loyalundfan

Lots of thoughts: Fun game to watch. Lots of challenges and almost a 3 hour match, so exactly what you’d expect from a rivalry game. Errors seemed to be the story. NDSU had a lot of hitting and serving errors the first 2 sets, but squeaked a win in set 2 because Lopez won 3 challenges. NDSU had 12 blocks to UND’s 3 during the 3rd set. NDSU would have won that by 8 points if they could have kept their serves in. Stockman was on fire the first set, but UND quit setting her until the 4th, which then they won easily. Not sure if it was due to not passing well or what. UND didn’t get anything from their other middles! NDSU pulled their setter in the 4th, it looked like Lopez wanted to light a fire under her butt, which worked because she was GOOD in the 5th. Set 5 UND just fell apart. Couldn’t pass, miscommunications, and hitting errors. Norris, Olson, and Stockman were really good, no one else did much. Hornyak got smoked in the face during set 3, laid on the floor for 30 seconds and the trainer didn’t even take her off the court. Looked like an easy concussion to me, but they didn’t even run her through the tests…. She seemed pretty out of it the rest of the match, so hopefully it isn’t another Chwialkowski situation like last year.

I’m getting ready for a crazy back end of conference!!! Team is playing well, I’d love to see them knock off 2 of the top 4 (I think they can do it too.) There are usually a couple upsets pre conference tournament. Plus USD starting setter in a boot, so Tuesday could be fun! Let’s park the Betty for the top conference teams in November!!!

I think they have the potential to compete for a top 3 spot in the next 4/6 years. They are one of two D1 schools in MN (gophers being the other). Beautiful campus in St. Paul. Private school = really nice facilities. The best of the best go to the U of M, but I could see them getting the next tier of recruits (especially if they want to stay close to home). And for volleyball that is some really really good talent, as MN is a top 5 state for volleyball recruiting. Tonight’s match was fun to watch. Notices Lipetzki played for Ortqvist, and McCormick took the libero spot for Carney after 2 sets. Looks like they are still working through a few things, but they played hard, and had a nice distribution, good serving, and the crowd is getting there!

Omaha looked really good… they must have had a bad road trip to the South Dakota’s to start conference. They haven’t dropped a set since. NDSU beat Denver in 3 last night, so hoping we can pull one off and come home 1-1 this weekend!

It was only on the NDSU website. $7 to watch, with no commentary. Summit league needs to get their sh*t together and put all games in one platform. It’s ridiculous that if you want to watch all UND games, you have to pay and subscribe to all other teams platforms, some are free, some are not. I’d be willing to guess there would be a bunch of people willing to pay a yearly price to watch all Summit league games. Big Sky figured it out at had all conference games on peacock/whatever. also, horns down!

We couldn’t have scheduled a better start to conference play! Build up the ladies confidence with wins over the lower half of the conference and hopefully they can keep the momentum into the conference tournament! A win in the conference tournament would be icing on the cake after this seasons turn around. Serve and pass looks so much better, and you can win a lot of games if you are better in those two areas!

SDSU is pretty good this year, they beat Omaha in 5 this past weekend. Some good flashes last night, blocking was rough, and couldn’t dig a tip. A few “freshmen at home” moments. Serving and passing has improved immensely, and that will hopefully get us a win Thursday. side note: NDSU beat South Dakota last night in 5! :0

Looks like Sewell was sick last weekend so I’m guessing she’ll be back setting in the 6-2 with Norris, and Karney will move back to DS/L. He seems set with the 6-2, a lot of high level teams are using it too, it just gives you 3 options all the time. If you don’t have a middle that can run well behind it also eliminates the need for that. Plus if Norris set in the front row, Olson wouldn’t play (and she’s a stud). Tonight’s game might be on the WIU broadcast, website looks promising…

I thought they looked a little better than the first two tournaments. Showed some fight when they could have rolled over. Coach doesn’t seem to like calling time outs, wonder what the reason for that is?

Almost every set had a different line up. 8 returners, 9 newcomers. I’m guessing it was a real “preseason” tournament, with focus on figuring out who can perform in a match setting, and trying out players in different positions. No time outs taken in the first two 0-3 losses, coach wants to see how team members respond. It’ll be interesting to see how long this trend continues into non conference play.

0-3 to Montana this morning. Started out strong. Two close sets, just too many errors to finish them out. Passing struggled in set 3. Blocking looked pretty solid!

Any news on the newest (male) assistant coach that was hired a couple weeks ago? Saw the press release and was impressed, but now nothing. Everything has been deleted.