GT Vollebees

laoh

laoh

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I'm still buzzing from last night. I took a friend with me to her first volleyball match ever and man, what a match did we witness!! O'Keefe was a frenzy! I missed going to the UNC football match last week (and even had been offered free club seats from a friend) and I've been regretting it all weekend but man, this match!! Our players had their best game of the season; confidence, close call attacks that seamed to land in our favor more often than not, not many service errors, and defense was better than ever with our digs and blocks. Where did the blocks come from all of the sudden! It's hard to believe just a few weeks prior vs FSU, we literally had just one block the entire match. And we did this while Mogridge was still nursing that knee.

The 3rd set gave me that eerily feeling of last year but our ladies came out bangin' the 4th set.

We've been talking here about how Collier is still trying to "figure things out" since the Mogridge injury, trying a lot of players... It seemed like things came to fruition last night. Boezi, Smiley, Pierce... they were all fire. I've especially been impressed with Boezi progression and am really glad she got her chance to really grow and shine this season. Makes me wonder what the coaches will do once Mogridge is fully healthy. I was sitting right behind Pimentel's parents and Paola ran up to the stands after the match hugging her parents and crying. They really picked the best match to attend! And omg, Bertolino... there are jump servers sprinkled throughout the NCAA but man, does she have a lethal serve, and so clutch at that! We were joking how this GT team was so clutch despite being an Atlanta team. Can't wait to see what we do in the post season. Anyone planning on Tampa?

Let's go Jackets!
 
GTNavyNuke

GTNavyNuke

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Good job in a trap game between L'Ville and Pitt.
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laoh

laoh

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GTNavyNuke said:
First set GT 25-16. No Mogridge. Any word?
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Not to take anything away from Mogridge, but after Louisville, do we need her back as badly as we've been thinking? If anything, not having Mogridge has brought the killer combo of Boezi-Pierce-Manyang.

Today's match was pretty sloppy. Easy 3-0 win but tons of bad serve receive and out of system and service errors. Louisville match OTOH was spectacularly clean.

This weekend, we had D'Amico, Pimentel, and Otene's parents in town (and I think D'Amico's grandparents on mom's side - they looked so cute :)). I wonder if this was a planned thing across the players and families.

I got to O'Keefe in the middle of the first set but was curious as to see Drewnick back... how was the interaction with her old team? Any hugs?
 
forensicbuzz

forensicbuzz

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laoh said:
Not to take anything away from Mogridge, but after Louisville, do we need her back as badly as we've been thinking? If anything, not having Mogridge has brought the killer combo of Boezi-Pierce-Manyang.

Today's match was pretty sloppy. Easy 3-0 win but tons of bad serve receive and out of system and service errors. Louisville match OTOH was spectacularly clean.

This weekend, we had D'Amico, Pimentel, and Otene's parents in town (and I think D'Amico's grandparents on mom's side - they looked so cute :)). I wonder if this was a planned thing across the players and families.

I got to O'Keefe in the middle of the first set but was curious as to see Drewnick back... how was the interaction with her old team? Any hugs?
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Mogridge is a step up from Boezi/Pierce/Manyang, period. However, This has been a great opportunity for these other ladies and they all have a role to play after Liv comes back. Liv is a shut-down Middle and I can't wait for her to come back. Although this may alter the current rotation, I don't see the trio above being washed to the bench.

I did not see Elizabeth, serve today. Neither did I see any of the other reserves play today in a 3-set sweep of an inferior opponent. I thought that was telling. I think it was a tune-up for Friday's match with Pitt. I think we hold serve, but the trip to Miami has me concerned. If they're looking past Miami to the Louisville rematch, we're going to get beaten.
 
78pike

78pike

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forensicbuzz said:
Mogridge is a step up from Boezi/Pierce/Manyang, period. However, This has been a great opportunity for these other ladies and they all have a role to play after Liv comes back. Liv is a shut-down Middle and I can't wait for her to come back. Although this may alter the current rotation, I don't see the trio above being washed to the bench.

