Set 4: Aggies 2, Gamecocks 1
The up official had a chat with the Softball girls between sets. It seemed friendly. JS took the first point of the fourth set after another insane rally. The teams traded service errors. Gamecock Kayla Williams blocked Starr Williams to give them a 1-3 lead.
A JS service error and an Ashley Herman touch kill got it to 3-4 JS, but a service error by Rilen Garcia made it 3-5. Mari Sharp and Yasso Amin made kills to tie it at 5. The PA was in to it calling the kills. A double touch gave the Aggies the lead, but a service error by Mari and a JS ace gave the Gamecocks back the lead. There was some confusion on who was supposed to receive that ace. Kacia Brown aced to tie it at 8 and then handed it right back on a service error.
Yasso tooled a block to tie it at 9. An Aggie foul gave JS back the lead, but Yasso tied it at 10 with a kill. Makayla Martinez then had a service error. I think that was all of the Aggie starters making a service error this set. A lift was then called on the Aggies to give JS a two-point lead. Starr had kill and Mari hit the backline to tie it at 12. A JS service error tied it at 13. A four touches call gave the Aggies a 14-13 lead. JS took a timeout.
In the break, Pistol Pete tossed out some mini-footballs with PA Ed. He’d come by to watch some of the game before going over to call the football game. He’s a fan. Yasso went by and said, “Hi,” to him. Out of the break, Rilen had a service error to put JS in the lead, and then JS returned the favor likewise, 15-14 Aggies. Okay, after 9 service errors in this set, I think we can say both teams were playing tight, but they finally worked it out of their system by this point.
16-14 Aggies, Yasso had a kill. Brooklyn Schiffli on Jax State went hard into the metal plate in front of the sideline table going after the ball. She was okay. The girls were going all out. That lead wouldn’t last. JS had a kill to make it 16-17. Now, Coach Jordan looked mad. Yasso came back and tied it at 17 with a kill. Ash put the Aggies up on a kill, 18-17, off a set by Kacia. Nicole Briggs dunked an overpass, but a JS setter dump brought the Gamecocks within 1. After six JS challenges, Coach Jordan decided to do one and the call was overturned, 20-17 Aggies. During the break, a couple of little girls were playing catch with a mini-football. Neither could catch, but they were having a good time.
JS got within a point anyway on a block off Yasso, 20-19. Timeout Aggies. A little girl sitting behind the bench with her friends was put on camera and wished “Happy Birthday,” by the PA. It was 22-19 Aggies after long swing by JS. The team wanted their coach to challenge, but got a timeout instead. (Was he finally out of timeouts by this point?) Back to play, JS put one into the antenna, Nicole made a block, and Yasso had the finishing kill. Aggies win 25-21 and 3-1. What a workout and all I was doing was writing about it!
The Hitting percentage for the match was .112% to .250% for the Aggies, but JS was way up in blocks, 11-6. Here’s your stat of the match, though. The Aggies had 8 aces to 9 service errors. The Gamecocks had 5 aces to 14 service errors. As bad as the Aggies were serving in the last set, Jax State killed themselves at the service line.
The Gamecocks were paced by Kayla Williams with 18 kills and our lovely Finnish player, Sanni Rantanen, had 14. Yasso Amin led the Aggies with 15 kills. Starr Williams had 12. Libero Darian Markham finished her last home game with 20 digs and the all-time record. I have to single out Nicole Briggs, who was dominating in Set 1. She had 6 kills and 4 blocks and was hitting .556. Today, you really saw that flash of potential. I hope she’s got more of that for the rest of her final season.
Lastly, we had 7 challenges with 4 reverses. Six were by the JS Coach Derek Schroeder, who was doing whatever he could to get his team a victory today. They’ve had a rough season at 1-15 in conference. He did a good job getting them fired up to play, that’s for sure. However, clearly the refs weren’t having a good day. The pretty line judge wasn’t working today like she was yesterday. Coincidence?
Senior Day Ceremony
This is going to take a minute with seven graduates. Broadcaster Adam Young recorded a voiceover listing the players’ accomplishments. Sydney McIntosh always seemed to have potential, but was overshadowed by other hitters on the team. She unfortunately spent this season on the shelf injured.
On that matter, Ryleigh Whitekettle’s injury wrecked the team. As much as other players stepped up, seeing your star player go down at the beginning of the season was crushing to morale and I don’t think they recovered. Possibly worse, I don’t know if they’re beating WKU or UTEP or UNM this season even with her. I don’t know if Ryleigh is going to play as a graduate here, or somewhere else, or not at all, but she finishes her career awesome in any case.
