PALO ALTO, California — There are all the time six levels of volleyball separation seemingly wherever you go in our sport.
Friday at Stanford, effectively, everybody appeared tied to one another.
The ties that bind have been evident in all places as fifth-ranked Stanford swept No. 15 Ohio State after No. 10 Minnesota beat No. 6 Oregon in 5.
Begin with the coaches, the place Kevin Hambly is in his seventh 12 months on The Farm. In 2011, he took Illinois to NCAA title match, the place the Illini misplaced to UCLA. One in all his assistants on that crew? Ohio State coach Jen Flynn Oldenburg.
J-FO’s ties went deep right here. For starters, when the third-year OSU coach watched the primary match, she noticed two of her former Buckeyes play one another, Oregon exterior Gabby Gonzales and Minnesota libero Kylie Murr, who occur to be better of associates.
Among the many gamers she’s coached on the nationwide stage was Stanford setter Kami Miner, who grew up down the Strand from Holly McPeak, who lives on Manhattan Seashore and was doing the Pac-12 broadcast evaluation.
The gathering was a reunion for former Pac-12 rival coaches and good associates Matt Ulmer, in his seventh 12 months at Oregon, and first-year Minnesota coach Keegan Prepare dinner, who got here from Washington. And, after all, they’ll be Huge Ten rivals subsequent 12 months when Oregon joins the B1G.
Murr is from Yorktown, Indiana, simply exterior of Muncie, and can on Saturday remember to serve to Stanford’s Caitie Baird, who’s from close by Indianapolis.
And talking of Indiana, there was Minnesota senior setter Melani Shaffmaster, who’s from New Citadel, which is south of Muncie and east of Indy, and, who, with a braced proper leg is best on one leg than most setters are on two.
“It’s OK,” Shaffmaster mentioned with amusing. “It’s positive. I’ve my different one. It’s simply inferior to my left one … It’s manageable. It’s OK.”
Shaffmaster has been coping with her knee since center faculty, however extra on that in a bit.
Minnesota beat Oregon in Maples Pavilion 25-21, 23-25, 21, 25, 25-20, 16-14 in a match that was all that and extra, ending with the 6-foot-3 Shaffmaster crushing an overpass to offer her Gophers a much-need victory.
“We would have liked that,” mentioned Murr, Shaffmaster’s former Munciana membership mate.
Minnesota beat TCU and Baylor to open the season, however then misplaced in 4 to Texas and this previous Sunday received swept at Florida. Powerful scheduling can imply powerful losses.
“After enjoying Texas and Florida we got here to California and had a superb couple of days to work on ourselves,” mentioned Shaffmaster, whose crew hit .323. “We simply determined we have been going to work more durable longer. I believe that was the issue in our different video games and it was time for us to deal with our aspect of the web. We’ve got the scouting experiences, however on the finish of the day it’s our aspect of the web and that’s what we did a very good job of tonight.”
Prepare dinner agreed.
“You might really feel our depth and want to wish to win that match,” Prepare dinner mentioned. “A terrific opponent and so they’re going to compete within the Pac-12 and so they’ll be enjoying late within the match. However that’s what the schedule was designed for, to seek out out some issues about ourselves and I like what we discovered right now.”
Again to Shaffmaster, who wears a protracted brace on her proper leg, and who can flat out ship some units. In opposition to Oregon, she had 51 assists, 4 kills, a outstanding 18 digs — some whereas truly sitting or laying on the ground as a result of as soon as she’s down there it takes fairly an effort to get due to the brace — and three blocks.
“A very spectacular efficiency by her,” Prepare dinner mentioned. “I’m actually blissful for her. Simply nice from begin to end in a very difficult match for a setter towards a very nice. She’s labored for this second. And that final level was fairly becoming.”
You might argue that Shaffmaster is enjoying her finest volleyball ever.
“She was in a superb place to begin with,” Prepare dinner mentioned, “however she’s been placing within the work and he or she’s been extraordinarily diligent and prepared to be coached, which I believe nice gamers are. She’s been prepared to be coached from day one. She didn’t wait. She took what she may from all of us and it’s exhibiting.”
Shaffmaster, who has yet another 12 months of eligibility remaining, in flip gave a whole lot of credit score to the brand new teaching workers and mentioned she’s labored lots with Kristen Kelsey, a former Michigan State setter who has teaching at her alma mater and Northwestern.
