I was informed that I needed to make a post before tonight's game. Don't want to tempt the fates, ya know?
Sorry I don't have more of a pre-game post for you. What I will tell you is that you can watch the game, so to speak, via live stats at
http://www.nevadawolfpack.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml?&SPSID=45412&SPID=4083&DB_OEM_ID=10000&LIST_SPORT_IDI did email the WAC about broadcasting the game tonight but it seems Nevada doesn't have internet broadcast capabilities in the arena where they're playing tonight. Let's hope the new Pan Am renovations included this for us!
It's 34 minutes to gametime so let me attempt to do a quick pre-game here.
Nevada comes into this meeting at 8-6 and 2-0 for the WAC. I usually pull info from their scouting reports but it doesn't seem they have one up. I do see that they are on a 4 game at home win streak. You can check out their
cumulative stats right here.Well, the team is warming up as we speak. I was wrong when I said it would go to 4 games with Utah State so I'm not going to hazard a guess right now.
They're lean, they're mean, they're solid and they've got more chemistry than any team I know.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AGGIES!!
Remember that scene in "16 Candles" when Samantha's 'cousin', Long Duck Dong is with his American girlfriend where he says, "I so hoppy!"
Well, approximately 13 minutes ago, our wonderful Lady Aggies improved their record to 17-0 by defeating the Utah State Aggies in 3. 30-21, 30-28 and 30-14.
Game 2 was, once again, a tough one for us. We were behind for a few points but managed to pull out a squeaker. I think I could see Coach turning red from my view on WAC TV.
OK - stats are out at
http://utahstateaggies.cstv.com/sports/c-volley/stats/2006-2007/usu17.htmlWow. They held us to only .075 attack in the second game. I believe it too because they (Utah) came in with a vengence in that game.
Looking at the stats I'm really impressed. 7 service errors, only 1 serve recieved error and no block errors. I'm still trying to figure out what the heck GEN BHE is. Help?
Total team blocks - 6 For Utah, 8 service errors, 5 serve recieved errors and 1 block error, with 9 total team blocks.
Here's an interesting stat I haven't seen before:
Tie scores: G 1 - 2, G2 - 15, G3 - 1
Lead Changes: G1 - 1, G2 - 8, G3 - 0
Total attendance: 472
Time: 1:24
From what I could see, they looked solid. They won a few of the longer rallys, were on top of the opponent blocks much better and, quite honestly, I didn't see too many mistakes. Of course, there were a few but nothing really to note here.
We'll have a better idea after the stats come in.
So, onto Reno this Saturday. So far, I don't see any video feeds yet but have found live stats via Nevada's site -
http://www.nevadawolfpack.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml?&SPSID=45412&SPID=4083&DB_OEM_ID=10000&LIST_SPORT_IDAnd, yes, I did email the gentleman that posted on Crimson Storm this afternoon about the WACTV feed for tonight's game. Maybe now that we're 17-0, they'll consider running us instead of some tired football game! :)
A girl can dream......
Utah State is up first for the Aggies on this road trip.
EDIT: I was wrong. They don't have a viewable game tonight. Instead.
Make sure you have Windows Media Player. Catch the Aggies on Thursday night as they take their undefeated show on the road to face the other Aggies.This week, we are offering all volleyball matches for only $3.95." Cruise by the
www.nmstatesports.com site for the link up. I've got it up now and we're underway. Good picture.
Now, let's take a look at the 9-7 Utah State Aggies.
From their scouting report: "Utah State is 9-7 on the season and tied for first-place in the WAC with a 2-0 league record after recording a pair of four-game wins against Fresno State and San Jose State at home last weekend. The Aggies are led by junior opposite side hitter
Amanda Nielson who is averaging 4.13 kills, 1.96 digs, 1.04 blocks and 0.46 service aces per game, while freshman outside hitter
Hailey Jeppson is averaging 3.14 kills, 2.76 digs, and 0.60 blocks per game. As a team, Utah State is hitting .167 on the year as compared to a .161 hitting percentage for its opponents."
Jeppson was named WAC Player of the Week last week.
The last time we met Utah? Last year in the 2005 WAC Tourny. We took them to 5 games however they had the upper hand. Our all time record with them is 29-23 and that includes a 10-12 record at home for Utah.Overall, USU has won six of the last eight matches played in the series, including four straight at home.
So, do we have our hands full? Possibly. It's going to be intense I believe and I'm going to say we'll go to 4 on this one.
