Under The Radar: A Redshirt Diary

Watch Your Back

December 9, 2021

Game day in West Lafayette started early for the women, with an 7:30am team meal and meeting prior to their leaving the hotel for Holloway Gymnasium at Purdue. Despite not-ready-for-the-day looks on a couple of faces, the energy in the room was quite good as the players ate and listened to the coaches lay out a preliminary game plan for their match against Penn State.

Lauren: Probably didn't think you'd be sitting here near the end of Finals Week, about to take on the winningest program in NCAA history, one with seven national championships to its credit, including four in a row from 2007-2010, during which time they went almost three calendar years without losing a match and an entire season without losing a set. This team, however, is not at the level of those past Nittany Lions squads. The three of us (Lauren, Michael, and Charlie) studied our previous match against them along with the second-round match against Pitt, the first-round one against Towson, and their visit to Madison. We know where we were good against them, where we struggled, and where their higher level of talent outdid us. We've also figured out how the other teams were able to expose their weaknesses and maintain pressure on them throughout. I'll let Mike break down the offense, then Charlie will do so for the defense.

Michael: Offensively, we have enough components to keep them on their heels most of the day. We weren't able to rock their back row a lot in the standard 5-1, which they took advantage of to pummel ours when we played at the end of September. The biggest advantage we have over them is the back-row kill, as it removes the block from their defense, especially if we use Liz in that position along with Miette. Hence, we'll be relying on that along with our twin middles on the front row to keep them off the net. Keeping serve is going to be important today as well. Trying to play them side-out for side-out is a quick way to get down early in a set. We need our service game to consistently get them out-of-system and pick up points on its own in addition to what the killers are able to do. Charlie?

Charlie: From the defensive side of the ball, our standard back line needs to set up for good serve reception and the front row needs to always get itself into positions where a double block can be used. Also, be conservative on your lunging. If we drop a point or two because a ball lands in which one of you figured would be going out, that's not the worst thing in the world. Giving up free balls because of chasing after a bad reception plays right into their strategy of pounding us from the pins like they did when they came to Sinclair.

Lauren: Now, our collection of brains hasn't sat down yet to devise how we're going to implement those elements, which we will do while you're getting ready in the locker room at Holloway. Some of you might be playing more in spots where you usually don't, or get greater or lesser usage on the floor, but I can tell you the feeling of taking down a Blue Blood of NCAA volleyball is unlike anything you will ever experience, and all the sacrifices will be worth it when we do that in just a few hours. Finish eating, then we'll load the bus and get onto giving the early birds watching ESPNU an upset to remember for a long time.

Lauren and her assistants left the conference room that served as the team's dining hall and went back to their rooms briefly, coming back down to the lobby about ten minutes later to meet up with their players and head out for the Purdue campus.

***

The Grafton-Stovall Theater in the Madison Union at JMU was well-packed as a good portion of campus came together to watch the school's volleyball team play Penn State in the Round of 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The winner of their match will face the winner of the second one in West Lafayette, pitting the host Purdue Boilermakers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers, in the regional final on Saturday. The athletic department members housed in Godwin Hall and the Plecker Athletic Performance Center had filled-in several rows in the middle, with the groups coming from the Athletic Union Bank Center and 380 University Blvd., which is home to the athletic department's marketing, communications, and development arms, filling in in front and behind them. There was also a notable smattering of students in the facility. Marc had saved a seat for Ally, who joined him when she arrived.