Other Gopher Sports
Volleyball fans definitely got their money’s worth at the Minneapolis regional this weekend. Just when you didn’t think that Friday’s classic against Georgia Tech could be matched, Stacey Gordon puts on a show for the ages, while Minnesota uses gutsy performances from three unlikely players to squeak into their second consecutive Final Four.
This season, the storyline for most of the Gopher matches were about Erin Martin’s kills, Paula Gentil’s defense and Kelly Bowman’s triple-doubles. Lost in the shuffle for most of the year was the rock of the team, senior setter Lindsey Taatjes. While the media and the fans oftentimes overlooked the contributions of the three year setter, the players and coaches knew just how valuable Lindsey Taatjes has been for Minnesota. On Saturday night, the rest of us got to see her shine. After a magnificent triple-double against Georgia Tech, Taatjes did not let up Saturday against Ohio State. For the match, Lindsey Taatjes hit an outstanding .552 with a career-high 18 kills, she also had 37 assists and 13 digs for her second career triple-double, and second of the weekend.
The second player who helped lead the Gophers into the Final Four was even more unlikely, freshman middle blocker Jessy Jones. While Jones was a highly recruited middle out of Illinois, due to the Gophers depth at the position she saw only limited playing time during the year. During the first three games, Minnesota had no answer for Stacey Gordon’s back row hitting. Going unblocked, Gordon racked up many kills that were simply too hard for the Minnesota back-row players to handle. After game three, Coach Hebert decided to insert Jessy Jones into the fray. Immediately, the 6’3 freshman, who had seen time in only 25 of Minnesota’s 132 games this season, was able to block one of Gordon’s back row attempts, in addition to getting touches on many more. With her touches slowing down the balls, the Gopher defense was able to save the ball which spearheaded the game four and five victories. Though her stat-line looks inconsequential, Jessy Jones is one of the reasons Minnesota is still alive in their national title quest.
The third unlikely player that contributed to the victory was sophomore defensive specialist Marci Peniata. While Peniata didn’t have a particularly remarkable day, she made one key play that stands out amongst the others. With the Gophers leading 33-32 in game two and out of subs, the 5’8 DS was forced to rotate into the front row to play the left-side hitting position. Even though it’s not overly rare to be forced to move a DS throw the front-row during long games (Lisa Reinhardt rotated through the front-row twice during the epic 46-48 game of Friday night), rarely are they called upon to make a kill. On this occasion, Peniata was set the ball, and she responded by tooling the block to send the Gophers into the locker room tied one game a piece.
While the Gopher used great performances from unlikely places, the Buckeyes relied on the greatest performance from the most likely of places. Senior Stacey Gordon, the Big Ten’s best player ever, finished her time at Ohio State with a career-high 44 kills while hitting .395. She also added 19 digs, 3 blocks and a service ace. Minnesota Volleyball fans will forever remember Gordon for her competitiveness and determination that was exhibited Friday night and throughout her career, an instant Ohio State and Big Ten legend.
Minnesota continues it’s quest for the National Title on Thursday night against the two-time defending National Champions, The University of Southern California. Unfortunately, ESPN does not carry the national semifinals live. The match will be shown on tape-delay on Friday at 2 pm, and will be able to be heard live on the radio and on gophersports.com at 10 pm on Thursday night.
I will preview the Gophers match-up with the Women of Troy on Wednesday or Thursday.