After two Aggie Soccer games that ended in draws (9-16-22
and 9-18-22),
I came real close to writing up one-page recaps for each. I never thought I’d consider doing that for
Aggie Volleyball, but here I am. Tonight
did not go well.
I will set the stage.
Going back to the Aggies’ road trip, Lia Mosher came up huge and was on the All-Tournament team. I got that from listening to the Aggie Coaches Show. Coach
Jordan also mentioned that Setter Alana
Embry was over her finger injury and played a bit. His scouting report on tonight’s opponent, UTRGV, was that they were as good as
their 11-4 suggested, even though they were a preseason pick for seventh in the
WAC.
Looking at their schedule, they didn’t seem to have beaten anyone
significant.
Ron and I went directly to the Pan-Am Center without the usual pregame meal or plans for a
postgame meal. We’d both eaten
beforehand. AD Mario Moccia had mentioned during the Coaches Show that there
was a free popcorn deal, if you bought a large drink. I took them up on that. A nice fellow, who had just got a beer, gave
Ron his free popcorn. So, we both made
out well.
Tonight’s game was on the radio. Unfortunately, Ron forgot his. I brought two. Unfortunately for me, the old one I was using
had nearly no charge in it. I had to
hope for the best. On court, Director of
Player Operations, Tatyana Battle,
looked elegant in a loose-fitting blouse and slacks. The Cheerleaders were practicing lifts. Cat
Kelly (I still don’t know what her position is with the team) recruited a
few girls to act as ball girls. I keep
waiting for her to recruit me. In return,
I’ll only ask for . . . we’ll negotiate it. (Ron will have to keep my notes.)
A good crowd came out for this first WAC contest. In the player introductions, the Vaqueros
looked fairly pleasant and athletic.
They are also a very international squad with 12 players from other
countries. This included their 5’2” Libero,
Regina Tijerina, from Mexico. Sarah
Cruz, the leading scorer in the conference, was from the Czech
Republic.
The lights went out and the spotlights came on for the
Aggies’ intro for the first time. The intro
video featured a honey shot of a smiling Darian
Markham, which got a big cheer. I
held my breath waiting for the lights to come back up. (There have been technical issues in the
past.) The girls tossed souvenir balls
into the crowd for the first time, too.
Set 1
After the match started, a lady next to me pointed out
that the scoreboard was still showing the stats from the last match (9-10-22)
and they weren’t right then either! The
teams weren’t doing much better. I think
the first six points had them both trading errors.
Alana did come in early to serve and set. She had a couple of double touches, but did
look athletic going for digs. Molly Johnson stood out for the Aggies
in kills, but she was the only one through much of the set. She kept them in it, but it was 12-15 UTRGV
at the Media timeout. On that point,
Darian actually tried kicking the ball over, not being in position to make a
dig. That is legal.
15-17 UTRGV, Lia got her first kill on a slam dunk on an
overpass. However, her and team kill
leader, Katie Birtcil, were getting
blocked or hitting out. Both teams weren’t
serving well in the set. Lia would come
back with a couple of encouraging kills with her signature “bearpaw” slap, but
the Aggies fell behind about half through and never recovered. 19-25
UTRGV. During a timeout, the camera
showed a girl with a handmade sign for reserve player, Kayleigh Thomas. I keep
wanting to see the redhead play.
Set
2: Vaqueros 1, Aggies 0
Not getting enough offense, Coach Jordan put in Jayde Shelton and Mia Peterson (pictured nicely at the top), to mix it up.
Alana also started. After the
Aggies had made three out shots, the Coach put in Bianca Perez to set. He
spoke to Alana on the sidelines for a while, not angry-looking though. Down 0-5, the Aggies took a timeout. Losing the next point, the Coach sent Katie
over to talk to the up official to argue.
The official gave him a Yellow Card.
