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Thunder & Lightning in the Middle
Thunder & Lightning in the Middle
UDBrian
Published by UDBrian
09-02-2010
Thunder & Lightning in the Middle

DAYTON (OH) -- Granny always said "There's more than one way to skin a cat". And there is more than one way to be a tremendous middle blocker. Dayton is blessed with two great middle blockers this year, Becky Novacek from Aliquippa, PA and Lindsay Fletemier from Garden City, MI. They are both very good but their style of play is much different, particularly on offense. Both of them could have played college basketball but decided in high school that they would focus on volleyball.

I had a great time speaking with Lindsay (Thunder) and Becky (Lightning) this week and look forward to watching them having great seasons.

Even though Lindsay Fletemier is 6' 6" she was hardly recruited in high school primarily because she didn't play serious club volleyball until her senior year after she had comitted to Dayton. I remember reading a story that when an opposing college coach saw Lindsay he said "Where did she come from?". Lindsay only had offers from two schools UD and Toledo.

When Lindsay arrived at UD by her own admission she "knew nothing about how to play high level volleyball". She credits former UD assistant coach Jason Oliver with helping her tremendously in her freshman year by staying late or coming early to practice. "I'll probably be thanking him the rest of my life for how he helped me". Lindsay said that starting with her sophomore year in high school that everyone told her she had great potential. But, at that age you have trouble differentiating between the words 'great potential' and 'you are great'. Kudos to the coaches and Lindsay for developing that potential. Lindsay is even a weapon now as a setter which she demonstrated last weekend.

It has been enjoyable watching Lindsay improve in the past four seasons and the a10 should be aware "I am 100% healthy for the 1st time since I have been here".

Lindsay is currently on the Olympic A2 team which is "a pipeline for the future olympic team". To make this team she beat out some of the very best college players in the country. Almost anyone who has picked up a ball of some kind has imagined being in the olympics. She has a real shot at playing in the Olympics and we wish her well on that quest.

I was impressed last weekend when Lindsay made a BEAUTIFUL backset for a kill. I know that she has worked hard on her setting and here is what she had to say about it:

"The last three years I have worked really hard to develop my overall game. I have put time in working on my floor defense, setting and even serve receiving. I feel like many middles in the country only concentrate on blocking and attacking and that limits them on the court. I really want to be a complete volleyball player and be able to do any skill for my team. If a play breaks down on the court, everyone should be able to better the ball so we can get a great swing. It feels good when you get the chance in a game to set or do something that you dont normally do. And when the play ends up working out, like my backset last weekend it feels really good. You realize that those random setting reps that you got along the way were important."

Becky Novacek is listed as 6'2". Becky did not play serious club volleyball until later in her high school career because she was busy winning state championships in volleyball, basketball and high jump. Becky also had offers from two schools UK and UD.

Here is a very nice article on Becky's high school career:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06183/702814-49.stm

Becky was just nominated for the 1st Lowes Senior Class Award which is also a prestigious honor. Becky said "I really didn't think I had a chance when I was filling out the paperwork" but as Lindsay Fletemier said "Becky works hard at everything she does".

http://www.seniorclassaward.com/athletes/becky_novacek/

I asked Becky's father three questions concerning Becky's athletic career and nomination for the Lowes Volleyball award:

Q1) Becky told me yesterday that you pushed her in sports and her mother pushed her in everything else. Could you expand on that?

Before fourth grade I mainly just played outdoor type games with her not really anything sports specific. My wife Julie tried to teach her to do things like cartwheels which was the first indication she had some natural athletic ability when she not only did perfect two handed cartwheels but flawless one handed ones as well. I was a football, basketball and track guy but the first sport she played was co-ed manager pitch baseball. It was during one of her baseball games that a guy in town who was involved with the girls youth league basketball noticed her and her twin sister towering over all of the boys and he got them involved in basketball. I did get her involved in track and field the summer around her fourth grade year. We didn’t really have any place to train so we just went to a few all comers meets. The first time she saw a girl execute the high jump technique relatively well she was able to duplicate it almost verbatim. After this I did get her involved in more organized track clubs for which I helped coach. Volleyball was not a sport I knew anything about but her mother played intramurals in college and they had a program in the junior high that didn’t conflict with track or basketball so she started in seventh grade. Her mother was the musician in the house (piano and vocal) and wanted them to be in the band more than me although I didn’t object. Ironically I was in band from fifth through eighth grade and my wife was never in band. Julie was also much better at English as you can probably guess from reading this so she helped out in that area much more than me. Julie was also an engineer like me so she was pretty good in math and science but as Becky got into the higher levels of math and science I helped out more.


Q2) Becky has been nominated for the 1st Women's Volleyball Lowes Award which is one of the top college volleyball honors. How does it feel to have a daughter nominated for such an award? Becky said she didn't think she had much of a chance, were you as surprised as she was?


I am very glad she got it because I think she deserved it and it was an award that recognized the total person not just the athlete. I was surprised because I was not that aware of the award especially since this is the first year for volleyball. I was not that surprised that she was selected once I saw the qualifications.

Q3) Becky said that she misses playing sports with her sisters. What was it like seeing them win state titles together?


Seeing my daughters succeed in sports was much more rewarding than any personal successes I accomplished when I competed.

Q4) So you have two tremendous athletes, one is 6'6" and the other is 6'2". How do their games differ?


