You and me? We're not friends.
Last night was the biggest match of the GNAC season, bar none, as #15 Western Washington played #21 Central Washington. My Vikings looked to rebound from their only conference loss of the season and take over sole possession of first place in the GNAC.
I so wanted to be there. You don't know how bad I wanted to be there. But yesterday all I had the energy to do was roll around in bed and once or twice I made it all the way to the bathroom. That was it. So getting on a bus and heading over to the gym, never mind being out that late at night, was never on the table.
I was crushed, but I fired up the webcast of the match (something I only recently learned exists). It simultaneously made me feel better and crushed me all the more, because as I had suggested my second night as PA fill-in, the house was jumpin' with Viking faithful. It looked like it would have been an absolute blast to be there.
There were a couple of young ladies lending their voices to the webcast. One was former player Angie Alvord, someone whose name I said a few hundred times as PA announcer. The other I'm sure was a marketing or journalism student of some stripe. And they were….really good! I was surprised, especially with the girl doing play-by-play to Angie's color commentary (essentially that's how it worked), that they were so good. I've watched a few other schools' webcasts (I believe I mentioned a few posts ago I watched a CWU/Saint Martin's match) where the 'commentator' did nothing but say "Point Wildcats. Point Saints." It's like, why are you even there if that's all you're gonna do. But no, these two were offering great analysis and energetic commentary…they were outstanding. Obviously Angie spoke with some great insight and authoritative knowledge both of the sport in general and the WWU program, as she was part of the most successful team in program history ('07 national runners-up). My only pet peeve was that the PBP girl kept using the full names of the schools ("Western Washington University leads Central Washington University in the second set…") when simply "Western" and "Central" would have easily sufficed (I would have said those if I was working PA). But if that's my only pet peeve…yeah, they did a great job. Kept my attention throughout, and that's not as simple a task as it may sound — my mind wandered a little when watching that CWU/SMU match.
So in between hacking fits and through glassy eyes I watched quite an entertaining show. I'll surely tune in again for tomorrow's match against Northwest Nazarene.
The match itself also made me wish I could have been there. The first two sets were both very tight and competitive until about the 20-point mark when our girls sailed away for the win. Central did lose their regular setter to an ugly-looking injury early in the first set (and thank you, PA guy, for not talking all over it this time), so it's tough to say if they were really at their best for the bulk of the match. But they didn't seem to miss much of a beat having their secondary setter in the lineup, perhaps best evidenced by the fact that there were 13 ties in the second set, and CWU in fact led by as many as 3 at one point. But from 19-19, our girls scored six of the next seven points to win 25-20.
The third set was not really competitive. Our girls took a 9-2 lead out of the chute and never coughed it up. The closest Central came was 3, at 9-6 and 14-11.
#15 Western Washington d. #21 Central Washington (25-19, 25-20, 25-18)
So that's a performance that should be rewarded in the polls. It's the Vikings' ninth conference win, all of which have been sweeps.
I'm gutted that I had to miss being there in person, but I'm glad there was still some way to see the match (thanks, technology!). And yeah, this flu can go to hell. The sooner the better…..
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