3-6, Katie got her first kill off a block. Molly continued to get the kills and a couple
of blocks. Mia kept firing out, until
the Coach took out her and talked to her on the sidelines. Darian made a couple of heroic saves. At 11-16, freshman Anji Vishwanathan from the reserves came in. I should mention that Ryleigh Whitekettle was unavailable tonight. Given the number of arms on the team, that
didn’t seem like a big deal when it was announced at the beginning of the
match. Katie added a couple more kills,
as well as kills chipped in by others, but they never recovered from that bad
opening. UTRGV took it 19-25.
Set
3: Vaqueros 2, Aggies 0
I ran to the bathroom.
Today I’d had two large cups of water, three cups of McAlisters sweet tea (I went with dad
for lunch there and had a great sandwich), and I was drinking a large raspberry
tea here. I felt like I’d been in the
bathroom all day. I ran into AD Mario on
the way back and said, “Hi.” He didn’t
look happy. I finally heard the PA play Jump in the Line for the first time. I also passed by a guy admiring one a souvenir
ball that he’d caught. I already have a
ball (9-8-21). They’re magical.
Kacia
Brown was now starting.
Lia started off with a kill. The
Vaqueros were called for being out-of-rotation next. 3-1 Aggies, Kacia got her first kill. However, the Aggies committed their seventh
service error and tied the score at 3.
Anji and Jayde combined on a block to tie it at 6. Anji got her first kill on a tip, as UTRGV
started to pull ahead, 7-10. Under the
net, Katie and some Vaquero players shared a laugh. I have no idea why.
9-10 Alana connected with Lia for a pretty kill. Unfortunately, Rylee Fay missed the connection with Lia for a whiff, 10-14. Morgan
Stewart briefly came in for defense.
Ron and I were pleased to see her, but in this circumstance, as it
looked like the Coach was throwing in the towel. By 13-19, UTRGV was sending in their
reserves.
14-19 Molly got a kill that painted the line. UTRGV challenged the call. Their reserves started dancing a doe-see-doe
to the PA music. They then started “swimming”
on top of each other. I don’t know what
that was all about. Call upheld, and Sydney McIntosh came in for the Aggies. I noticed the girl waving the sign and could
see the back of it. It said, “I love
you,” to a named official. I don’t know
if said official was there, or if this was a reused piece of poster board. (I also saw this girl afterward with a
souvenir ball.)
15-22 Alana missed Lia on a set. This was really bad. 19-23 Lia and Kacia combined on a block. 22-24 Kacia and Molly combined on a
block. That was as close as it got. Rylee and Katie aced in the set, but the
match ended on the Aggies’ tenth service error.
22-25 and 0-3 UTRGV sweeps it.
Well, Molly Johnson
had 9 kills and Sarah Cruz was held
to 7 kills. (In fact, nobody had double
digit kills.) That’s all the positives
for the Aggies. The stats were actually
oddly equal, except for having more than double the number of service errors. It was nice to see Alana back in action,
kinda.
My radio gave out late in the third set, which was way
longer than I thought it would last. At
the end of the match, I grabbed Ron’s to hear the postgame interview with the
Coach. Immediately upon plugging it in,
I heard Coach Jordan calling this the “Worst performance he’d ever seen from
one of his teams.” He also called it, “Tragic.” He didn’t even credit UTRGV with playing particularly
well in the win. Broadcaster Adam Young called the Coach’s comments,
“Candid.” Meanwhile, the team was in a
huddle and cheering about something. The
girl with the sign was there with them. At
least they weren’t overly upset about the loss.
I’m not qualified to critique, but I’ll hand out these
observations. There’s lots of good
players here, but they’re not playing as a team. At some positions, the Coach doesn’t seem to
be able to choose. Working out three Setters
this week clearly diminished all of them.
This sort of reminds me of the Football
team’s problem, as they keep switching between two quarterbacks. The players are the ones playing, but personnel
decisions and training are on the coach.
You have to put the right ones in the right combination. If the players aren’t sorting it out, the
coach has to.
Personally, I was in shock. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them go
three-and-out on their home court in conference. It usually takes a PAC-12 team to do that. Ron
was numb. The rest of the crowd may have
been as well. It only took an hour-and-a-half. At least the beat down was quick. I’m writing and posting this quickly to get
it out of my system. I hope the girls
are doing the same before their next match on Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment