Happy Birthday to Fish!
- Thread starter HOF Coach
- Start date
Hopefully he spends many more birthdays in Pittsburgh.
Anybody on here planning on going to any of their spring games? Would love to hear how the rotation looks if anyone will be there in person
I'll be there for the first game. Going to try to make the 4th one, too.
Interested to see how the middle shakes out.
@singregardless any insights from the game today? Did Bre Kelley play?
I’ll post a separate observations post - Bre dressed, warmed up , but did not play.
Torrey Stafford dressed, but did not warm up and did not play .
I started a thread about today's match. Feel free to post your observations there.
H2P!
Bre dressed and warmed up with the team. Her vertical explosion looked okay. However, she jogged with a noticable limp and did not play at all in the game. Her limp was so pronounced, I'd be surprised if she played much before Blue/Gold in August. Torrey also sat with injury - she had a sleeve thing on one of her legs. Every one else played.
Starters were Valeria/Babcock/Jepsen/Klika/Bayless/Haiti. Fairbanks did not start and didn't play at all in Set 1. However, she did play the final 3 sets. 4 total sets were played, even though we swept the first 3. We won all 4 sets.
As far as newcomers go - Ryla came off the bench to relieve Jepsen and got playing time in every set. Garibaldi entered during Set 3. Ryla served a few times, Garbialdi & Jepsen were subbed out when their turn to serve came. Ryla also hit 3 slides - 1 that would have made Layne Van Buskirk proud. Ryla was the best defender of the three middles who played, although none of them were close to blocking like Chimaka/Monks. They both looked like you might expect a freshman to look - I wouldn't expect freshman contributions to be what they were last year. Seems like they want Jepsen to separate definitively from Ryla, but haven't closed the door on Ryla playing this season yet.
The good
* Pitt had control the entire match, even while being reserve heavy. I don't think Fairbanks/Babcock/Valeria shared the floor at the same time and we still swept. Ohio State managed to tie once and get within 1 a few other times, but there was zero doubt who'd emerge first to 25.
* Valeria dominated with her serve, particularly in Set 1 - they had absolutely no answer for it.
* Jepsen has the offense to be a reliable contributor this season.
* Solid turnout for an exhibition match. I've gone to two of the Men's Soccer scrimmages and the attendance at both of them combined was less than Volleyball today.
* Love watching Haiti set - elite touch. She played decent defense and sneaky good serving.
* Another year, another sweep over Ohio State. We swept them at the Field House in 2022. Wrestling & Women's Soccer beat them last year. It doesn't get old beating that school.
* In the age of NIL + Portal, nothing is a given. Watching this core run it back is a true treat.
The bad
* They heavily targeted Blaire when they served and had a lot of success with it.
* Blaire had serving errors > 50% of the times she went back doing a conventional serve. Unclear why she's not using her topspin serve. Possible it's less effective, but...
* For as big as Jepsen is, she's not giving me enough defensively. She's proven to me she can score, but we need her sending some back also if we're going to advance at Nationals. They were shading Olivia over to help in the middle because the block wasn't there. Observing Jepsen over the years, she strikes me as one of those people who succeeds at anything they attempt (classroom, court, being a good teammate) but is maybe thinking too much on defense.
* They're probably good subbing out for Ryla's serve too - I didn't see anything there.
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Thanks for the summary. Not great news about Bre, especially so long after her injury. H2P
It was uncomfortable watching her jog during timeouts.
Middles don't cover as much ground, so it's possible she gets some run this Spring. It seemed clear to me that any action she may get will NOT be sustained however.
I missed the warmups and didn't see this. Going back to last September when the injury occurred it seems easy to conclude that Bre is recovering from a severe grade 3 ankle injury. In conversations I have had with a UPMC physical therapist I know.....these are notorious for the length of recovery time needed.....maybe a year or longer. A big danger is that after 6 months....which coincides exactly with Bre's injury....there is a 50% chance of reinjuring the same ankle if precautions aren't taken. For sure....I'm confident she's getting the best medical attention available. I hope these next 6 months bring her back to complete health and we see her back in action come September.
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