Aggie
Volleyball started off their season on the road with five matches.
They won two and lost three. They lost
to Georgia Tech (#14 in the nation) and
took a set off them. They also lost to Sacramento
State, after being up 2-0 in sets, and lost to San Francisco, 3-2. In other words, they were competitive. Sigh. We can only wonder how good this team would
have been with Ryleigh Whitekettle
playing.
For that matter, the team seems to have had a few more
subtractions. Setter Bianca Perez wasn’t suited up to play
this weekend. Setter Aspen Aldous was listed on the roster,
but nowhere to be seen. I wonder if she
got tired of not playing. Setter Peyton Castillo was also still
inactive. Good thing the team still has
three other setters. It’s like the coach
saw this coming. Also, legacy player, Mia Abalos, was off the roster. I was looking forward to chatting with her
about her big sister on Autograph Day.
There were six games scheduled for this Borderland Invite. I took this Friday off intending to see three
of the games today. Abilene Christian would be playing Arizona at 10:00am. I didn’t
think I’d be able to get up in time for it.
(Arizona won 3-0.)
Also, my dad attempted to volunteer me to help one of his
neighbors move in and said, “It’d only take an hour.” (It took all day, of course.) He’d forgotten about my back issues. I declined.
The next day, he called to tell me that I needed to go through my old
record albums, because he was going to sell them and mom’s collection on
Saturday to a collector that was coming over to look at them (which didn’t
actually happen). I had to show up for
that. When I got there, I had to make
some quick, painful decisions. Given
that I don’t have a record player (and dad doesn’t have a working one), I
should have let all of them go, but I had to keep a few discs for the covers or
included booklets.
For a 1:00pm Friday afternoon, it was light crowd. Some Abilene
Christian coaches were here to scout the game. Pistol
Pete was in attendance, but not the Cheerleaders. Our coaching staff, Tatyana Battle and Lia
Mosher, was seated on the bench chatting and laughing, probably about the
good old days when they playing. Coach Jordan had lamented in an
interview that he kept wishing he could have put them into some of the games.
I did not know who Texas
Southern was. Apparently, it’s an HBCU. Their team was all black (except for maybe
the setter). They all stood right up for
the Anthem, thus making USC’s
display last month look even worse.
Their coach all smiles and seemed very friendly with Coach Jordan. Somewhat confusingly, the team was wearing
white, crimson, and black for the match just like the Aggies.
Set 1
Given that I have four matches to recap for this weekend,
I’m going to cut out a lot of the fat on my play-by-play for this match (and
the next). The first set started off
11-1 for the Aggies and finished 25-10
Aggies. It was evident from early-on
that this match wasn’t going to be competitive.
At one point, a cushion fell off one of the side tables. Pete rushed over to take care of it.
Set
2: Aggies 1, Tigers 0
It seemed like some of the starters were rested in this
set and it was more competitive. Maggie Lightheart (our sweetheart) and Mia Fox were in. Bella
Castro was in at libero. Mia scored
a couple of kills early. At the Media
timeout, it was 15-13 Aggies, so it was close.
A bunch of Aggie fans in a group left at this point. (Lunch hour was over for them?) Pete was working his way around the Pan-Am Center individually greeting
fans. (It was that sparse.)
A few points later, Mia was hurt and had to come out. The Aggies did start to pull away. 19-15 Aggies, the Aggies won the point on a
long rally. Makayla Martinez had come in after a timeout and played
all-out. She had a great save on this
point and there were great plays on both sides before the Tigers got into the
net. Yasso Amin hammered a kill to finish the set, 25-19.
Set
3: Aggies 2, Tigers 0
The ball girls were dancing up a storm trying to get on
Dance Cam during the break. Mia was up
and walking, but didn’t come back in. Morgan Stewart was in at libero. From a group of girls across the court, some
girl screamed, “I love you, Rilen!” at setter, Rilen Garcia. We love you, too. She’d need that love later.
The Tigers were playing tough to start. They went up 2-6 early after a couple of
double touch calls on the Aggies. Maggie
made a huge block and got a big cheer from the crowd to make it, 6-8
Tigers. A couple of Aggie service errors
gave the Tigers back a four-point lead.
