Day 3 UW Oshkosh Regional observations

#1 UW Oshkosh 3, #6 St. Thomas 1 • When Oshkosh goes into off-switch mode, it’s usually the passing and setting that’s the most noticable. Tonight it was the hitting in Set 1. Most of the Titan attempts in the opening stanza were not even close. • The St. Thomas all-conference players were unreal in Set 1, especially middle Jill Osborne. It appeared she got in Oshkosh hitters’ heads after she stuffed a couple. Osborne owned the net in Set 1. • The St. Thomas passing and back-row D were also on fire in Set 1. Give a great setter like Emily Foster passes like she got, and it’s not going to be pretty on the other side. And it wasn’t. What else can be said about Foster? She didn’t have her best match overall, in my opinion. But Foster, even at less than her best, is fun to watch. So creative. • In Set 1 the Tommies looked like the No. 1 seed, not the crazy No. 6 the NCAA thought they were. It was a laughable seed when the brackets first came out, and I think almost everyone but the NCAA thought the same. It was evident all weekend that the Tommies were not a 6-seed. • Speaking of, anyone walk away with nothing but the utmost respect for St. Thomas senior OH Kyley Crotty? She was fantastic for most of tonight’s match and the regional. If there were a D-III volleyball magazine, Crotty would be my choice for the cover. She’s what the sport at this level is all about. • Tommie freshman L Kaitlin Wachter was unreal as well. Tonight, Wachter was every bit as impressive as her All-American counterpart on the Oshkosh side. It’s not very often I’ve felt that way. In fact, the last time I did was in 2007, when Juniata All-American Megan Sollenberger played the Titans. Opponents have another three years of trying to get one by Wachter. Good luck with that … • Oshkosh still couldn’t get kills at the beginning of Set 2. The seniors couldn’t get one. The junior couldn’t get one. Enter freshman outside hammer Al Bagin to get Oshkosh going. I don’t think the Titans get any traction tonight without her. Bagin allowed the others to relax and find a flow. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Bagin is the AVCA Midwest Region Freshman of the Year, after all. But she could not have picked a better time to prove it because her team was listless before she started booming. • The awesome Tommie passing from Set 1 went AWOL due to nice Titan service pressure, especially from Andrea Smith and Brittney Cote. Cote’s floater ace to end Set 3 dropped about 7 feet at the 10-foot line. • After Bagin got the Titans going, Katie Beining finished off the Tommies. A day after mashing most of her team-leading 16 kills, tonight Beining showed she has some other shots in her arsenal on her way to collecting another All-Regional honor. • The Titan passing was night-and-day from Set 1 to the end. Smith, Cote and Christina Cahoon gave setter Katelyn Vara what she needed, and the hitters, finding their tempo, got their terminations. • I’m not sure how the selectors felt, but I thought you could have flipped a coin between Cahoon and Vara for the Regional Most Outstanding Player. I’d maybe, maybe give a slight edge to Cahoon, and that’s who won it. • Looking ahead, this year the NCAA, perhaps knowing the UW Oshkosh Regional was a bit tough (did I mention St. Thomas was a 6-seed?), didn’t match the winner against, say, a Juniata in the Nationals opener. Instead the Titans get one of the two weaker (New England and New York) regions in the quarterfinals. Hope, the winner of the other crazy-tough regional, gets the other weaker region at Nationals.

2009 UW Oshkosh All-Regional Team (on which you get no complaints from me) UW Oshkosh L Christina Cahoon (Most Outstanding Player) UW Oshkosh S Katelyn Vara UW Oshkosh RS Katie Beining St. Thomas OH Kyley Crotty St. Thomas S Emily Foster UW-Eau Claire OH Emily Zupon Luther MB Felicia Bridgers

• I’ll have the 2009 Nationals Guide ready to go sometime in the next two days, so watch for that if you’re so inclined.

-Ricky Nelson