Sorry. I have not had time to get here for a couple of days. A job, lawn, and being a parent all came together on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Also starting to work on club. I was nowhere near a computer yesterday as I ran to Findlay, Ohio to see Claire and take her a saddle. It was also Family Weekend and Gretchen went over Saturday morning. By the way, thanks to Barb and Jim Payne for the saddle. Claire loved the weight. Now, could you help out with a horse that is not so tall. "Red" is a monster.
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NAME: Libby Eller Parent/Guardians: Rick and Erika Eller Nickname: Libby Lou When time allows, what is your favorite activity? My favorite activity is wake boarding and surfing at the lake. You can have dinner with anybody in the history of the world. Who would you ask to dinner and why? I would have dinner with Thomas Edison because he was a great inventor who had a lot of endurance and I admire that. You get to select your favorite dinner for this special occasion, what are you going to order? I would order chicken alfredo and garlic bread. What are your other athletic ventures at school and outside of school? I play basketball and softball. What is your favorite subject in school? Least favorite? Why? My favorite subject is math because that's what I am best at. My least favorite subject is US history because there is too much information and a barely know any of it. Recall one of your first memories of volleyball? One of my first memories is two a days my freshman year when we had to work out in the pool with sweats and sweatshirts on. What is your best memory of volleyball? My best memory is when we beat Frontier in the first set at the Tri-County tournament. Recall one of your most embarrassing memories of playing volleyball? One of my most embarrassing moments was when I went to hit the ball and completely missed it. Tell us about one pet peeve and why it bothers you? One of my pet peeves is when people chew with their mouths open because it is gross. "Eagles Player Rips Chip Kelly's Unconventional Practices, Says Team Is Burned Out"
I thought a lot about this headline throughout the day. Chip Kelly is the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. The undefeated Eagles. Cary Williams is a defensive player for the Philadelphia Eagles. The undefeated Eagles. Yesterday, the Eagles rallied yet again to go 3-0 in the NFL.. Undefeated. Yet in the chorus of excitement following the victory a lone voice speaks out. Cornerback Cary Williams decided the minutes after a comeback win were as a good time as any to be critical of his boss and his training methods. The boss whose guidance resulted in the Eagles winning their division a year ago and starting off the season 3-0. Amid all the success, Mr. Williams has a personal agenda. According to ESPN "Williams told reporters that he wants to practice less." Never mind that the training and coaching has the team 3-0. Never mind that not a single other teammate spoke up in agreement. Never mind that suddenly there is a distraction when every man on the team should be on the same page. It strikes me as very greedy. We are now 7-8 after playing really well against Madison Grant, getting past Frankfort, and laying an egg against B. Central. Once we play Oak Hill tomorrow, we are exactly half way through the season.
If we beat Oak Hill, we finish the first half of the season 8-8 and are half way to tying the best record in school history. Half wins. Half losses. If we beat Oak Hill. Do not want to attend a match? Guess what? You can know the results before we ever play. What a great thing that would be if Vegas established a betting line on Carroll volleyball. So how do you know to bet the Cougars or not? Look at the record of the team we are playing. If they have a losing record, we can beat them. The record of the teams we have beaten is 27-81. If they have a winning record, we lose. Team that we have lost to have a 75-33 record. We should beat Oak Hill. They are 1-18 as I type. We shall see if we can hold true to form. A conference win! We are .500 at 6 - 6! We hit the ball well. Their first couple of servers bring a lot of pace. We passed well. Lauren dug a tip ball over the block! It was a great night. Quick observations.
1.) We had three kids hit over .400. Meghan Miller hits .416 on 12 swings yet is only 3rd on the team. Crazy but great. L. Worl gets 13 kills on 26 swings and hit .423. She hit .423 and that is second. The leader of the pack? Our little freshman, M. Herr had 10 kills on 16 swings which is .437. Meg had maybe the best outside swing I have seen all year. She did a great job of turning on an outside set and blasting it cross-court. R. Conn deserves mention hitting .200 with 4 kills. We have some nights that would lead the team. Not tonight. No wonder we scored 75 points tonight. Our hitters were really good. 2.) We received pretty well. Sheridan, top-to-bottom, is not a good serving team, but those first 2 servers bring the heat, yet we had 3 kids pass 2.0 or better. L. Eller continued her run of great passing in receive passing 9 balls at 2.0 for the night. E. Eurit handled 5 balls and passed 2.2. L. Worl graded out as our best passer handling 8 balls at 2.75, Madison Miller passed 1.8 and that is only 4th on the team. No wonder we only gave up 41 points. Our receive was good. 3.) Now, this is in part a reflection of how bad Sheridan is, but we served well. Aced them 19 times. We simply did not miss too many serves. Our two setters combined for 14 aces. Our two setters combined for all five errors. Imagine the ace count if those two keep their serve in play? I so dislike this part of our schedule. We have lots to work on, but motivation to practice hard is an issue.
