Titans do work, take a break

There was nothing much to report from UW-Oshkosh Invite last weekend. The No. 11 Titans played four lesser teams and swept all four. The Oshkosh passing and setting were crisp, and head coach Brian Schaefer was liberal with court time, like usual. Just solid all the way around. Schaefer even gave injured kills leader Megan Fischer (ankle) another weekend off. Even better, Oshkosh doesn’t play again until Oct. 22. Should be plenty of time for Fischer to heal up and get in some good practices before wrapping up conference play in what looks like a must-win match at UW-Platteville.

UWO (25-2, 6-1) still trails UW-Eau Claire (12-9, 4-0) by one game in the loss column. UW-EC still has to play a home match against No. 14 UW-Whitewater (18-6, 3-2) among its last four conference matches.

As for last weekend’s invite, UWO libero Christina Cahoon, who nearly always sticks out as the best player on the court, didn’t disappoint in garnering invite MVP honors – her second tourney MVP award of the year. That’s not usually an award liberos earn, but Cahoon is not a usual D-III libero. I wrote it last year, and I’ll write it again – Cahoon has D-I talent. Simply put, if you appreciate libero play, I’m convinced you won’t see a better one than Cahoon at the D-III level. Cahoon also just earned Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors. And to think Cahoon, a sophomore, probably would have been a backup again if not for junior starter Sam Schmidt’s season-ending ailment. It goes without saying that Schmidt also has D-I skills, which I’ve detailed often (here, here, here) on this blog. It’s amazing that both play at the same time in the same program. If Miami is known as Quarterback U, Oshkosh just may be Libero U.

-Ricky Nelson