Volleyball clings to final MAC Tournament seed going into crucial home matches against NIU, WMU
Volleyball’s chances against Northern Illinois and Western Michigan don’t look particularly good since it lost to both teams earlier this season.
Much has changed since Oct. 4-5 when the Chippewas lost to NIU and WMU on back-to-back nights. Senior setter Kelly Maxwell sat out both games due to injury and CMU’s only other setter, junior Dani Thompson, went out with an injury in the second game.
“If I wanted a Christmas present, I’d say get my setters healthy,” said head coach Erik Olson. “Unfortunately, that’s not one of my controllables.”
While still not fully healthy, Olson says Maxwell feels much better this time around. For the past few weeks, Maxwell has only practiced for one hour on Thursday’s, while the rest of the time she watches, trying to heal.
“(It’s) a credit to her how good she’s doing with the little training she’s getting,” Olson said. “That’s a credit to her in terms of character, how tough she is, how talented she is and how athletic she is. At the same time, even the best need training.”
Even with the injury, Maxwell is ranked 35th in the nation with 10.99 assists per set.
One of the difficulties of Maxwell not practicing is the team doesn’t build up chemistry during practice to prepare for the game.
Olson says the setter in volleyball is much like a quarterback in football. If the quarterback couldn’t practice during the week, it would make it much more difficult for the receivers to get more comfortable.
“We felt like we needed to get better in transition, which is something we absolutely can’t even work on for the tiniest little bit because it puts a lot of stress on our setters,” Olson said. “We’re trying to get better without hurting us.”
This weekend’s matches are pivotal, considering CMU is clinging to the eighth and final seed in the MAC Tournament with a 5-7 record and four games to go.
Senior middle blocker Danielle Gotham says the team isn’t getting caught up in the seeding drama.
"We are just focusing one day at a time right now, one match at a time,” Gotham said. “Our next match is Friday and that’s all that we’re focusing on.”
Buffalo and Eastern Michigan are one game behind the Chippewas in the standings.
Both the Huskies and the Broncos are tied for fifth in the conference at 7-5.
“Any time you get toward the end of the regular season, you’re clawing for seeds," Olson said. "We’re not used to clawing for the tournament … Every match is extremely important. Seeding can change four spots on the last Saturday night of MAC play.”
The Chippewas would be 6-6 if they could have pulled off the win Saturday at Toledo. CMU was just four points away from taking the match in four sets before the Rockets came storming back to take the final two sets.
“I don’t feel like it was a letdown,” Olson said. “It just sucked that we worked so hard and weren’t rewarded with the outcome that we wanted.”
The blocking game was part of the reason CMU was able to stay in the game against Toledo and is an aspect that has drastically improved since early October.
“The past couple weeks we’ve been working on blocking a lot in practice,” Gotham said. “Through the numbers you can tell that it’s definitely been showing through games. I was very pleased with that.”
Gotham alone has earned 15 blocks over the past 12 sets, including a career tying 9 blocks in Saturday’s five-set loss to Toledo.
Olson also praised middle blockers junior Hallie Enderle and sophomore Angie White for their improvements in the blocking game.
“Us as a team, if you go back and look at our blocking average back then to now, I think it was around 1.6, 1.4 even, and we’re all the way up to like 2.3 right now,” Olson said. “That’s made a huge difference for us.”
Another difference this time around for CMU against NIU and WMU is the fact that the Chippewas will be at home this time. Olson says those two places are some of the toughest places to play in the MAC because of their crowd.
“I’m expecting a big crowd, so I think it’s going to be a big deal,” Olson said. “I’m hoping to hear this arena the loudest it’s ever been.”
With a basketball game before, Friday's game against NIU is at 7:30 p.m. while it'll be a 7 p.m. start Saturday in McGuirk Arena.
