Springhill Suites Invitational NMSU vs Lamar Volleyball 9-14-19

Adorable Halle Razo

Here’s where I finally question going to 12 volleyball matches and two soccer matches over two weeks with the intention of recapping all of them.  I’m bushed and all I did was watch and type.   

It was darkly cloudy outside, but hadn’t rained more than sprinkles all day.  Still, it was nice and cool.  I hoped that attendance for Aggie Football wouldn’t be diminished for the weather.  Of course, the cross-scheduling with Aggie Volleyball in the last match of this weekend’s invitational probably didn’t help either sport.  Ron picked me up for one more trip to the Pan-Am Center this weekend. 

It was sprinkling a little when we pulled into the parking lot, which was full.  I noticed the lot where I’d parked earlier was full.  This was good news for Aggie Football.  They’d heavily promoted this game with San Diego State.  Of course, this pretty much took away from Aggie Volleyball’s match.  It’s hard to say by how much, but there were a few less people inside tonight (attendance 746) than last night.    

Right after Ron and I got settled and were talking to Mike, a ball from warm-ups suddenly bounded up towards me.  I just missed fielding it or it hitting me.  Take your pick.  Balls were shooting up into the stands all over the place.  The Aggies and the Lamar Cardinals were amped up and firing.  Julianna Salanoa was happy and bouncy on the floor, as I suspect she usually is away from the court.  She sang along with I Love it (I Don’t Care) and That’s Not My Name.  Halle Razo was back in the libero shirt, so she’d be playing tonight.  She seemed a bit apprehensive on the court.      

Coach Jordan was at one end of the court talking to the opposing coach, Michelle Kuester.  Once again, he would be facing a former Aggie, this time one of his old players.  This has to be the dream of any Aggie player who wants a career in volleyball: being back at the Pan-Am and coaching against Coach Jordan.  She’d get a special introduction for the crowd, who gave her a big hand.  Jordan gave her a big hug afterward.  He must be proud of her. 

OMG!  OMG!  Dizzykitten, my favorite streamer from Twitch came in sat down in front of me!  She came all the way from Arkansas to see this match.  She was wearing a lovely, fun dress like she does when she streams.  I can’t believe this!  (How’s my hair look?)  What are you doing, Ron?  He sent her away.  He told the group that she was with that the front row is usually a crossing area for fans.  That is correct, when there are more fans here, not now.  They left to sit in lower seats by Danny and Mike.  Couldn’t you have at least directed her to sit by me? 

Hmmm . . . Looking twice, Dizzy looks a bit older in person and the guy she’s with seems like a husband of some sort.  I’m tweeting this anyway: jdh417 meets Dizzy!  Life now complete!  (Insert carefully cropped picture.)  After she left after the match, Danny came by said the nice blonde girl in front of him gave him an invite to play to Apex Legends with her on Sunday night on her Twitch stream.  Damn it! 

Set 1

I had the football game on in my ears over the radio during the match.  I don’t think I actually listened to any of it.  Events on court were much more interesting (and appealing).  Before play started, Coach Kuester directed the Lamar captain to ask the up official why NMSU scheduled this match at the same time as the football game.  He immediately issued Coach Jordan a yellow card, since Athletic Director Mario Moccia wasn’t in the building to more properly receive it.  With that, we were underway.  

The Aggies started the match off with Julianna getting a kill.  Halle looked pretty good on a couple of points.  The coach must have sat her out in the morning match to keep her fresh for this one.  If she had some lingering illness yesterday, she appeared to have recovered.  Ashley Anselmo got a kill at 3-2 Aggies.  4-4, Aggie blocking caused Lamar to scramble.  5-5, beautiful Megan Hart and Ashley combined for a block.  6-6, Savannah Davision got a kill.  Briefly, the scoreboard was correctly giving player stats, but it seems whenever a player cycles out, the scoreboard doesn’t put them back on.  I can’t find Sav’s stats after somebody serves for her.

You can tell by the running score that this set was close.  Lamar eventually took the lead, 9-6.  Much like this morning, they were still cleaning the court about every other point.  It really wasn’t that warm inside.  9-7 Lamar, Meg got her first kill after several swings.  11-7, Annika Slovak with the nice hair for Lamar served up an ace.  12-8 Lamar, after an out-serve by Natalie Mikels.  Timeout Aggies. 

12-9 Lamar, Ashley fired a crosscourt kill, but Lamar increased their lead to 15-11 after a couple of Aggie out-blocks.  15-12, Brigette Lowe came in.  She got some good playing time today.  16-14, Meg got her second kill.  Kiley Tonge came in to serve.  The Lamar reserves began an out-serve chant.  16-16, Meg hit the line with a kill.  17-17, Megan on a tip.  18-17 Aggies, Jules got a kill.  18-18, net serve by Halle.  This continued the tone from the UTEP game and yesterday.  The Aggies would score a couple of points and then commit a service error.

