It certainly was not always pretty, but Bailey Worl will not go winless in her career of traveling to Tri-County for their invitational. Bailey was solid in every aspect of the game and incredible while attacking in the front row. Bailey had 47 kills and hit .369 for the day. She also contributed 23 digs, three aces, passed 1.73 in receive and added four block assist. She was never aced in the "blue gym". While we had contributions from many players, there is little doubt that we would not have won those two matches without B. Worl.
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"What they do well is not miss serves. What we do not always do well is pass serve. That combination worries me. If our passing holds up, I love our chances. If too many kids pass 1.4 or lower, we are going to be in a gopher fight."
We lost the gopher fight. We were aced 19 times. L. Worl was our only player to pass well at 1.81 without being aced. Madison Miller was not aced but too many poor passes (1 balls) and graded out at 1.31. It increasing appears that we might need to use our setter to receive. Our passing is so bad that our hitters can not get balls to hit because the setter is all over the court. It is not just the aces that kill us, it is all the bad balls we get up, but are not to target. It is hard to set the middle when you are 15' off the net or 25' across the court. In football, it is line play. In baseball, it is pitching. In this sport, it is passing. You don't pass, you don't win. A stat sheet kept creeping into my thoughts last night and this morning. Assist. E. Eurit. Five.
No way. We played too well for that. Five?! Whoever kept that sheet did an awful job. The scores reflected how well we played. No, they did not. She had seven, and we played okay at best. Film showed that Clinton Central did not play their best. Did they play down to our level? Were they trying combinations in their offense for the 1st time? Did they have a bad night? We were close simply because the Bull Dogs missed a lot of serves and attacks. We played with a lot more energy than we did vrs. Eastern, but we did not play as well as I first thought. We continue to struggle blocking, left side hitters in particular, and C. Central served aggressively. They missed a few, but when they did not miss, we were passing out-of-balance more often than not. E. Eurit handled a lot of out-of-system passes. L. Eller had as many swings in the back as she did in the front row. The Unger girl, number 20, contributed to both teams. She is loud, has a fast arm, is confident, is experienced having played several years now at Munciana volleyball club, serves deep with pace and low and short with nearly the same motion, and has a will to win. Can not help but respect what she brings to a court physically and more importantly, emotionally. We hope to play with the same energy at C.Prairie, pass a little better, and collect some kills. This is a huge game for us. Prairie struggles to generate offense and is winless. What they do well is not miss serves. What we do not always do well is pass serve. That combination worries me. If our passing holds up, I love our chances. If too many kids pass 1.4 or lower, we are going to be in a gopher fight. Just finished watching film of Eastern, which is a LOT easier to do after a solid effort vrs. a very good Clinton Central team. We made a painful decision to sit a couple of upper classmen. We had some effort issues and some technique issues, which are not getting corrected. Most of the night we played our freshmen and L. Eller vrs. Clinton Central's senior heavy team. We hung in there. Now, we must replicate that effort and fun vrs. the Gophers on Thursday.
I hope that giant sucking sound from Memorial Gym in Flora was just our confidence and not our season. We laid a huge egg against a very beatable team. Even more worrisome was what I saw and heard regarding one of our players. I firmly believe that you bring energy to a team or take energy. No middle ground. We had several energy users last year. It is what made a tough year even harder. Tonight, I saw it for the first time out of one of our upper classmen. I do not intend to let it go. Might rough up some feathers, but I will not allow that to fester.
Sorry for the delay in the post. Left practice yesterday and went to Elwood to watch Claire and Cass play and one of my former players in her first varsity matches as head coach at Manchester. It was nearly 8:00 before I got home.
The question is the Rossville glass half empty or half full now that I have watched all the tape. I leave it for you to consider following consideration of the following. This is quick due to being so late. Details later after I watch film. The scoreboard indicates we were beaten as will our record, but in so many ways, our little team won. I have a ton of respect for the coaches at Rossville and their program. To compete as we did and push them like we did is a win for our young team.
I have worried all winter, spring, and summer that serve receive could kill us. It was number one on my list of concerns following Caston who got us for 10 aces. Well, Rossville is a very aggressive serving team, and we were aced only seven times. One player was aced 4 times (she is not going to be in serve receive for a while) and three others once. I recognize some nights will be a struggle, but there is hope (I hope) that we can pass. Number two, we missed 14 serves vrs. Caston. Only nine were missed tonight with a lot more opportunities. Number three, the issue of being in the net too often. It was not as bad as I thought after seeing tape. Five times total with B. Ennis the only one more than once with two. Still our techniques from B. Ennis and L. Worl is not good. Lauren and Bailey are nearly the same height, yet Bailey scored five block points to Lauren's one half. Yes, 1/2 or .5. Ouch. Number four deals with our focus. Better in places. Not so hot in others. We gave up a big lead in the 4th game and ended up losing. Played a terrible first set. In between those two events, we did pretty well. Unlike last year, we scratched and clawed and found a way to hang around and make it interesting. We will call number four a wash. We improved in two areas and broke even on being focused and prepared to play and blocking. I'll take it. So many compliments came our way after the match. I hope parents and players heard the positives. Details tomorrow, but I will fall asleep almost, sort-of, maybe happy and proud of how we played even in a loss. Kind of weird, but we did okay. Yah, definitely did okay. After a long post last night, we will keep this one short. We face a major step up in competition with Rossville. They are coming off an emotional 3-2 win over county rival Frankfort. They are not as young as we are, but they are young. They only have one senior, too. The overwhelming majority of their offense goes through their left-side hitters. They combined for over 30 swings each. The next closest was freshmen, Keely Criswell who played club with our freshmen, with 12. Not an understatement to say, know where those left sides are! They have a good young setter in Oliver.
For us to compete, let alone win, we have to minimize the points we just give away. Block errors (4 vrs. Caston), service errors (14), and too many receive errors (10) will doom us. Think about what I just wrote. We gave Caston 28 of the 55 points they scored. That is over half. Ouch! Hard enough to beat any team on our schedule, but giving up that many points will make it impossible vrs. good teams. Rossville is a good team. I will never blog until a couple of hours after the match. Let the emotions settle a little bit. Even though it is nothing we can control, I wish to say I am sorry for the quality of the officiating tonight. Not the judgment calls, those are part of the game, but for an R1 that did not even know what corner the line judges go in. Also, I would love line judges to see me before they use flags the first time. They are different and I would like to talk with you for 5 minutes or so about their use.
The "Tip of the Cap" is located under the Home tab. Lots of positives there. That same information is hanging on lockers and in the halls of the school. Parents, welcome to the Cougar's Liar or volleyball 101. What we hope to do is teach you and the players a little bit about what we teach and why.
E. Eurit gets a ton of these video clips going back over the past year. Other players get something specific to their position. This ne was going to the setter, B. Worl, L. Worl, and B. Ennis, but so many of the verbal clues apply to all our hitters, I thought everyone should listen to Coach Stone's words. This link should get you to a three minute video on hitting slides. Worls, M. Herr & B. Ennis, I need a text when you have viewed this. If the link does not open, cut and paste into your browser. Follow the jump for details. Happy learning parents and players. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09jQszwfi1E |
CategoriesArchives
October 2023
AuthorVarsity Coach Denny Crum |