The 6/2 is 1-2.
Washington’s tumultuous mid-season switch to a two-setter offense (“6/2”
refers to “6 hitters/2 setters”) has finally produced its first win after two ugly
Bay Area losses. But the 3-2 victory over lowly Arizona State was no thing of beauty.
“I don’t necessarily think we
played that well,” said Washington Coach Jim
McLaughlin, “but we figured it out a way to win, which is good.”
It was the first time in the
2011 season the Huskies had played a five-set match. It’s the deepest a
McLaughlin-coached team has ever gone into a season without playing a 5-setter
(see:
UW: Still no five-set matches),
and we could not find another school in Division 1 (318 teams) that had not
played five at least once this season.
In McLaughlin’s 10+ seasons at Washington, his teams win 80% of the
time in matches lasting 3 or 4 sets. But his teams have a losing record (24-26)
when matches go the limit.
“I’m a little disappointed it
went five. But it did,” said McLaughlin. “We have one under our belt. And we
pulled it off.”
Washington started set one with
setter Jenni Nogueras; she had
missed the Oregon matches while mourning the death of her father. By the third
set, with the match tied 1-1, McLaughlin shifted the starting lineup, starting
in rotation four with Evan Sanders.
“I flip-flopped the rotations,”
McLaughlin explained, “because (rotations) 4, 5 & 6 were siding out at a
much higher level. And Evan was doing a good job, so, we just kept in those
rotations a little bit longer.”
It worked well in set three.
“We just sided out well,” said
McLaughlin. “We were siding out at over 73%. We got our quicks going, we passed
well, things were happening. And setters distributed the ball well.”
But as good as the Huskies
looked in the third set, they looked awful in the fourth, and had to gut out
the fifth for a razor-thin victory. Even so, McLaughlin says he’ll stick with
the 6/2.
“I just think it’s a good way to
go. I like the system. And if we can just stabilize our side out, the way we
score points, we can win some big matches with this lineup. We just gotta get
used to it. I should have done it earlier.”
How, then, did Washington beat
Arizona State?
WASHINGTON SERVED WELL WHEN IT MATTERED
As they usually do, the Huskies’
servers targeted the opponent’s best hitter, hoping to limit her attacking
option. It worked.
ASU’s best hitter is Ashley Kastl. She took 47 swings and
connected for a match-high 17 kills. But her 10 hitting errors brought her
average down to .149, many on blocks. Her serve receive was so inconsistent,
ASU coach Jason Watson pulled Kastl
during crucial stretches, despite her considerable back row attack prowess.
“A lot of tough serves,” said
McLaughlin. “Game five, we were good. Game five, we had them all off the net,
they couldn’t go quick. And we were stuffin’ ‘em. So, I thought we served
pretty good.”
Washington libero Jenna Orlandini did not have her best
match. Many of her digs went all the way to the net—sometimes even on free
balls—often negating Washington’s quality serves.
WASHINGTON SURVIVED ILL-TIMED TIMIDITY
In sets two and four (both ASU
wins) and throughout set five, the Sun Devils’ hitters played with abandon,
jumping high and hitting hard. By contrast, the Huskies were often tentative, launching
ineffective tips or pushes instead of crushing the ball.
“We gotta be able to bang the
ball,” said McLaughlin. “When they don’t hit clean, we have to make them pay.
And we didn’t do that tonight.”
The most effective combination
was Nogueras-to-Bianca Rowland, both
on quicks and slides. Rowland had 10 kills and no errors on 22 swings (.455).
“All throughout the week, we’ve
been working on setting the ball with pace,” said Rowland. “And just getting
the ball faster to the middles, and keeping it high. I just think that helped us
out this week: we finally started to figure out what we needed to do to make
the connection.”
Outside hitters Gabbi Parker and Kylin Muñoz had several hard shots early on, but tossed a lot of
tips when Arizona State was streaking. McLaughlin wants more power throughout.
“We got a little tentative, and
we can’t do that,” he said. “We gotta go for it all the time.”
“And have that attitude that I’m
just gonna rip their hands off when we score points.”
In large part, Washington
overcame its timid hitting with another solid blocking performance. The team
tallied 21 blocks (to six for ASU), extending Washington’s lead as the
top-blocking team in Division 1.
FIVE-TOOL PLAYERS ARE TOUGH TO BEAT
Fans tend to pay attention to
kills and blocks, and there’s no question the Huskies’ two sensational freshmen—Summer Ross and Krista Vansant—have those skills.
But both can also serve tough.
Both can also dig the ball. And the difference last night may have been their
often-overlooked ability to receive serves.
Time and again, ASU served at
the freshmen, avoiding Orlandini. Ross, in particular, passed nails. She is so
calm and focused that she turns what might be tough serve receives into butter.
Time and again, Nogueras and Sanders found themselves in-system, thanks to a
sweet Summer Ross pass.
With her sand volleyball
experience, Ross doesn’t get flustered by broken plays, either. She sets tough
balls when necessary, and is rarely surprised by opponents’ tips, roll shots or
redirects during jousts. During long fifth-set rallies, both Ross and Vansant
kept the ball in play, even when the action got sloppy. (Kudos, too, to
Nogueras, who played her best defense of the season.)
In the end, it made the
difference.
