Another Tough Weekend

Last weekend the Flyers lost two matches out of three in a tournament at Western Kentucky. It was a tough weekend physically and mentally for the Flyers. They played a rival state team in a very tough first match and then later the same day they played an underrated Western Kentucky team. These are the scenarios that prepare you for the NCAA tournament. Win or Lose you learn from these tough matches and tournaments. If you want to play in the elite eight and final four this is one of the steps to getting there.

In regards to the two losses Kelly said: "Ohio State and Western Kentucky are both really good clubs. Both could win a couple of games in the NCAA Tournament"

When you look at the hitting percentages in the Ohio State match they tell a large portion of the story, except for set 1. In set 1 (OSU win) Ohio State had a hitting percentage of .209 vs .256, in set 2 (UD win) the Flyers outhit OSU .364 to .176. In set 3 (OSU win) Ohio State outhit UD .455 to .216. In set 4 (UD win) UD outhit OSU .406 to .111. In set 5 (OSU win) OSU outhit UD .476 to .143. The differences set to set are pretty amazing.

"In the Ohio State match I thought we did a nice job of slowing down their right-side attacker. We out-hit and out-blocked them in the match, but for the first time this season, we lost the serve and pass game. That has been a strength of ours this season, but was not last Friday. Secondly, I thought it took a while for both teams to get comfortable in the match. We came out very hyped and made a lot of silly mistakes early on because of it - really both teams did".

The Flyers had a tough match physically against OSU and then had to return later that day to play Western Kentucky.

"Against Western Kentucky, we came out like gang-busters, playing at a pretty high level. And then I thought we hit a brick wall. Do I think fatigue caught up with us? Absolutely. By the end of the day we had played over four hours of hard, emotional volleyball, along with two match warm-ups. Western plays a style that we won't see the rest of the year and we didn't have the time to prepare the team in a way that I would want them to be going into a match like that - but like I said, there wasn't enough time. With that said, I still didn't like the way we responded in the match. There are ways that you can still pressure your opponents even as you are losing some of your legs (with your serve or decisions made, for instance), but we were not able to do that consistently enough. They got momentum cranking for them early in the second set and we weren't able to slow that down. At the end of the day we found things that we have to get better at".

The Flyers have another tough weekend ahead. They have a tough match on Saturday and then another tough match against Tulsa later that day. What does Kelly think about the upcoming weekend.

"This weekend will be the most challenging weekend on the court since I've been here. Throw in the home-court for Tulsa, and this will be the first time that we will enter a tournament being the underdog for all three matches. We will also be playing three very challenging matches in 25 hours. We can talk about the insanity of me agreeing to that at a later date. The point is, we've got a pretty hefty challenge in front of us - which is great!"

Minnesota is really, really good. They have three players that are absolutely big-time and two very experienced setters running the show. They will be right there in the mix for the Big 10 championship this year. Tulsa has an outside attacker who is leading the nation in Kills and has been in the top 3 all four years she's been playing. She's an absolute beast. She's getting 11 1/2 sets per game and hitting over .350. That's freaky good! Kansas St returns every player from a team that beat Nebraska in the second round and made it to the Sweet 16 last year - oh yeah, and by the way, are undefeated this season. When I watch them on film, they are hitting on all cylinders right now".

You wonder what might be going on with the players after losing two matches in one day. According to Kelly that shouldn't be an issue:

"As far as the other stuff, we don't over-react following wins and we don't over-react following loses. We work on getting better, period. But, when we don't play well, our players have to see and understand what we were having issues with and then go to work on fixing those things. That's what we have done this week. How are the players doing? I think they are doing great! Last week everyone passed a virus around to each other, but right now, we seem to be physically and mentally in a good place and doing good work in the classroom. We've really kicked their butts in practice this week, and they've responded the way that you'd expect a Flyer Volleyball Team to respond. I really, really like coaching this team".

Minnesota will be really tough as will the second match of the day against Tulsa. Sweeping this weekend would be a huge feather in UD's hat.