We finally play on Wednesday when we host Sheridan. On paper, we are the better team. We were last year also, and we lost in five. Sheridan is 3-11. They start a lot of seniors. Those seniors have never lost to Carroll. Ever. This use to a chance for one of two bottom feeders to get a win. We are no longer a bottom feeder but can we play like it? They appear to run a 6-2 offense with a pair of senior setters. #17 (E. Black) has 23 assist and #20 (A. Railer) has 48 assist. The setters are also their best servers based on aces. #20 has 32 aces which grabs my attention. Their two best hitters are #18 (L. Railer) a 5'3 freshman outside hitter with 46 kills and a 5'9 senior #10 (B. Laughlin) with 20 kills. We will serve #15 (L. Umbarger) who appears to be the libero and #18. They both have 12 errors. Their numbers are incomplete and do not always seem to add up in a rationale manner. The three teams they have beaten have a combined record of 3-21 as of Saturday. The numbers, records, and video all indicate we are the better team. Same thing could have been said prior to Eastern. Oh, we know how that turned out. We had a full day Sunday. Attended church, thanks to the Fisher family for that invite, together and then hit the road to St. Joe College to visit B. Worl, 2014 Carroll grad, who is a member of the Puma volleyball team. Almost struck out on ice cream. Nothing near St. Joe. Closed for the season. Nothing in Reynolds. Closed for the season. Brookston! A new place, too. Good stuff, but then they all are. The Lickity Split is just north of the elementary. Open until Halloween. A special "thanks" to the Herr family. St. Joe plays in the central time zone. We had a little extra time on our hands following church and the Herr's hosted about half the team. Big thanks to them for their efforts. Sorry for not being here for a couple of days. First writing assignment came in this week at school. I am getting home from practice and mowing the cemetery until dark. Then the killer. I have done stats every night this week. Been up to the wee hours of the morning double checking stats and more importantly watching our play.
My thoughts of the other night are reinforced after watching 4 matches. We are starting to string points together where we are playing really well. Serve receive is actually a strength. Hitting is a roller coaster. When we get tentative, we hit balls that a good club elementary team could dig, let alone high school players. Heck, neither group of girls have to dig the ball. We hit so poorly that there are balls all over the gym other than the 900 square feet we want to hit. When we hit poorly, it impacts us on the score board, helps the other team with easy points, and really impacts us mentally. The roller coaster goes down a long steep hill when things go badly. Here are the details for tomorrow. 1.) Serve receive was suppose to be our weakness. Not with L. Eller playing at her current level. Unbelievable how well she has played over the last two weeks. How about our whole team? We were aced only three times all night and one painted the back line. In past years, we could not pass a free ball let alone a serve. Heck, what am I talking about, try Clinton Central just a couple of weeks ago.
2.) Talk about establishing the tone for the night. G. Filbrun smacked Delphi right out of the chute. 12-1 before their first server even gets to touch the ball. Grace was .619 to zone, which is actually low for her, had six aces, and we scored on 16 of her 21 serves. Graceland was taking names and kicking butt. 3.) The flip side to number one is hitting was suppose to be our strength. Delphi scored 42 points tonight, We missed 15 attacks. Over 30% of their points came from our attack errors. We hit .129. I am happy with the 25 kills. We just need to control the hitting errors a smidge. That would eliminate free points for the other team and help push that hitting percent closer to what I hope it will be. Still, at the end of the night, how do you complain? Our weaknesses were not very weak. We hit .129. We had nine block assist and a block solo. A three set blow up and we still gathered nearly 50 digs. Heck, we had four kids pass 2.0 or better in receive. Yup, nice win. Even nicer that it was Delphi. |
CategoriesArchives
October 2023
AuthorVarsity Coach Denny Crum |