Becky's game is primarily built on quickness which she said was her greatest strength. Becky can go from the middle position to hitting a slide (moving to her right toward the pole) very, very quickly. This is hard to defense even if the opposing players are equally athletic. If they aren't as athletic as Becky she will almost always get a free swing at the ball. Becky is also very good now at hitting quick sets which are only a couple of feet over the net. Unless the opposing middle blocker is really athletic they again have a tough time stopping those kill attempts.

Lindsay's height gives her a different advantage on offense. Lindsay can look over the block for holes in the defense and she has the game to exploit those holes. In Lindsay's time at UD she has gone from an offensive player who hit the ball straight on with no cut to being able to hit every shot in the offense.

Lindsay and Becky are both hitting the ball with more power this year imho. When I asked them about this they said it was due to the off season lifting program. Lindsay is currently hitting at .447 with 2.0 kills per set, Becky is currently hitting at .362 with 2.2 kills per set. Becky had a very rare perfect match last saturday evening, she killed all eight sets that she attempted.

You calculate the kill percentage by taking the number of kills then subtracting the number of errors. This number would then be divided by the total number of attempts. As an example let's say that a player had ten spike attempts with two errors and five kills. You would calculate the kill percentage by taking 5 (number of kills) - 2 (number of errors, hit out of bounds or blocked). This would then be divided by the number of attempts 3/10. You hope that your hitters can hit .300 or better.

Lindsay said that she considers blocking her biggest strength at this time and the thing that she worked hardest at in the off season. She felt that UD's last two NCAA tournament losses were to two teams that outblocked them and she didn't want that to be the case this season.

Lindsay said that her and Becky worked by themselves on the sand court practicing their blocking with nobody around, and that they probably looked "pretty funny" in doing it. But, the team is blocking very well as a result of that hard work. Lindsay is averaging 1.8 blocks per set and Becky is averaging 1.2 blocks per set.

Let's enjoy watching these two tremendous blockers while we have them. Shayne Brown will be one of two players filling those shoes next year. And if you haven't seen Shayne play she is definitely in the lightning category. She is quick and hits the ball hard.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW


Last week the team was 3-0 and won nine games while losing only one. I thought the team played good defense, served well and looked good on offense. Kelly said after watching the tape that they had definite things to work on these mistakes would be very obvious to opposing coaches reviewing tape. Key stats of the weekend matches from daytonflyers.com

Attack
127 kills versus 86 by the opposition
Hitting percentage .302 to .067 by the opposition

Assists/Set 11.9 versus 8.5 by the opposition
Serve 1.5 aces per set versus .7 by the opposition
Serve Reception percentage .947 versus .932 by the opposition
Blocks Per Set 3.2 versus 1.1 by the opposition

Statistically UD dominated this past weekend. I was unable to attend the Saturday morning match against Arizona State. But, I had heard words like "UGLY" so I talked to coach Sheffield about this. He said to "give Arizona State a lot of credit" for that win being called 'UGLY'. He said that ASU served the ball well and made things difficult.

THIS WEEK


All of the teams this weekend have been receiving votes in the polls and Minnesota is ranked #8.
The schedule for this weekend in Minnesota is shown below. I know that BECKYSTXA on the UD Pride forums will be attending so I will get information from her.

Friday at 6:30 pm Northern Iowa
Saturday 2:30 pm Baylor
Saturday 9pm Minnesota

Northern Iowa Match


"Our block will be strongly tested against Northern Iowa". Kelly said that Northern Iowa has a setter (Bre Payton who just won conference player of the week) who attacks anywhere on the floor and they run a very fast offense.
Northern Iowa was 3-0 last weekend and one of those victories was against Purdue. They hit .258 against good competition last week and averaged 2.6 blocks per set.
This will be a very tough test for the Flyers.

Baylor Match


Baylor went to the sweet 16 last year and is 2-1 at this time with a match on Wednesday night before heading to minnesota. They are running a 6/2 offense. According to their coach Elizabeth Graham is their best player at middle blocker which matches up well for UD. They are very talented but inexperienced which should be in UD's favor. They are hoping to get two wins in the weekend to solidify their NCAA chances.

Minnesota Match

They are ranked #8 this week. They lost their tremendous left side hitter Hailey Cowles for the season. Based upon what I read she is similar to Amanda, a 5'10" outside hitter with libero skills. That is tough to replace. They have four hitters hitting over .400 at this time. The same players who are hitting over .400 also have .89 blocks per set, .78 blocks per set, 2.12 blocks per set and 1.11 blocks per set.
This is a big test but the type of match this team looks forward to playing.
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  #1  
By udisit19 on 09-02-2010, 06:34 PM
Dayton is HEADLINING this weekend! The home team normally picks the toughest competition to play Saturday night (in this 6 matches in 2 days format). They also try to place the easiest team on Saturday morning, leaving the night opponent to face off against who they think is the 2nd best of the opponents. However, based on what happened last weekend it looks like Minnesota may have screwed up this equation.

Now don't get me wrong, all of these games will be tough, but I think Minnesota put themselves in an interesting position. One thing Northern Iowa is well known for is getting on the floor and digging everything. If UD is lucky, Northern Iowa could leave Minnesota more tired than usual heading into the night match. And we all know this Dayton team has lifted and is well conditioned. They looked pretty good against a fresh VCU after a tough match against ASU. Hopefully they will rebound quickly and be able to take advantage of this scheduling error.
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