Just a short post here, since I wasn’t taking notes as the match was ongoing and my head still isn’t quite clear enough to put as much effort into writing as I would like. But the linescore for tonight’s match about tells it all:
#15 Western Washington d. Northwest Nazarene (25-10, 25-10, 25-16)
Um, yeah. That was one of the least competitive volleyball matches I have ever seen. And that kinda takes a lot of the fun out of it as a spectator, even though I’m rooting for the winning side.
Five different Crusaders finished the match with negative hitting percentages, as did the entire team. One poor girl had 4 errors on 5 swings for an unconscionable negative .800 — only once did she take a swing that didn’t result in a point for the other team. That’s just gotta suck.
And while there was a bit of block party, as our girls had 10 block doubles to go with 3 block solos (that’s 8 total team blocks) — you don’t hold a team to negative .022 without them helping you out. For the match, the Crusaders had 25 errors to go with just 22 kills. It was not pretty on their side of the net from the first ball to the last.
Hitting star tonight was of course Marlayna ‘Thunder’ Geary, the only player in double-digits in kills with 10. She moves into second place in program history in number of kills, but chica, if every match is a sweep, you ain’t gonna make it to #1! (yes, I’m sure she doesn’t care and is quite happy every match lately has been a sweep) She also turned in her eleventy billionth double-double of the season with 14 digs, and had a very impressive 5 service aces (five of Western’s eight).
There was also a great moment near the end of the match when Bailey Jones entered and played the last few points. Here’s a girl who’s been down on her luck. She sustained a head injury about halfway through last season and missed the remainder. She came back this year, only to contract mononucleosis. This was the first time she had played since October 1 last year. And she wasn’t some fill-in schlub when she played — even playing only about half the season last year, she still finished 12th in the league in blocks. She was sorely missed.
The star of the match for Northwest Nazarene (read: the only person who looked like she knew what she was doing) was setter Michelle Terpstra. It’s not often that a player leads her team in kills, digs, and assists, but that’s what Terpstra did tonight, and was not that far from a triple-double, a relative rarity in volleyball. She had 9 kills, 9 assists, and 13 digs, as well as a block-double.
But a setter should not be your most productive scorer (Terpstra hit .240 for the match and only one other Crusader was in the black in hitting), and when she is, that’s a pretty good sign that things are going kookoo bananas on your side of the net.
The Vikings were, as the linescore indicates, a bit less effective in the third set, with their attack percentages dwindling each set from a staggering .357 in the first, to a still-really-really-good .292 in the second, to a pedestrian (at best) .128 in the third (it was still better than NNU, though). But I’m a bit surprised that Coach Flick didn’t really empty the bench. She brought Bailey Jones in, and had nonstarter Kinsey Davis play the whole third set (with regular starter Jennica McPherson not playing a point), but she did not, for instance, bring in second-string setter Taylor Dillard or backup hitter Rachel Roeder. Maybe she just didn’t want to take away at all from the nice moment Bailey had. And to be sure, Taylor and Rachel will have their moments in coming seasons — Bailey won’t (she’s a senior).
Next up for the Vikings are trips to Western Oregon and St. Martin’s, both of which I expect to result in easy wins. It’s nice being on top 😀
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