I always thought of Aleka Darko as our little blocking machine. (She’s not little. I’m just being endearing.) She had the best smile on the team since Briana Ainsworth and that’s saying something. I think my dad likes her, too. A weeping Rilen brought flowers out to her. I wouldn’t have picked her as sentimental. Nicole Briggs . . . just one more year, please! I’ll make the Coach focus the offense around you. She’s a transfer portal heartbreaker.
Yasso Amin is another one. When she’s on, she’s been so good. What a great transfer! She’s also working on her second degree in Kinesiology. (Individualized Studies was most of the other girls’ majors.) Kacia Brown was definitely one of those players who stepped up this season. Between hitting, blocking, and serving, she’s had big play after big play all year. Ashley brought flowers out to her and gave her a big hug and was obviously holding back tears.
I’ve seen Mari Sharp as the captain. She’s basically out there on every point, which means she can hit, block, dig, and serve at a high level. Mari helps other players be great, because the other team can’t ignore her on any point. She’s getting a degree in Public Health. Mari came strutting out wearing cowboy boots, but her presumed sister stole the show in tight, shiny black leather pants and spiked heels.
Legendary broadcaster Jack Nixon did the voiceover for Darian Markham’s career, which seemed appropriate. This was a double dip was Darian. She got her Senior Ceremony last year **(11-4-23)***, before she decided to come back. Instead of a framed jersey, this time she got a pair of signed volleyballs. I’ll repeat what I wrote about Darian last year. The Coach praised her effort in doing so much on court. He turned to the team, “She’s doing so many jobs that aren’t being done.” Ouch!
Perhaps because of the number of graduates, they didn’t do their usual ceremony, where the Coach says something about each girl and then they get an opportunity to give a farewell speech. Usually, there’s lots of tears, “thank you’s,” and some gentle ribbing. This time, an angry Coach Jordan took the microphone and said how proud he is that the program turns out exceptional young women, who will be successful in whatever they do after schooling. He then delivered an ultimatum that this senior class needs to take the team to an NCAA birth. Mic drop. Well . . . that took everyone by surprise. I’ll give updates on the team in later posts.
Other College Sports
This post has gone on way too long, so why stop? Dad mentioned the former Aggie star quarterback and Vanderbilt QB, Diego Pavia, was suing the NCAA. It’s something about NIL eligibility. Vanderbilt lost this weekend and only scored one touchdown. Diego needs to concentrate on football, not lawsuits.
I watched some of a college football game back at dad’s apartment after we went out for pizza at Dominos. That was just what I needed, to spend nearly $30 on an okay large pepperoni pizza and parmesan knots. I’m not a Domino’s fan, but dad wanted pizza and it was on the way home. Also, I was too hungry to lobby for a better pizza. There was a ticker update on Aggie Football’s game against WKU. They were down 14 points five minutes into the game.
When I got back home, I noticed UTEP Football was leading late against Kennesaw State on the ticker. (I was still watching football at home.) I decided to listen to that game on the radio first, thinking it would be over quick. They were not on KROD AM as usual. They were doing a postgame show on a Miner Men’s Basketball game. The hosts extremely salty over a 89-60 loss to Utah Valley. Yeah guys, you’re going to do great in the Mountain West conference, especially the way you’re “handling” a “pathetic” WAC foe.
I remembered hearing something about the football game being on KLAQ FM. For a game almost over, this game ended up taking over a half hour. KS tied it. UTEP had a chance to win it with a long field goal, missed it, but got a penalty and a closer re-kick that also missed. The Miners finally won it, 43-35, but it took double overtime.
I then turned over to Aggie Football, sort of reluctantly, but the Aggies had mounted a comeback to get within 3 points. Unfortunately, they were unable to tie it and WKU pulled away, 41-28. The Aggie defense was actually decent, but 20 points off of 5 offensive turnovers did them in. It’s all coming down to that last game against UTEP for both programs. At least the crowd got fireworks afterward.
The call-in postgame show featured a couple of angry fans, probably season ticket holders. They cannot bear the thought of this team regressing back to sub-.500, after two straight years of going to bowl games. I kept listening thinking they were going to hand it off to Aggie Men’s Basketball for their game against Utah Tech, but there was no coverage. Volleyball had zero broadcast coverage this weekend and they had nobody available to broadcast basketball with Jack and Adam doing football. This is a problem, but at least the important thing was that the Aggies won 75-63 on the road, which was a bug-a-boo for them last season.
No comments:
Post a Comment