The Gophers volleyball team played in seven five-set matches out of 16 total games this season.
The maroon and gold sit at 11-5 on the season and enter the thick of Big Ten play. All but two of the Gophers’ six conference matches so far this season went to five sets, and the Gophers claimed victory in two of them.
Minnesota played back-to-back nights on the West Coast, with both games played past 8 p.m. CST. Head coach Keegan Cook talked about the difficulty of having games one after another.
“The back-to-back aspect can’t be understated,” Cook said. “Especially going five the first night and having to bounce back.”
Cook said the little things added up for his crew, and getting back to practice will be important for the team.
The serve-receive has been a point of emphasis for the team. Gophers libero, Zeynep Palabiyik, said the team has made it a point of emphasis in practice since the Purdue game on Sept. 28.
“I think in the UCLA and USC games we were so much better,” Palabiyik said.
After 17 reception errors against Purdue, the Gophers committed four and eight errors against UCLA and USC, respectively.
In general, Cook said some problems stemmed from the health of the team. He added getting everyone back will be very important for getting into a rhythm.
“We’d like to get our full unit up and going,” Cook said. “Certainly not our most stable situation.”
The team knows there is a lot to work on, and after the West Coast trip and their recent homestand, the Gophers will have six days of practice before their next match on Oct. 18.
Outside hitter, Julia Hanson said the team will be working on a little bit of everything. She added it has been helpful to have teammates giving full effort in practice when working on serve-receive.
“The serves in all of college volleyball have gotten so much better,” Hanson said. “When we are serving in practice we just go for it, we have some of the hardest serves in the Big Ten as well.”
The Gophers struggled with consistency from set to set which leading to the seven five-set matches.
Cook said the Gophers are scoring all around at about 50%, and there will be close margins in many of their matches. He added they can lose a set and then win one, that’s just how close it is.
“We’re going to be flipping coins a lot,” Cook said. “Until we can side out and have a more efficient offense, we are going to drag people into some of these matches where it’s back and forth.”
A season already packed with highs and lows for the Gophers forced the team to forget the last match quickly and move on to the next, according to Cook.
“They do a nice job no matter what happens on Saturday, Sunday,” Cook said. “They are resilient.”
With four Big Ten teams ranked among the American Volleyball Coach’s Association top ten, Cook knows that the room for error is getting smaller.
“The game is growing,” Cook said, “The level of play is getting better and the margins are getting thinner, more and more games are gonna be decided by smaller margins.”