19-18 Aggies, Cat got a kill as two Lamar girls tripped over each other.  However, Lamar retook the lead.  After an ace at 21-19, the coach called another timeout.  22-20 Lamar, Cat had a net serve.  22-21, Jordan Pleasants came in to serve, but a double touch gave the Cardinals the lead at 23-21 lead.  24-21 Lamar, the Aggies were completely disorganized on this point.  They looked like a bad high school team.  Coach Jordan was furious.  24-22, Ash got the kill after a long rally.  Lamar had some great digging on it though to keep it going.  Lamar finally took Set 1, 25-22.

Set 2: Cardinals 1, Aggies 0

Lia Mosher started this set.  I’m not sure if she was in the first set.  Megan started Set 2 with a kill.  3-1 Aggies, Cat had a kill.  4-1, Halle put an untouched ace into the corner.  4-2, net serve.  Sigh.  The Aggies did add to their lead and went up 7-2.  A couple of Lamar fouls helped.  8-2, Sav got a kill.  Timeout Lamar.  During the break, one of the line judges seemed to be having an argument with the up official, probably over those foul calls.

The Aggies continued on their roll with a 10-5 kill by Cat.  Aggie blocking got into it with a point at 11-5.  12-5, Savannah’s cross-court kill hit the sideline.  12-7, Lamar got this point after an Ashley mis-hit.  She’d had mis-dig earlier in the set.  I was concerned about her.  13-7, Sav got the kill, but Jules served into the net on the next point.  14-8, Megan put down a kill with authority.  14-10, an Aggie DT.  15-10, Sav put one into an open court. 

15-11 Aggies, Sav net served.  The problem in the match wasn’t one bad server.  It was basically all of the Aggie servers doing the same thing: making two good serves, then making an error on the third one.  This was why it’s been almost impossible for them to come from behind in a set since last week.  15-12, Meg took a swing into the net.  She talked to Krysten Garrison about the set afterward.  16-12, Aggies with a block.  18-12, Lamar whiffed on a swing and had a player collision on the point. 

20-13 Aggies, Jules got the kill.  After, she thanked Krysten for the low set, which is where she likes it.  20-14, Nat made an out-serve.  Oh, my head.  21-14, Jules got another kill and Sav got a kill at 22-15.  23-16, Cat fired a fastball down the middle of the court.  24-17, Lia got a kill.  24-18, one more net serve by Sav, but Cat finished the set out with a kill.  Aggies took Set 2, 25-18.

Set 3: Cardinals 1, Aggies 1

Aggie Marketing staffer, Nicole had mentioned earlier that a “B” team was running the show today at the Pan-Am with Aggie going on.  I suddenly noticed that there was no “Flex-Cam,” or anything else, going on during the breaks except music.  The on-court action was plenty interesting enough.

Lamar took a 2-0 lead as the Aggies again looked confused on court.  They took a 3-1 lead after even more Aggie confusion.  3-2 Lamar, Jules got a kill, but Lamar increased their lead to 5-2 on a kill off the tape.  5-3 Lamar made an out-serve.  5-5, Krysten made a couple of good serves to tie it, but then had an out-serve.  Lamar followed that with an ace and then another out-serve.  11-8 Lamar, Sav made one of her trademark flying kills out of the backcourt.  (That’d make a good poster image.) 

11-9 Lamar, Natalie got an ace.  11-10 Lamar, Ash and Jules combined on a block.  The Aggie reserves finally got into it.  11-11, Ash hit the backline with heat.  Apparently, she was back to being okay.  12-11 Lamar, Nat, all together now, hit an out-serve.  12-12, Cat tied it on a kill.  13-13 Aggies, Sav got a kill.  Nat had a good pancake dig on the point.  Kiley came in to serve.  14-12, Ash with a kill.  15-12, Sav with an overpass dunk.  15-13, yet another Aggie serve into the net.  15-15, the Aggies took a timeout.

16-15 Aggies, Ash hit the far sideline.  17-16 Lamar, they got the block.  Kiley made a great save way off the court on the point.  18-16 Lamar, timeout Aggies.  A remix of Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight played.  That was pretty cool.  The Aggies started a comeback.  Ash had a tip, Meg had a kill, and Meg and Lia made a block.  21-18 Aggies, after a Lamar attack error.  Timeout Lamar. 

