by Dax Larson
October 18, 2005
Home court is where teams are supposed to thrive, be relaxed, feel comfortable and feed off the crowd’s energy.
This season, the Minnesota State volleyball team’s record would indicate that it feels more comfortable on the road than at home. Since the start of conference play on Sept. 23, the Mavericks are 1-3 at home and 3-1 on the road.
After going 3-1 on a four-game road streak, MSU came home and lost two straight matches. The Mavericks ran into a very skilled No. 7 ranked Concordia-St. Paul team Oct. 11.
Oct. 1, the Mavericks went on the road and defeated South Dakota 3-1. Saturday, the Coyotes turned the tables and beat MSU 3-1 at the Taylor Center. The Mavericks went down the first two games by the scores of 30-28 and 30-27.
“They (USD) have played together for a really long time,” head volleyball coach Dennis Amundson said. “Their experience really showed.”
Although the scores seem close, the games were not. MSU made simple mistakes and didn’t capitalize on the Coyotes’ mistakes. In Game 3, the Mavericks came alive and won 30-23. In Game 4, MSU had two chances to end the game at 31-30 and 32-31, but came up short as South Dakota took the game 34-32.
“We feel a little upset,” freshman Ally Kwikkel said. “We fought really hard after the first two games. We had a little push towards the end. We just needed a little more.”
In the two losses, the Mavericks had 62 attacking errors as their opponents had only 49.
Defensively, the Mavericks had significantly less digs than their opponents. MSU had 127 compared to 152 for its two opponents. After the South Dakota match, Amundson talked about what the team needed to work on.
“We’ll practice our fundamentals,” Amundson said. “We need to finish better and play tougher defense.”
Leading the way so far for MSU are its three upperclassmen — senior Tiffany Graham and juniors Cassie Wolpern and Mandy Reuter — and sophomore Stef Sandstrom. Reuter leads in total kills while Wolpern leads in total digs and is the only Maverick to play in all 75 games this season. Sandstrom leads the team in total assists and serving aces and Graham leads the team in blocks and ranks second in kills.
MSU takes its two-game losing streak on the road today in a non-conference match with Southwest Minnesota State and continues on the road Saturday when they face-off against St. Cloud State, who is currently winless in conference play.
