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Heading To Illinois
Heading To Illinois
UDBrian
Published by UDBrian
09-01-2011
Heading To Illinois

DAYTON (OH) -- The Flyers survived some inconsistent play but came away with the Country Inn And Suites title in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The team was dominated in game one of the tournament but responded by winning their next three games in convincing fashion. I personally like the fact that when they played poorly it resulted in losing that game.

Here is what happened in game one of the North Dakota match according to coach sheffield:

 
"We were not playing aggressive early in the North Dakota match. There was a lot of indecisiveness and that is going to happen early on in the season. We served a lot more aggressive starting in game two and that made a huge difference. Ally Morey really led the charge in this area. With that said, North Dakota returns almost their entire team from a 25 win season. They are legit and will probably end up being a Top 50 RPI team by the end of the season".

Let's remember that this is a young team that hasn't played much together. Yes, we have two experienced studs in Yvonne and Rachel but this team can be expected to improve rapidly as communication improves. One noticeable change this year is the power that Rachel, Yvonne and Megan are hitting with. Kelly said that besides hard work by the team that Mark Thobe does a wonderful job in helping the players maximize their potential. Here is what Kelly had to say about Mark Thobe:

"Strength coach Mark Thobe is one of the best in the business. Our players were here all season and they take their training seriously. Those three are more physical, no doubt, but I can also see a lot more athleticism from players like Sam Selsky and Ally Morey".


There was another bump in the road in the fourth match of last weekend's tournament. UD lost game two against host Green Bay and found itself down 22-17 in game four. Yvonne Marten injured her shoulder and freshman Brigid Campbell was suddenly in the match. This is quite a bit of adversity for your first weekend but the team responded. Here is what Kelly had to say about that game:

"We responded great! Yvonne is our leader and has such a great court presence. She gives us all tremendous confidence and we feed off of her confidence. Rachel Krabacher, I thought, was playing very passively up until that point in the match. She was really good the first two matches of the season, but she wasn't playing at the level she is capable of for most of the Green Bay match. When Yvonne went down, Rachel stepped up to the moment. Every ounce of her being said "give me the ball". It was awesome to see, but we need her to be like that all of the time. She is a really, really good player. For her to be one of the best players in the country, which she wants to be, she needs to be possessed like that all of the time. She has shown tremendous growth since last year, and we trying to help her take an even bigger step. But I also like how all of the players reacted. In a sense, we are defined as people, and as athletes, to how we respond when things don't go our way. Our team responded with strength and purpose. That is fun to watch! But we also executed. Megan Campbell served out the match with very tough serves and a couple of nice digs and we also had people making good decisions. We talk about effort, but effort doesn't matter much if you can't execute. We executed when our backs were against the wall".

The team didn't play nearly as well as they are capable of playing but they won and I expect for them to show quite a bit of improvement this weekend. When asked where you need the most work Kelly responded:

"We have a ton of things to get better at. We watched video as a team yesterday and showed quite a few improvement points that we need to address. This team wants to see the things they need to do to get better. They were as fired up after leaving that video session and get back to work as any film session I've been in. Nothing needs a major overhaul, we just try to find ways to get a little bit better in all areas every day. We had 33 more swings than our opponents did this past weekend. That is a little unusual because the winning team is the one serving and the losing team is the one getting the first swing. That means we were not getting aced and we weren't overpassing the ball and giving opponents free swings. Those are two things we talk a lot about - no quick points to our opponents. And having 11 more swings per match, while winning, shows that we were better than our opponents in this area. With that said, we passed a lot of balls a little further off the net that we are wanting. Although there are times we need to really fight off a great serve and keep it off the net and around the 10 foot line, the easier ones we need to groove and push those closer to five feet off the net so we can have a little better offensive flow. There are "good misses" and "bad misses". When we miss, we want it to be a good miss - meaning a ball off the net and high within the confines of the court. A bad miss is an overpass or one that we have to run off the court to retrieve. After week one, our passing numbers aren't that far off from last season and a big part of that is we are not having "bad" misses".

This team can be expected to show continual improvement as the season progresses. The competition takes a big jump this weekend with matches against Houston, Tennessee and Illinois. Here is Kelly's take on the Illinois tournament:

"Houston will be ranked by the end of the season. They have a couple of foreigners that people don't know about yet and a frosh setter that makes them better. They are very, very powerful and don't make a lot of mistakes. Their right-side, although not real big, is the real deal. She can bounce it and they get her the ball a lot. Tennessee is dealing with some injuries. Healthy they could be a Top 10 team. We expect a couple of the injured to make it back into the lineup this weekend. They are very athletic and play all aspects of the game well. Illinois has a team that can win the National Championship this year".

This will be a tough test for UD. The competition will be much better and Yvonne Marten will be probably be out due to the shoulder separation she suffered against Green Bay. "Yvonne dislocated her shoulder. I am not expecting her to play anytime soon. She is rehabbing almost around the clock to get back on the court so that she is missing as little time as possible" said Kelly.

Don't expect UD to back down from the challenge because of their inexperience. When asked about Yvonne's injury Kelly said:

"Brigid Campbell and Rachel Jones will take her place in the front and back court. Although Brigid is not as physical as Von, she is a fighter. She will take the court with an aggressive, confident mentality and will lay it out on the court. Rachel is a great athlete and will make some unbelievable plays. She has the ability to really give us some energy with her back court skills".

This upcoming weekend will be a tough test without Yvonne. But, it gives Brigid Campbell the chance to gain some valuable experience playing against great players. If the Flyers can win more than one match it will have been a great weekend.
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