Monday, November 17, 2008
Research and Direction
Volleyball Update from Coach Pavlik on Preview to the Final Four
Greetings from the southbound lane of Route 219!
We are heading back to State College from Buffalo, NY where we have just finished competing in the Preview to the Final Four Tournament. We are moving through some lake effect snows but the bus is quiet and we are all looking to get home.
This weekend wraps up our fall training block and after four weeks of 7 AM practices and Blue-White scrimmages the guys had looked forward to competing against another uniform than each other. This tournament would feature the Loyola Ramblers, George Mason Patriots and Pepperdine Waves along with us.
Through the work of our athletics administrator, Jan Bortner, we were able to travel with all seventeen players and since we were playing Loyola at 1 PM , Pepperdine at 7 PM (both matches taking place in Rochester) and George Mason at 12:30 PM on Sunday (in Buffalo) a full bench would help insure judicious use of all of our guys. Secondly, it would give us the chance to see everyone in action…they all got up to be at those 7 AM practices and worked hard. I wanted all of them to enjoy playing someone other than each other.
We left Rec Hall at 5:30 PM on Friday and arrived in Rochester at 10:45 PM. The next day we took on the Ramblers and with a mixture of possible starters we won games one and two 30-23 and 30-16. We then started to mix and match young and veteran players and Loyola came back to tie the match with wins in the next two games 25-30 and 28-30. We stayed with three freshmen on the floor in game five and took advantage of early Rambler miscues for a 15-10 win. I was pleased to see the competitive fire and overall poise of the youngsters late in the match and the execution and discipline of the veterans in their games together. We were off to a good start.
We then grabbed lunch at the famous Rochester volleyball spot Hot Shots, returned to the gym and waited through two matches to face the Waves that evening. The Waves had some players who were suffering through some injuries but a Dunphy-coached team will always play the game well and we had to be on top of our game. Our serving and passing remained pretty consistent and our blocking did a good job against the Waves. We managed to keep pressure on them and our block and defense was very active. We came away with a 30-16, 30-24, 30-27 win.
The GMU match was similar to the Loyola match. We started possible starting combinations in games one and two and were tied at one game apiece: 30-24 and 28-30. We then started to get the younger the guys into the match and we lost game three 27-30. Game four was not looking good but the young guys started to pull together and make some plays and took a come-from-behind win 30-27 to force a fifth game. The young guys earned the right to finish the game so they went out for game five and took a 5-1 lead and never let control of the game slip away. It was a 15-9 win!
So we managed to see everyone contribute this weekend. I was pleased to see our offense begin to jell and our block and defense play well. Our passing and serving, for this time of year, seems to be ahead of where we normally seem to be and the team is playing pretty unselfishly. It was a good way to cap off the preseason.
Now we get to play one more Blue-White scrimmage on Friday and the guys head home for Thanksgiving break and get ready for the end of the semester. The guys have worked hard this fall and deserve the time off. We hope your Thanksgiving holiday is a safe and happy one and we look forward to seeing you in Rec Hall very, very soon!
Pav, Craig, Colin and the defending NCAA Champions