Gordon lost a close one to Kozyreva, provided the rest of the team rolled. 

All that said, it’s a bit of an embarrassment to drop a point to a team like Arizona, and to drop two? Well, it’s a disappointing scoreline, no question. But while I’m a bit bummed that Gordon lost a close one, that’s nothing compared to how disappointing the Arbuthnott loss was. Arbuthnott has shown us that she can hit a gear where she beats some top players nationwide, but it’s her lack of consistency and how she takes some puzzling losses that makes me shrug helplessly. She needs to be better if this team is going anywhere this season. If we have designs on a postseason run, we can’t be dropping two points to teams of Arizona’s caliber. 

Of course, everything we saw from Blake, Choy, and Higuchi was perfect. And I’m glad Shin fought back, but she shouldn’t have had to fight back. She should’ve rolled in straight sets. The fact that she can’t dominate lesser opponents consistently doesn’t give me a lot of hope for how she’ll do against good teams.