Kills by Maggie and Yasso brought it to 11-13 Tigers, and they took a
timeout.
After the break, Yasso tied it at 13 on a set by
Morgan. Yasso tied it again at 15 on an
overpass. The Aggies were up 18-17, but
lost this point to the Tigers. Coach
Jordan had been fairly passive during this match, but finally exploded when
Rilen had touched a ball going out and yelled at her from across the
court. He didn’t take her out, but she
was in his doghouse.
This did seem to fire up the team. Kills by Yasso and Maggie and a block by
Maggie and Aleka Darko put the
Aggies up, 21-18. Rilen put in a setter
dump to make it, 22-18, but the Tigers returned the favor with a dump to make
it 23-21. Kills by Kacia Brown and Starr
Williams ended the set, 25-22,
and the match, 3-0 Aggies.
The scoreboard was sort of useless for stats, which had to
get later. Yasso Amin led with 10 kills, Ashley
Herman and Starr Williams each had
8. Maggie
Lightheart actually led in digs (7).
The stat of the match was hitting percentage. The Aggies were hitting .396. The Tigers were hitting .113.
At this point, I left to go across the street for lunch at
Dominos. I glanced at the promotional video board
outside of the Pan-Am Center and saw that the game hadn’t even taken 90
minutes. Today’s schedule had allotted
three hours for each match, so I had plenty of time until the next match.
I got a Chicken
Bacon Ranch sandwich and it was delicious.
I thanked the cook. I still had
plenty of time. Oh, boy. I was starting to regret not skipping the
next match and going home and then coming back for the Aggie match in the
evening. I called three people. One of them answered and I chatted with my
co-worker for 20 minutes until I went back in.
Arizona
Wildcats vs Texas Southern Tigers
The Tigers drew the short straw having to play
back-to-back matches. The arena was
nearly deserted for this one. Imagine my
surprise that another co-worker came in with her family and sat down below
me. She might have been there to root
for Arizona. Some of the Aggie players were up in one of
the suites and were eating their lunches.
AZ has three fairly handsome young men on their staff. I’m not implying anything, but I haven’t seen
this on most volleyball teams (probably for a good reason, given the good-looking
girls on the teams).
Set 1
I made a bunch of notes for the previous match and didn’t
use them. Here, I barely bothered with
any play-by-play. This match started
with three service errors and a lengthy delay because the scoreboard was
wrong. (I was now really regretting not
going home.) The Tigers kept it close in
the beginning. At 8-6 AZ, the Wildcats
took a timeout. 13-10 AZ, a Wildcat player
made a one-handed save that became a set for a kill. Arizona eventually pulled away and took the
set, 25-16.
Set
2: Wildcats 1, Tigers 0
Arizona’s reserves were very spirited throughout the
match, choreographed at times even. At
one point after a block, they shouted, “She said, ‘No!’” At another point, the referee did warn them
to stay off the court in their celebrations.
Abilene Christian’s staff was present.
It didn’t seem like they were scouting.
Taty and Lia came in late to watch.
They didn’t seem to be scouting much, either. AZ’s setter, Ana Heath, scored two kills, including the set-winner, 25-16.
Set
3: Wildcats 2, Tigers 0
Lia and Taty chatted with the ball girls before
leaving. These were the hardest-working
girls at the Pan-Am Center today and were here all day. AZ wasn’t screwing around at this point and
the Tigers were probably gassed by this point.
AZ went up 8-1 and the reserves were all smiles and getting louder. I think a few reserves got in a bit
later. Heath put in a power dump at 23-5
AZ. (Wait. That didn’t sound right. Meh.
Leave it.) Arizona took the set, 25-7, and the match, 3-0.
The reserves rushed the court in celebration? Was this a grudge match? Did the coach promise everyone ice cream if
they won in the three sets? Not to leak
any spoilers here, but Arizona didn’t act like this after playing NMSU on
Saturday. Should I feel insulted?
Wildcat, Jordan Wilson, led with 13 kills. The hitting percentage was even more
dominating than the Aggies’ game: Wildcats .402, Tigers .015. (God bless Texas Southern. They’re 0-9 to start the season.)
We’ve got ***one more match** to go today.
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