National Semis

I didn’t see this one coming: Whitewater swept Juniata tonight. All three games were tight (28, 28, 25), but don’t blame the loss on Juniata’s star hitters.  JC’s National Player of the Year, Amber Thomas, had 22 kills and one error in 51 attempts. JC All-American Erin Albert had 13-4-26. The other JC players combined for 20 kills and 19 errors on 85 attempts for an .012 percentage. Three JC players hit negative.

The Juniata block was nonexistent. Three blocks isn’t getting it done against Whitewater, which had 10 blocks. And to make the JC block extra futile, it had two blocking errors to help cancel out the three blocks it did get.

Whitewater was just steady and didn’t make as many mistakes. Abby Schultz led WW with 13 kills. Carley Polk and Sarah Theis, who really stepped up, had 12 apiece. Polk added seven blocks to her stat line. And to prove that WW played a fairly clean match, Kate Lazotte only had two ballhandling errors. That’s pretty good for her, going off of the five or so matches I’ve seen her play this season.

WW outhit JC .290 to .191. WW has now won 17 straight matches.

Wash U beat Wittenberg, 3-1, in the other semifinal. After top-ranked and undefeated Wittenberg outscored Wash U 18-8 to close out a Game 1 win, 30-25, I thought I knew what was going to happen. I didn’t.

Wash U rolled in Game 2 and won a tight Game 3 before sewing up the match with a 30-15 laugher in Game 4.

Neither team hit very well until Wash U busted out in the fourth game with a .630 percentage, when everything it did turned to gold. Wash U ended the match with a .231 mark, even with the crazy Game 4 stats. Wittenberg hit .173.

The big statistical difference was blocking. Wash U sent back 17.5 attempts. Wittenberg mustered a respectable 10 blocks, but Wash U’s Ellen Bruegge was a monster with 11 total (four solo) blocks.

Wash U went to Haleigh Spencer very often in the early going. Spencer’s 20 Game-1 attempts – even if she only had four kills and four errors – set up the middle for the rest of the match. Middle Nikki Morrison took over from there. Morrison ended the match with 19 kills and a .484 percentage. Witt All-American Emily Bell led all players with 20 kills, but she also had a match-high eight hitting errors.

I’m pretty good at this prediction thing, so I will continue my picks. I’ll go with Whitewater in four games in the final. I suggest you put a lot of money, if you’re so inclined, on Wash U.

-Ricky Nelson