At Brooks Gym, M.U. (25-16, 25-19, 25-15)
John's Commentary:
"It was a fun match to watch many of our 'young bucks' get some court action, as they did pretty well against a more experienced York College squad. Our B team would probably be ranked in the Top 10 in the conference. I had to scorekeep and we had to have our own players work the match (total bummer dude) since some of the women's players were in no condition to work the match and, at the same time, provide the correct calls. Special thanks to Matt Shetzline's girlfriend, Leah Valimont, for working the match for us, as she does without complaining every week. Matt, you make you sure you take care of her. (-: "
Coach's Commentary:
"Since traditionally strong York College finds itself rebuilding after the departure of many of the key players that helped lead them to an undefeated run through the MACVC West Division last year, as well as dealing with the "desertion" of their coach to the "Dark Side" of the division, this was a good match for us to experiment with some line-up changes, giving much needed experience to several players that hadn't seen court time yet this season, with the added bonus of competing before an appreciative home crowd in a West Division match.
They didn't dissapoint. Freshmen Adam Hoke and Clee Brun, and Juniors Mike Witwer and Andy Yeager combined for 25 attempts, 10 kills and only 2 hitting errors, achieving a hitting efficiency of .320, while putting up 2 solo and 4 assist blocks.
Clee was flawless in the middle, putting down four kills on 11 attempts with no errors, hitting .363 for the match, while also garnering a solo and an assist block in the two games he played.
Freshmen defensive specialists Matt Davis and Craig Campbell saw action in the first and third games, while senior Brian Lesher cleaned up the floor in the second.
Matt Shetzline had another great night, with 9 kills on 14 attempts, with just two errors (.500), and 1 solo and 2 assist blocks. Senior Libero Tracey Schafer proved that he can still pass and swing from the outside by knocking down 4 of 5 attempts for an .800 hitting efficiency in the last game. Senior Duston Gladfelter hit 3 for 5 with no errors in his only game of the night.
Junior Erick Macek and sophomore Ryan Wood combined for 11 kills, while Wood also bombed York with 18 jump serves for 13 points and 3 aces. Keith Kohler led the squad at setter, collecting 33 assists, and dropped some jump-serving bombs of his own, with 8 points and 3 aces on 14 serves.
It was a pleasant surprise to see ex-York player and all-MACVC middle-hitting all-star Matt Dawson at the helm for York College this season. With his guidance, the Spartans should show considerable improvement by the next time we face them on March 10th at YCP.
This was a good match for us, we had a number of people step up into the lime light and put in some very respectable performances. In fact, the guys that don't normally hit for us (Clee, Mike, Andy, Tracey, and Adam) collectively out hit the guys that do (25-10-2 for a .320 hitting efficiency versus 66-31-13 for a .273 hitting efficiency). I suspect that there might be a little pushing and shoving to see who gets on the court in the next match - and that's not a bad thing.
This was probably our best serving night of the year, as Ryan was hot all night, and Keith and Mace were serving well, too. We continue to serve more aces than errors, and anything over a 1:2 ace-to-error ratio is acceptable. We kept York's receivers off balance the entire match, and that kept York from running any type of middle offense. On the minus side, our hitting continues to be erratic - 14 of York's 41 points (that weren't due to our service errors) came on our hitting miscues. That means that 34% of York's points came from our hitting errors, while York "gave" us less than 25% of our points.
With King's coming to town this Friday, we have three practices this week to square things away, and cut down on our unforced errors. It will be the key to the match."