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Post by nyline on Sept 5, 2015 9:24:51 GMT -5
Match Preview: Penn State vs. Stanford Round 18.
Penn State (4-0) squares off against Stanford tonight in Rec Hall at 8:00 p.m. Stanford looked very good against a very good Illinois squad on Friday night, whereas Penn State looked anything but sharp in its 3-1 win over Colorado 25-19, 25-21, 25-18). The Buffs, who had a very difficult travel day on Thursday (with some kind of airplane cancellation that resulted in either a drive from Colorado or a drive from Detroit), hit .055 against the Nittany Lions, but Penn State didn’t do much better, hitting .172 as a team, with Megan Courtney hitting .056 (3 kills, 2 errors, 18 swings) and Ali Frantti hitting .000 (7 kills, 7 errors, 27 swings).
Here’s what Penn State Head Coach Russ Rose had to say after the Colorado match:
Here's a link to our Match Preview, with more quotes from Coach Rose, on DigNittanyVolleyball.com: Penn State vs. Stanford Round 18. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2015 19:43:10 GMT -5
Washington is playing like a stud...the level competition is surprising considering what we saw against Colorado.
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Post by treblejig on Sept 5, 2015 20:08:21 GMT -5
So much fun to watch!
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Post by nyline on Sept 5, 2015 20:45:28 GMT -5
It was a great team performance. I'll provide the post-match quptes either tonight or tomorrow morning. PSU hit .327 with 7 total blocks. Stanford hit .267 with 7 total blocks. |
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Post by psumaui on Sept 5, 2015 20:51:32 GMT -5
Best time to come together as a team! You could see they finally started to play for each other tonight! Stanford was just Howard and and their Freshman Hodson and as I said before, Penn State would key on their weak back court and boy did they! Lutz was barely in the picture tonight. Not too big of a challenge the next two weeks but they need to keep that intensity and not let up on those teams. Whitney was unstoppable but it wasn't hard to hit past blocks when she was hitting over them  |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2015 21:00:23 GMT -5
Not only has Rose won more National Championships than any other coach, he's able to get his team to play marginally for four straight games to surprise an opponent.
Where was this team? They looked fantastic. Weiskircher's setting was marvelous. The passing was so good that by the third set, she barely moved to make her sets.
This was a fun game to watch. The first this season. I guess I'll watch this one quite a bit over the two week dry spell. I hope Rose lets some of the other players get some time in over the next couple weeks.
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snj
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Post by snj on Sept 5, 2015 21:00:32 GMT -5
I am amazed. Still some chaos at times but so much better than the first 4 games. Stanford maybe not at their best tonight but still, A SWEEP...wow. Shows the potential, how good this PSU team could be. They will need to play this well to succeed against Illinois and Nebraska. This season looks to be quite a fun ride!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2015 21:12:08 GMT -5
The quick to Thelen near the end of the game shows a lot of promise.
I'm really excited at the possibilities.
I never expected a PSU sweep over Stanford.
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Post by psumaui on Sept 5, 2015 21:15:01 GMT -5
That was the rubber match at Rec Hall. We are now 2-1 at Rec Hall against the Cardinal and 10-8 overall.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2015 21:33:26 GMT -5
That was the rubber match at Rec Hall. We are now 2-1 at Rec Hall against the Cardinal and 10-8 overall. The PAC-12 hosts next year. Thinking it will be Colorado would just be too much good fortune (for me). Will UCLA be the second PAC-12 team again? Any ideas? |
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Post by psumaui on Sept 5, 2015 21:42:25 GMT -5
That was the rubber match at Rec Hall. We are now 2-1 at Rec Hall against the Cardinal and 10-8 overall. The PAC-12 hosts next year. Thinking it will be Colorado would just be too much good fortune (for me). Will UCLA be the second PAC-12 team again? Any ideas? I would say since Colorado stepped up when UCLA dropped out that Colorado should host next season. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2015 22:16:32 GMT -5
That would be too cool. I'd probably have to spend the night in Longmont or anywhere other than Boulder.
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Post by phillytom on Sept 5, 2015 23:28:32 GMT -5
1) I suspect PSU gameplanned for Burgess and sort of conceded Howard and Hodson (in a gameplan sense). Two scorers is not enough. Stanford needs at least one more and I'm not sure who it will be if PSU can defend Burgess. PSU may have to gameplan more for Hodson in the future. She is already the best player on that team (at least until Ajanaku is back).
