Springhill Suites Invitational Grambling vs Portland Volleyball 9-13-19

She pressed her wet naked body against that of her quivering teammate.  “You know you want me,” she whispered in her ear.  “No.  I can’t.  I mustn’t,” she protested,” “But, I . . . I . . .”

Oh, what a time for writer’s block!  I know I promised to devote this blog to hot Aggie Sportswomen fanfiction because of yesterday’s soccer match, but it’s just not happening today.  Maybe some other time.  (And let this be a warning to Aggie teams to not lose, otherwise I might pick this up again.)  Well, may as well recap this volleyball game I went to this morning instead.       

13.  That was my last count of the number of people in attendance for this Friday morning game between the Portland Pilots and the Grambling State Tigers.  There may have been more people working at the Pan-Am Center than fans.  I’d had a good night’s sleep and was in a better mood than yesterday, but getting up early and out of my usual routine left me a little disoriented this morning.  I found my way to Danny, where we had a section to ourselves.

Coach Jordan was there.  He was chatting with the opposing coaches.  I get the impression he’s friends with Grambling Coach Demetria Keys-Johnson, which might be why they’ve been invited here.  She was their only coach with no assistants, even graduate students.  Grambling had two small groups of fans in attendance, but they weren’t sitting together.  Coach Hertel was also here to do some scouting for the Aggies.  For the player introductions, both teams fist-bumped the officials and went over to shake hands with the opposing coach.    

Set 1

I wasn’t sure how to time out events today for my own schedule with a four-hour gap between the first two games.  I will say, after seeing Grambling last year (9-4-18), I was sort of expecting a three-set match.  I want to try and be fair and sensitive to the Grambling players, so I’ll void some obvious observations about them in general, but I’m really biting my tongue here.  Suffice it say, I’d like everyone I see out on court to play well . . . as long as they lose to the Aggies.  (Really.  Beating a bad team isn’t much of an accomplishment.)

Grambling did look better at times during this match than last year, but were still taking some very poor swings and making bad decisions.  They were blocking reasonably well.  Wow, suddenly it was 11-5 Portland.  (I was really out of it.)  On the Aggie Coaches Show, Coach Rubio and Adam Young had tapped Portland as the best team invited (Lamar being the other team).  I’d noticed Shayla Hoeft during warm-ups, who’d won this point on a kill to the back corner.  She was tall, well-built, and pretty in a Julianna Salanoa sort of way.  Shayla also hit hard.  Her and several other girls on the team are from Hawaii, though Shayla didn’t look like an islander.

Once again, there were ball-kid issues and they were using Pan-Am staff instead.  They were short a ball handler for this match, which caused some ball transfer problems.  19-10 Portland, Grambling took a timeout.  Coach Hertel had seen enough and left at this point.  Beautiful Megan Hart from the Aggies came in and sat down at the scorer’s table and delivered coffee to a friend there.  6’5” and glamorous, she makes an entrance everywhere she goes.  Portland took Set 1, 25-11.

Set 2: Portland 1, Grambling 0

Portland’s Katie Barker dunked one for the first point of the second set.  Jayde Harris made a nice hard push tip to make it 2-1 Portland.  4-3 Portland, Grambling made a nice kill through Portland’s blocking.  (I was having trouble catching player numbers on their black uniforms.  Their numbers weren’t standing out.)  5-5, Grambling had some good blocking and got a cross-court kill.  7-5 Portland, Katie dunked on an overpass.  11-7 Portland, Liz Reich had a good kill for the Pilots.  11-8, Grambling got a nice tip over the Portland blockers. 

14-9 Portland, Shayla came in with a flying kill.  19-14 Portland, Grambling went on a run.  20-15, Katie got a nice tip kill.  22-16, Shayla got a tip through two blockers.  23-19 Portland, Grambling went on another run.  24-19, Jayde got a kill, and Portland finished it out, 25-19.

Set 3: Portland 2, Grambling 0

There was a full five-minute halftime.  Grambling went into the visiting locker room.  Portland stayed out on court.  Hey, the Talking Head’s This Must Be the Place played on the PA, one of my favs.  PA Ed went over to chat with Megan.  I think he was miming out one of her shots at one point.  He must be a fan of hers too.

Back to play, 3-1 Grambling, they took a lead in a set and increased it to 5-1.  Portland took a timeout.  It went to 6-1 on a good block, and 7-1 on a kill.  Their reserves were fired up.  7-2, Katie made a two-handed tip to break the run.  7-3, Claire Forrest had a tip for Portland.  8-5, Kassidy Naone had a kill.  She’s one of Portland’s better servers.  I noticed Coach Jordan up in the shadows watching now.

8-8, Shayla and Claire combined for a block into a campfire of Grambling players.  9-8, Grambling got the lead back on a block.  Kiley Tonge came in to sit with Megan.  They must be good friends.  9-9, Shayla and Claire again on a block.  10-9, Portland got the lead back on a kill by Shayla.  Timeout Grambling.  Their team made two huddles, one with the players on court and the other with the reserves. 

12-9 Portland, Shayla with another kill.  16-9, McKenzie Schwan, a pretty red-head on Portland, went on a good serving run.  She got an ace here.  20-9 Portland, the Tigers took their other timeout.  McKenzie playfully grabbed Emily Demots rear end with both hands during the break.  20-10, Grambling finally broke her serve.  20-11, the Tigers got a point on a touch.  Their reserves were shouting out encouragement. 

21-11 Portland, there were some Grambling parents seated in a section up behind me and Danny.  He’d chatted with them earlier.  Here, they started heckling one of the refs over a missed call.  They gave him the business and it wasn’t like there was any crowd noise to drown them out.  21-12, though the Tigers won the point, their coach sent their captain to argue with the up official.  The down official started talking to the scorer, but nothing happened that I could tell.  24-14, a Portland serve didn’t reach the net.  Maybe some nerves on a set point.  Katie finished it out with a kill.  Portland took it 25-14 and 3-0.       

Well, I might have been better off continuing the fanfiction.  It was nice to see Megan.  It was also nice to meet Shayla Hoeft.  She is a lavish stack of beauty and an exciting player to watch.  (I’m a cheating traitor here, aren’t I?)  She had 13 kills.  The Pilots looked pretty efficient against a poor opponent.  (Boy, am I going to be regretting those words later this evening.)  Looking at the program, I noticed Grambling does have a win.  I have to ask, who did they beat?  That didn’t even take an hour-and-a-half.  I went back home for lunch before this afternoon’s match.