I did not see Elizabeth, serve today. Neither did I see any of the other reserves play today in a 3-set sweep of an inferior opponent. I thought that was telling. I think it was a tune-up for Friday's match with Pitt. I think we hold serve, but the trip to Miami has me concerned. If they're looking past Miami to the Louisville rematch, we're going to get beaten.
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I don't think they are looking anywhere but at Pitt this Friday. After that they can worry about the next challenge. It was obvious we caught Pitt by surprise by playing the 6-2 on Friday. I hope we stick with it because it seems to suit us better especially on defense. I'm still concerned about Bella's setting. Personally I think we need the middles to play strong against Pitt (we got killed there last match) to open up our outside hitters. Soares, to me, sets the middles much better than D'Amico. There were more than a few times our middles had to take the ball higher than they would like today because of ill timed sets. Soares seems to be much more adept at the quick sets to the middle as well as the long sets to the far outside. Bella is probably better on defense because of her height though. Anyway, looking forward to a big and loud crowd again this Friday.
 
forensicbuzz

forensicbuzz

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78pike said:
I don't think they are looking anywhere but at Pitt Louisville this Friday. After that they can worry about the next challenge. It was obvious we caught Pitt by surprise by playing the 6-2 on Friday. I hope we stick with it because it seems to suit us better especially on defense. I'm still concerned about Bella's setting. Personally I think we need the middles to play strong against Pitt (we got killed there last match) to open up our outside hitters. Soares, to me, sets the middles much better than D'Amico. There were more than a few times our middles had to take the ball higher than they would like today because of ill timed sets. Soares seems to be much more adept at the quick sets to the middle as well as the long sets to the far outside. Bella is probably better on defense because of her height though. Anyway, looking forward to a big and loud crowd again this Friday.
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Fixed the above for you...

...D'Amico doesn't seem to have the rhythm with Boezi and Pierce in the middle that she has with Bertolino and Otene on the outside. I think this has to do with how long they've played together. Soares has had timing issues all season, both inside and outside, but she's a helluva setter. As for height, D'Amico is 6'0" and Soares is 5'11". I don't think there's a height advantage. D'Amico is better at blocking, though; that might be due to familiarity with blocking.

I agree they're fully focused on Pitt. However, after Pitt we have a trip to Miami, who can take us to the woodshed if we're looking forward to Louisville the next weekend. I don't think they will be cause Maimi came into O'Keefe and beat us this season. I was just saying...
 
laoh

laoh

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Yeah, huge let down after Louisville. Team looked shell shocked after dropping like the first 11 points in the first set and never recovered. The body language was not playing with power and aggressiveness, kind of like the Miami match. Hope we can bounce back strong after this.
 
okiemon

okiemon

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laoh said:
Yeah, huge let down after Louisville. Team looked shell shocked after dropping like the first 11 points in the first set and never recovered. The body language was not playing with power and aggressiveness, kind of like the Miami match. Hope we can bounce back strong after this.
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I think you’re right. After Pitt opened 11-0, we just seemed to lose our mojo.
 
forensicbuzz

forensicbuzz

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I saw a 1:26 match and knew it was 3 sets. Saw the 11-0 opening and turned it off. I'm sure we didn't look good at all. Unfortunately, we didn't show up as we had just moved to #8. Now, I expect to fall to 11-14 range. Our #13 rpi is going to push us outside the Top16 for hosting if we lose to Louisville. If we win up there, we'll host the first 2 rounds.
 
laoh

laoh

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Still thinking about the match last night. Man it was ugly. It was like Miami but worse; didn't even get close to breaking 20 points a set. We got our butts handed to us. Seems like we do bad when the other team has that star. Miami had Lopez. Pitt has Babcock and my goodness, Babcock should be in the running for freshman POTY. She also has a killer jump serve like Bertolino. Bertolino's serves were not there last night. The whole team was playing timid... you could tell from the body language. The attacks that landed our way in the Louisville match were not going our way. Lots of service errors, serve receive was quite bad and caused out of system more than I can remember in-system. Attacks were going out of bounds left and right. And we got blocked like crazy. Not sure what happened with Pimentel but it wasn't pretty. And the setting... I won't go there...
 
GTNavyNuke

GTNavyNuke

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forensicbuzz said:
I saw a 1:26 match and knew it was 3 sets. Saw the 11-0 opening and turned it off. I'm sure we didn't look good at all. Unfortunately, we didn't show up as we had just moved to #8. Now, I expect to fall to 11-14 range. Our #13 rpi is going to push us outside the Top16 for hosting if we lose to Louisville. If we win up there, we'll host the first 2 rounds.
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I was in the mountains and just saw 0-3. Didn't need to see anything else.

Flush and go on. Need to do that after losses and wins.

Mogridge back soon?
 
78pike

78pike

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Despite the loss to Pitt, we only dropped one spot in the rankings and are still in the top ten at #9. RPI remains at #13.
 
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