NM State Volleyball Recap November 9-17, 2017

11-9-17

Aggie Volleyball clinched the regular season championship tonight.  They won in five sets over Grand Canyon, while UTRGV lost in five against Bakersfield.  It was a great win also in that it broke the Aggies’ losing streak in five-set matches.  Megan Hart came up huge with 18 kills, almost certainly a career high.  She was swinging at a .500 clip in the match.  I just knew she’d unstoppable once she got going.  I mostly followed the match via Statcast.  The Grand Canyon Youtube video feed had some sort of problem, which was too bad because the production values of their broadcast looked pretty good.  The team still has one game left before the tournament.  Coach Jordan was ambiguous on the Aggie Coaches Show about how hard he’d play out that final game if he’d clinched the conference.  He wanted to win, but wanted to rest some of the girls.  We’ll see.

11-11-17

Aggie Volleyball finished out the regular season with a win at Bakersfield.  I didn’t see the game, but the newspaper account had the Aggies winning in straight sets.  Judging by the individual numbers listed, Coach Jordan went ahead and let the starters play, rather than rest them. 

So, the Aggies finished up number one in conference after losing their team captain, another starter, and a replacement starter during the season.  Before the WAC Tournament at the awards dinner, Coach Mike Jordan was an easy winner for Coach of the Year.  Ari Sierra won Libero of the Year.  KC Tohm was awarded the Conference Player of the Year award.  At the beginning of the season at the Scrimmage (8-19-17), I thought she’d end the year as high-scorer for the team, so this doesn’t surprise me at all.  Since the last game of last season, KC really stepped up with Jordan Abalos playing hurt and then going out and with Sasha-Lee Thomas also having limited playing time.       

Unfortunately on Friday (11-17-17), the Aggies played Bakersfield in the tournament semi-final and lost in four sets.  That was a tough draw, since they’d just played them a week before.  It’s also hard to beat a team three times in a season.  The newspaper reported that the Roadrunners had 8 aces in the match, but that was the only offered explanation.  I’m really proud of how the team played so well in the face of adversity this year. 

I also didn’t realize how attached I was to the seniors on this team until seeing their Senior Day ceremony (11-4-17).  I still can't believe that Jordan said in her speech that she was called "too small" and "not good enough" to play.  She was grateful that Coach Jordan "took a chance" on her.  Here I thought she'd sprung full-formed from his furrowed brow as the perfect volleyball player.  It’s going to be hard watching next year.  It was a bummer not getting to see Jordan play more, but I enjoyed seeing the other girls play well in her absence.  Next year will be interesting.