Other Gopher Sports
Minnesota had one of their worst weekends of the past several years, being swept by Ohio State before being dismantled by Penn State at the Sports Pavilion. Today, the Gophers bounced back with a sweep of lowly Iowa. Minnesota heads home this weekend to face Indiana in a match on Saturday night in Williams Arena.
Against Ohio State on Friday, Minnesota hung with the Buckeyes in each game but was unable to put together any significant run to capture any stanza. Ohio State ended up taking the match 30-28 30-26 30-28. The Gophers played solid defense in games one and three against one of the league’s top hitting teams. Minnesota only managed to put together an offensive threat in game two and fittingly the defense failed to perform. The Gophers played in a 5-1 offensive formation in both matches this weekend, which may have affected the outcomes.
On Friday, Jessy Jones led the Gophers with 12 kills and 4 blocks. Sarah Florian had 12 kills and 9 digs.
The wheels fell off this Gopher team on Saturday in game one against #4 Penn State. The Nittany Lions jumped down Minnesota’s throat and throttled Hebert’s girls 30-9. It was easily the Gophers worst game performance of the rally-scoring era. For the game, Minnesota only mustered 4 kills while committing a stunning fifteen errors. Penn State rolled through the rest of the match with general ease, taking game two 30-17, Minnesota switched back to the 6-2 in game three and still lost 30-20. While Penn State has been playing fantastic volleyball of late, the result against the Lions was shocking to most in the Gopher program.
The Gophers hit negative for the match while Penn State hit a blistering .368. Jessy Jones was the lone Minnesota player to put anything together offensively, and she mustered only 5 kills while hitting .189. To compound the problem, Penn State received solid offensive and blocking contributions across the board, led by freshman hitter Nicole Fawcett who had 11 kills.
Minnesota continued with the 6-2 tonight in their three game sweep of Iowa. The Gophers managed a strong .287 hitting performance, while holding the Hawkeyes to .131 on the night. Meghan Cumpston led the team with 16 kills while hitting .297. Kelly Bowman had 8 kills 30 assists and 12 digs in the winning effort.
Unless the Gophers manage to put something together on the left-side before the postseason, it looks like the run of Final Fours will come crashing to an end. This is a team that has great ability to put away inferior opposition because of their strong defense, but the offense is not able to fluster strong teams such as Penn State.
Sarah Florian and Meghan Cumpston continue to put together sub-par hitting nights, and the Gophers will have a hard time setting the middles and right sides without fantastic passing. Last season, Erin Martin and Trisha Bratford were able to put away the point on long rallies, something that this year’s left-sides don’t seem capable of doing.
The Gophers head home this weekend to face off with the Hoosiers. Indiana should not bother Minnesota, and the Gophers already own a sweep over IU. The match will be in Williams Arena, while the timing is off to break last year’s attendance record, a good showing should be expected.