To follow up from last time, the good news was that I
didn’t get sick. The bad news was that I
had to go into quarantine anyway. Aggie Volleyball’s last two games of
the season were on the radio, so I at least got to listen to them. I made a few notes during the games, but
these aren’t comprehensive at all.
11-10-21
vs UTEP Miners
I had scheduled to take the day of this mid-week game off
from work anyway. The pregame interview
with Coach Jordan was
enlightening. As I thought, he would
have preferred to have rested some of his hurting regulars. However, this being a rivalry game, he was
sort of obligated to put out his best possible team, but only as long as the
game was close. In about any other year
against UTEP, that would have meant
when the Aggies were up big.
However, former Aggie assistant coach and current UTEP
coach, Ben Wallis, has really gotten
their program up to a very competitive level.
Coach Jordan called them, “Probably their best volleyball team in
program history.” They are one of the
top ten offenses in the country. This
was not going to be a game the Aggies would be able to just coast through.
Coach Jordan did start putting in subs immediately in this
match, as opposed to just playing seven the last game. Freshman Sydney
McIntosh, whom I haven’t seen play, came in for the first set and got a
kill right away. The Aggies went down
six late in Set 1 and fended off three set points, but managed to come back and
win with a five-point run, 26-24.
The Aggies took Set 2 handily, 25-19. The coach got into
the action when he was hit by an opposing player’s kill. Sydney and Cat Kelly collided on one point.
Syd still managed to get a tip kill on it. The girls shared a giggle afterward. Set 3 was close. UTEP took it 23-25. There was a double
touch called on Syd during a free ball bump.
The coach and the crowd were furious at the questionable call. Adam
Young on the radio call was incredulous.
There was a girl’s voice that I didn’t recognize doing the PA
duties. During this set, she made the
announcement about NM State joining Conference-USA
and that the Aggies and Miners would become conference opponents.
UTEP jumped out to a seven-point lead early in Set 4 and
never looked back, winning 19-25. The Aggies were hitting well, but having lots
of service errors. The Miners kept the
momentum into Set 5. They went up by
four and closed it out 13-15 and
took the match 2-3. Coach Jordan was fairly salty in the postgame
interview. He concurred with what Adam
was saying during the match, that Lia
Mosher was constantly double-teamed.
The coach then blamed setter, Carly
Aigner-Swesey, for not distributing the ball better. I hope she takes that constructively and not
personally.
I can’t blame the coach entirely for being angry. Adam pinned the loss on a questionable call
in the third set. The Aggies were so
close to finishing it in three sets. Now
all the coach has to show for the game is another home loss and additional wear
and tear and his players. It didn’t help
that the UTEP players were celebrating behind the coach the whole time. “I guess this is going to happen every time
an opponent wins here,” he reflected. At
least some of the Aggie players had good games.
Katie Birtcil led with 25 kills. Cat
Kelly had 12, Shaney Lipscomb
10, and Sydney McIntosh had 6. Syd had some freshman moments, but did well
considering.
11-13-21
vs Chicago State Cougars
This game wasn’t on the radio when I tuned in on
time. I didn’t know what to make of it,
since there was a triple-header scheduled at the Pan-Am Center today: one volleyball game, one Women’s basketball
game, and one Men’s basketball game. My
dad had reminded me during a phone call that the Aggie Football team was playing Alabama this morning. I
tuned over to that.
It was the expected close contest. After the Aggies took a 3-0 lead, Alabama had
taken a slim 49-3 lead into halftime. On
Stadium’s college football preview
show, they said about this match up, “With apologies to our friends at New
Mexico State, this is a glorified scrimmage.”
The Aggie halftime show at least told me that the volleyball game was in
a delay. Broadcaster, Jack Nixon’s, talk with Athletic Director Mario Moccia was
interesting. Parking at the stadium
there in Tuscaloosa ranged between $30 to $60.
“If I tried to charge $2 for our dirt lot, I’d never hear the end of it,”
Mario said. He also thought that changes
in the SEC might dry up these
“money” games for NMSU. SEC teams may
start scheduling far cheaper FCS-level teams.
I went back to the volleyball coverage, which was now
on. The reason for our delay: the
officials weren’t there. Why? They had the time wrong. This game had been rescheduled from 1:00pm to
11:00am at least a week ago. Mario
insisted it wasn’t their fault the referees didn’t know. The conference apparently hadn’t told the
officials about the time change. Given
that they had to come from El Paso, it was fortunate there was only an hour
delay. I’m sure the Pan-Am staff was
nervous about the delay, given the upcoming scheduling.
This incident was nowhere near as surprising as Adam Young’s announcement before the
game that this game between the Aggies
and Chicago State Cougars was for
the WAC West championship. The winner takes it.
Huh?
I’d said multiple times that Chicago State was no joke
this season with their new coach. He’s
recruited an international roster from seven countries. CBU
and GCU had been right there near
the top of the standings with the Aggies.
Chicago State had delivered GCU their first home loss earlier this week
and were now tied with the Aggies. The
Cougars are leaving the conference after this season in style with their best
one.
There was definitely something to play for today, but Coach Jordan was still considering
sitting out Katie Birtcil for the
tournament. The Aggies weren’t playing
for the top seed, maybe not even the second, but they were in. In spite of her sore shoulder, Katie wanted
in anyway. Lindsay Blakey started for her, but I never heard her name called
again after Katie came in. Alana Embry came in several times as a
server. It was Senior Day. Cat
Kelly and Shaney Lipscomb would
be leaving. Seniors Carly Aigner-Swesey and Lia
Mosher would be back.
Chicago State did look good in Set 1. They went on a nine-point run mid-way
through, leading 10-16. The Aggies came
right back with a six-point run, but lost it 21-25. Adam, and later the
coach, were incredulous that the team had hit at a .340 clip, but still lost
the set. It was a combination of bad
serving and receiving, the team’s bug-a-boo this season.
One girl on Chicago State, Yanlis Feliz, was getting most of their kills. Finally in the second set, the Aggies started
double-teaming her. The Aggie took the
set, 25-17. Katie’s shoulder showed no signs of
fatigue. Cat was playing inspired
ball. Lia, after being frustrated in the
last game, was busting out here.
Continued in Part Two
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