2) I have to go watch it again but I suspect serving and passing pretty much determined the match, as it usually does. Weiskircher is kind of a deceptively tough server -- sprays the ball around, gets it to float, seems to target it very well. Washington's serve is a really nice addition. Pierce, Courtney and Holcomb also helped keep Stanford off balance with good serving.
3) Can we lay to rest worries about the setting? Bryanna was a big league setter tonight -- not many mistakes, a lot of beautiful sets -- a terrific, calm, positive demeanor. I particularly admired her handling of a poor pass that went far left and she got under it and backhanded it all the way across the court to I think Whitney on the right side. It was major league and also showed courage and effort. Didn't look like a redshirt frosh in her first Top 10 match.
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Post by nyline on Sept 6, 2015 5:03:22 GMT -5
1) I suspect PSU gameplanned for Burgess and sort of conceded Howard and Hodson (in a gameplan sense). Two scorers is not enough. Stanford needs at least one more and I'm not sure who it will be if PSU can defend Burgess. PSU may have to gameplan more for Hodson in the future. She is already the best player on that team (at least until Ajanaku is back). 2) I have to go watch it again but I suspect serving and passing pretty much determined the match, as it usually does. Weiskircher is kind of a deceptively tough server -- sprays the ball around, gets it to float, seems to target it very well. Washington's serve is a really nice addition. Pierce, Courtney and Holcomb also helped keep Stanford off balance with good serving. 3) Can we lay to rest worries about the setting? Bryanna was a big league setter tonight -- not many mistakes, a lot of beautiful sets -- a terrific, calm, positive demeanor. I particularly admired her handling of a poor pass that went far left and she got under it and backhanded it all the way across the court to I think Whitney on the right side. It was major league and also showed courage and effort. Didn't look like a redshirt frosh in her first Top 10 match. Also, Lutz was taken completely out of the game offensively: 4 kills, 5 attack errors, -.067 for the match. Driving back to Philly. Will post write-up around noon. Coach Rose was very pleased with the match, although he noted it wasn't as though Penn State played a perfect match (7 net violations, for example). And, he pointed out that this win won't win any future matches for Penn State. Won and done? |
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Post by phillytom on Sept 6, 2015 7:24:10 GMT -5
1) I suspect PSU gameplanned for Burgess and sort of conceded Howard and Hodson (in a gameplan sense). Two scorers is not enough. Stanford needs at least one more and I'm not sure who it will be if PSU can defend Burgess. PSU may have to gameplan more for Hodson in the future. She is already the best player on that team (at least until Ajanaku is back). 2) I have to go watch it again but I suspect serving and passing pretty much determined the match, as it usually does. Weiskircher is kind of a deceptively tough server -- sprays the ball around, gets it to float, seems to target it very well. Washington's serve is a really nice addition. Pierce, Courtney and Holcomb also helped keep Stanford off balance with good serving. 3) Can we lay to rest worries about the setting? Bryanna was a big league setter tonight -- not many mistakes, a lot of beautiful sets -- a terrific, calm, positive demeanor. I particularly admired her handling of a poor pass that went far left and she got under it and backhanded it all the way across the court to I think Whitney on the right side. It was major league and also showed courage and effort. Didn't look like a redshirt frosh in her first Top 10 match. Also, Lutz was taken completely out of the game offensively: 4 kills, 5 attack errors, -.067 for the match. Driving back to Philly. Will post write-up around noon. Coach Rose was very pleased with the match, although he noted it wasn't as though Penn State played a perfect match (7 net violations, for example). And, he pointed out that this win won't win any future matches for Penn State. Won and done? Are they really defending Lutz (is there a defense?) or maybe Stanford was just having such problems with passing and ball control that Bugg couldn't set the middle? And they don't run the slide much. Washington really dominates the middle though. She is superb, so physical, and has so much fun playing -- like Harmotto -- and it seems to be infectious. But still, pondering this the next morning, the match was about Weiskircher. She looked so confident and the whole offense was so well developed for the early season. It was a setter of the week performance -- maybe somebody besides Poulter and Carlini can get one of those now. |
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