UDPride Discussion Forums    
     

Go Back   UDPride Discussion Forums > LATEST ARTICLES > UDPride Articles

UDPride Articles Published content from your UDPride staff

» Log in
User Name:

Password:

Not a member yet?
Register Now!
» Advertisement
Comment
 
Article Tools Display Modes
It's Volleyball Tournament Time
It's Volleyball Tournament Time
UDBrian
Published by UDBrian
12-03-2010
It's Volleyball Tournament Time

DAYTON (OH) -- If there is one thing you hope for when the ncaa tournament begins it is that you are peaking and ready to play your best in the ncaa tournament.

This UD team is different than teams in years past and it began before the season started. They had high expectations when last year ended but the team was suddenly left without a setter after a terrible tragedy and a transfer.

Jessica Yanz was granted another year of elegibility to play at UD and the goals were raised even higher. Regardless of what happens in the tournament this is the best team UD has fielded in recent history. They are deep, balanced on offense and do not have any major weaknesses.
They have also improved nearly every week of the season.

The team was cruising along after three early losses to top 10 teams but Kelly made a lineup change. It is unusual that a lineup change is made late in the season because it may or may not work out well.

Here is what he had to say about it: "Prior to (the charlotte match) we had our outsides following the setter (which most teams do), now we have our middles following the setter. There's quite a few things that it does, it has Kray (Rachel Krabacher) attacking on the right in two serve receive rotations, which she does very well. It is Yvonne (Marten) attacking on the left for two rotations. It puts our better servers with our better blockers, which means we have a better chance of scoring points in bunches. And then when we are serving, Yvonne will go to the right to block and Kray will go to the left to block. I think it puts people in positions of strengths a little more. There's pro's and con's to each of our lineups. But the numbers are telling me that this has been a good change".

One thing that we have noticed is that UD seems to be doing a much better job in out of system plays than earlier in the year. When I asked about Paige's great setting to the outside hitters now here is what Kelly had to say:

"We work on our out of system attacking every single day. I told the team yesterday that going into the season I thought this was our biggest weakness and thought by the end of the year we just needed to become an average team in this area. Well, I think we are better than average at it, I think this has become an area of strength for us. Paige was setting who could get the job done. Our front row attacking was not scoring, so we went back a lot early. Right now our attackers are being aggressive, taking big swings, and getting the ball in the area of the court that they need to when we are out of system. No area of our game has seen more dramatic improvement"

As I mentioned earlier it has been impressive that regardless of the opponent this team has improved nearly every week. When asked about the continued improvement this is what Kelly had to say:

"We have the fewest passing errors than anyone in the Top 25 - by far. And we pass with 2. Our two passers have become studs for us. Our serving is a lot better than it was at the beginning of the year. We are converting off of our digs at a higher percentage - especially when Jess is digging the ball. We really had trouble scoring early in the year when she had to dig. Most teams gameplan to hit to her, mostly to take out our middles in transition. We are handling this a lot better".

There are four very good volleyball teams playing at the Frerick's Center this weekend. Ohio State and Lipscomb will play first for the opportunity to play the winner of the Dayton/Butler match.

When you are playing three teams who are foreign to you it is absolutely necessary to analyze their strengths, weaknesses and tendencies using game film. Here is what coach Sheffield had to say concerning his study of the three other teams in the tournament:

"We've watched a lot of film. Every single match (hundreds) that was on TV anywhere in the country this season, we have. That's quite a few OSU, but not a lot of Butler or Lipscomb. We still have plenty of video of both of those teams though. We started breaking the teams down an hour after the selection show. All four teams are lead by seniors. All four teams are having great years, which all means that the quality of the matches this weekend should be extremely high. Butler has an outside hitter that gets a lot of sets (more than the next two attackers combined). We will need to slow her down. They are athletic in some positions and has a setter that does a lot of attacking. They place shots very well and are going to put some stress on our back-court.

Lipscomb has been in this environment quite a bit the past few years. They are a little smaller but they can ball. Great ball control team and high IQ. Middle is very good.

OSU has two of the hardest hitters in the Big 10 and one of the best servers in the country. We need to put a lot of pressure on them with our serving".

The team has done a good job focusing on the task at hand this year and right now that focus in on Butler who Dayton plays on Friday. Butler is an experienced team led by a tremendous senior 6'2" outside hitter (mentioned by Kelly). Here are the hitting stats on Butler

1st person to slow down
Jessica Wolfe, 6'2" outside hitter, Horizon League Tournament MVP, AVCA Honorable mention all american, AVCA Midwest Region Team. She had 4.13 kills per set and hit .232 with 1381 total attempts. Compare that versus Rachel Krabacher's 913 attempts and Amanda Cowdrey's 802 attempts.

Other key offensive players include:

Maureen Bamiro 6'2" MB had 2.79 kills per set and hit .295 with 716 total attempts

Maggie Harbison 6'1" freshman OH/MB had 2.03 kills per set and hit .157 with 688 total attempts

Claire Randich 6' freshman MB had 1.73 kills per set and hit .308 with 390 total attempts

Susan Lester had 1.63 kills per set and hit .109 with 459 total attempts

If UD can slow down Jessica Wolfe the overall hitting stats favor UD

For the year Butler is hitting .211 versus UD hitting .260 and rising.
Butler is holding their opponents to .169 versus UD holding it's opponents to .121

Butler has hitting 596 errors versus UD having 430

Butler's oppenents have 668 errors versus UD's opponents having 678

UD has a statistical edge in blocking with 2.99 blocks per set versus Butler averaging 2.3 blocks per set.

The statistics favor UD in this match but we need to play well for a victory.

I urge anyone who hasn't attended a volleyball match to make this your first one. Here is what Kelly had to say about coming to tonight's match:

Get your butt to Frericks, wear red, open your mouth, and have fun.


See you at the Frerick's Center tonight.
Article Tools
Comment

Article Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.1

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:02 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.6
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Advertisement System V2.6 By   Branden

Article powered by GARS 2.1.8m ©2005-2006

     
 
Copyright 1996-2012 UDPride.com. All Rights Reserved.