22-19 Aggies, Lamar made an out-serve.  Jordan P came in to serve.  23-19, the Aggies took the point after a long rally.  24-20, Meg had a kill.  24-21, Halle had an out-serve.  24-23, Lamar aced.  24-24, tied after a Lamar kill.  We went to extra points.  25-24 Aggies, Lia got the kill on a long rally.  26-25, a kill by Jules.  Kiley into serve.  26-26, Lamar libero Erin Pequeno made two great digs on this point.  (Don’t say I never cover the other team or notice their good plays.)  Finally, Megan puts an end to it with a kill, 28-26.  The Aggies finally managed to make a comeback in a set.   

Set 4: Aggies 2, Cardinals 1

Savannah and Coach Jordan had an extended chat about strategy before the set.  (I’m assuming they weren’t talking about dinner.  Coach: “How about I take the team over to Chuck E. Cheese if you guys win.”)  Coach Rubio talked to Megan.  Presumably, he was just telling her how great and beautiful she is and how grateful the coaching staff was to have her.  (At least that’s what I would have said.  They might have also been talking strategy.)

2-0 Aggies, they got some great digging on this point, as Sav finished it with a kill.  4-1, Sav’s serving run ended on a net serve.  Ron was able to predict these things before they’d happen by this point.  4-3, DT on the Aggies.  5-3, Meg dropped the hammer for the point.  6-4, Cat with a kill and, 7-5, Jules with a kill.  There was lengthy delay by the refs for some reason.  The play seemed pretty clear cut.  8-5, Sav kill.  Everybody’s in on it.  10-5, Cat with an ace.  Timeout Lamar.

During the break, Ron nudged me.  Mercedes Danrich of Lamar was seated on the floor by the bench with a couple of trainers and assistant coaches with her.  She was there for quite a while, before they transferred her to the training table.  There hadn’t been any obvious injuries on court.  Ron thought that maybe she’d collapsed offcourt, perhaps sick.  It was a troubling distraction.  A few minutes later, a couple of paramedics came in.  They worked with her for the rest of the match.  Eventually, she was sitting up with her head in a towel.  I think she was basically okay and they were just being careful with her.  

Back on court, 11-5 Aggies, Sav got a kill off the tape.  12-5, Cat made a great save on this point, as Sav got another kill.  12-6, Lamar finally won a point.  Cat had a great run on serve.  13-6, Ash went cross-court for the kill.  16-6, Meg and Ash had the block.  16-7, Meg had an out-swing, but that was a good run by Jules on serve.  That was two good service runs in a row. 

17-7 Aggies, Meg and Ash combined on a block.  19-9, Sav did her other trademark, a stutter step, right before hitting a kill.  Jordan G came in to serve and had an ace at 20-9.  Timeout Lamar.  20-10, net serve.  I can see where Coach Jordan is desperately trying to find a dependable sub server among his reserves.  From here, Lia and Cat had kills.  Brigette came in and combined with Jules for a block at 23-13.  She also got a kill off the tape at 24-15.  Analyssa Acosta came in to serve and Katie Birtcil came in with her.  25-17 and 3-1, the Aggies took the set and match as Katie finished it with a kill that deflected high into the stands.  The freshman has racked up another set-winning point (three that I know of).    

Four Aggies were in double figures (Savannah Davision 15, Megan Hart 11, Ashley Anselmo 11, Cat Kelly 13).  Julianna Salanoa had 8.  Obviously, attacking isn’t a problem for the Aggies.  Blocking was also good, going 10 to 3 for the Aggies.  Digs and passes were a lot better today.  It felt like the team had finally gotten into sync by the third set, but those 16 (!) service errors were killing them.  It felt like the whole team had a mental block on consistent serving.  Lamar had 9 aces, so service reception is still an issue.  

Lamar did a great job for Coach Kuester.  Abigale Nash led with 15 kills.  They just got overpowered once the Aggies got their act together.  Much like UTEP’s Coach Wallis, I’m sure she wanted to make a good showing against Coach Jordan.  Both visiting coaches took away another lesson from the master.

Ron was off to work, so no celebratory dinner.  There was smell of pizza in the air from the Dominos across the street just to make it worse.  There were also a few sprinkles, which probably drove away the crowd from Aggie Football.  (My dad said it actually rained.)  Those fans went to the wrong event if they wanted to see an Aggie win.   Aggie Football lost 31-10 to the Aztecs.  At 0-3, the team has not yet debarked from the struggle bus.  Coach Martin said something interesting in the pregame show: “The coach can lose the game, but only the players can win it.”  Something to think about, while I collapse in exhaustion from two weeks of live sports viewing and writing.