“I’ve gotten some little issues in place that I hadn’t actually observed earlier than,” Shaffmaster mentioned. “I’ve completely different footwork to get to the ball, so it’s much more environment friendly. Plenty of tiny issues that folks don’t see however the consequence is clearly completely different.”
The lengthy brace, Shaffmaster mentioned, “is tremendous gentle. I can’t go aspect to aspect and I can’t bend my knee inward or outward.”
“She’s wonderful,” Murr mentioned. “That’s why I selected this crew. I really like this crew and I knew what she was able to. One leg, two legs, doesn’t matter. She’s going to play her coronary heart out each single time.”
Mckenna Wucherer had profession excessive of 21 kills for Minnesota, hitting .378, and digs with 10 to go together with an ace. Taylor Landfair had 18 kills, 4 assists, an ace, two blocks and 5 digs. Lydia Grote, who might have extra enjoyable enjoying volleyball than anybody, had 14 kills with one error in 27 assaults to hit .481 and added an ace, two blocks and 4 digs.
Extra ties? Grote is a switch from Cal, however her sister Marin performed for Prepare dinner at Washington. Marin was on the match.
Murr was her standard spectacular self, developing with 22 digs and eight assists. She was a part of that well-documented group of 4 Buckeyes (along with Gonzales, setter Mac Podraza is at Penn State and Jenaisya Moore is at Tennessee) who left Ohio State after 4 years for brand new groups.
Murr, a VolleyballMag.com second-team All-American, crammed the spot of CC McCraw, one other big-time B1G libero, who graduated.
“I believe they have been shocked by how a lot I used to be going to push them and the way a lot I’m going to anticipate from them,” Murr mentioned, “as a result of I do know what they’re able to. However they’ve accepted me, they take heed to me, and so they needed to get used to my vitality a little bit bit. However after that, it was seamless.”
Shaffmaster knew precisely what to anticipate and is a direct beneficiary, as a result of most of the time, Murr’s passes are on the cash.
“She’s a very, actually good volleyball participant and in addition has tremendous good vitality,” Shaffmaster mentioned. “She’s capable of join with folks very well, so folks really feel comfy round her realizing that she has all our backs. If she has to run via a brick wall, she’s gonna do it for us. She raised the extent of our play day by day and each single play.”
Yet one more Shaffmaster tie, by the way in which. Her sister, Mabrey, is a junior exterior at North Carolina, an All-ACC first-teamer in 2022. Friday, she had a team-high 12 kills and eight digs in a loss at Michigan.
And, lastly, yet another volleyball tie: Cassidy Baird, Caitie’s sister, and Kendall Murr, Kylie’s sister, are assistant coaches at Jap Kentucky. Cassidy, who performed Denver, performed 4 seasons professionally. Kendall performed at Jacksonville and completed at Mississippi State. EKU is 7-2 this season after sweeping Georgia State on Friday.
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Oregon (6-1) received 20 kills from Mimi Colyer, who had an ace and 15 digs. Gonzales had 18 kills, an help, two aces and 14 digs. Morgan Lewis had 16 kills, 4 blocks and a dig, and Kara McGhee had 12 kills, hit .429, and had an help and 4 blocks. Hannah Pukis had six kills in seven errorless tries, 58 assists, two aces, a block and 14 digs. Georgia Murphy had 16 kills, seven assists and two aces. Oregon hit .262.
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Within the nightcap, Stanford (5-1) overpowered Ohio State 25-19, 25-16, 25-23 behind a season-high 13 aces, 5 by Caitie Baird, who additionally had a match-high 15 kills. Baird had one error in 25 assaults to hit .560 and had an help, two blocks and three digs. Elie Rubin, the opposite exterior, had 9 kills, an help, two aces, a block and three digs.
Sami Francis had seven kills in 12 errorless swings, three blocks and a dig. Kendall Kipp had 4 kills however was surprisingly errant and hit destructive .118 however had two aces, 4 blocks and three digs. McKenna Vicini had three kills and 5 blocks and Elena Oglivie had 15 digs, two assists and two aces. Kami Miner had two kills in 4 errorless tries, 34 assists, 4 digs and two blocks, two solo, Her crew hit .302. And freshman Koko Kirsch got here in within the third set and had aces on her first two serves.
Ohio State (3-3), which hit .127, received 10 kills from Emily Londot, who had 5 digs. Her teammates mixed for 15 kills as Stanford held a 9-3 benefit in blocks.
Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Pacific, Oregon performs Ohio State, adopted by Stanford-Minnesota.