If you want to check further, visit their team stats
http://utahstateaggies.cstv.com/sports/c-volley/stats/2006-2007/teamcume.htmlAlso, from the Crimson Storm pages:
I need more kleenex on my desk.
http://www.avca.org/collegiate/dipoll/dipoll9-25-06.aspYes - the latest AVCA Poll is out. In case you don't want to click thru, I'll let you know what it says:
New Mexico State is now ranked 22. 16-0 is the best record up there. Hawai'i stayed at 15...not too many other changes. Wow and wow. Awesomeness to say the least.
How sweet it is. Before a pretty packed house at LC High last night (attendance 2437), we swept Boise State.
What we saw last night was a team that, even though they are ranked 24th nationally, they aren't letting it get to them. We saw strong performances by the usual members - Amber and Alice with 13 kills, Kim with 10. Jackie with 38 assists, Krystal with 18 digs, Jordan with 13 and Tanya with 12.
Remember yesterday's post where I talked about Boise's two top players? Cameron and Jackie? Cameron had 8 kills, 17 total attacks. Her attack percentage was the team high at .353. Jackie on the other hand was completely shut down. 1 service ace, 5 serve reception errors and 13 digs.
We held them to an attack percentage of .088 while ours was .351. Niiiiiice.
It came up in
Geoff Grammer's column today - game 2. If you were in the crowd, you know what I'm talking about. Near the end of game 2, coach put in 'reservists'. It was a little dicey - I didn't see much communication going on and the mistakes made were simple ones. But, we were ahead by 15 points, so you can't blame him. We're losing 3 players this year - you have to see how the bench is going to play together in big games.
I have to tell you - I'm completely impressed with Kelli Goodan and Krista Altermatt. Kelli played in 2 games last night, and came away with 5 kills and 12 Total Assists. Krista had 4 total assists and 1 dig. Very solid as far as I'm concerned for their first year.
It's time for a roadtrip this week as the Aggies head to Utah State Thursday and then down to Reno to play Nevada. Two very important games for us. I'll post info on where to get game info - either via livestats or internet broadcast.
Boise State comes to town tonight to take on the Lady Aggies at 7pm at the LC High Gym.
Boise, as of the 21st, is 7-6 and 1-0 in conference play. Taking at look at their schedule so far, they've played some good teams - UNLV, for one, which they lost in 3.
Stat wise - interesting match-up. Taking into account that they've only played 13 games to our 15, a quick look at the stats would make one think, Hmmm. We might have a challenge tonight.
The stats I've been told to look at pre-game include Kills/Kill Errors, Aces/Errors and Serve Receptions Errors/Errors per game as well as ball handling errors.
Kills/Errors - 669 and 313 vs our 562 and 389
Serve Ace/Errors - 67 and 107 vs. our 64 and 101
Serve Recp Errors/Per game - 85 and 1.9 vs our 121 and 2.4
Ball handling errors - 29 vs our 9
What this tells me is that I believe we're going to have the upper hand tonight. It looks like they are on the mark with service but I think we're more solid in the actual handling of the ball.
Their two top players are seniors - Cameron Flunder and Jackie Stroud. Coach made special mention of Cameron at Thursday's Sideout Club gathering. "One of the top players in the country" he said. Cameron is a middle blocker, Jackie an outside hitter.
Cameron was named to the WAC Preseason team this year, All WAC first team last year and the year before that. Jackie put up some good numbers last year and over her career with 970 career digs and 64 service aces.
Again, as I usually say, if we keep our heads about us, don't let that top 25 target on our back get too heavy and play solid, we should do just fine. I hope that we're able to break the jinx of getting a good point run lead, then letting the opponent catch back up.
Next week, the team is on the road at, what I consider our two biggest rivals - Utah State and the Nevada 'stole our spot in the tourny' Wolfpack. Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to hit the road for these two.
If you weren't among the 2,103 folks who were at the Las Cruces HS gym last night for the WAC opener, then shame on you. The crowd was electric and the team was absolutely amazing. The cheerleaders were there as well as Pistol Pete.
Check out
Felix Chavez' column on the front page of the sports section of today's Las Cruces Sun News. To quote his column:
The Aggies held Idaho to a .041 hitting percentage while hitting .435 to sweep the Vandals in 3... 30-20, 30-21 and 30-17.
The rest of the numbers look pretty good as well - 53 kills, 7 service aces (9 service errors), and 8 total team blocks.
In talking with some of the team members at the Sideout Club gathering after the game, they felt they did a good job. I was afraid that the 24 rank would have a negative affect and play with their mental game a bit. I was so wrong. It made them want to play with more determination.
Coach was pleased with the performance as well. There were a couple mis-cues but the team I saw last night was a Top 25 team. In games past - and years past, I've always said that, if there was a hole in the defense in the backline of the Aggies, the other team would find it. I called it the 'bunch up' defense. The girls had a tendancy to bunch up and leave one of the back corners open. The Vandals found it once last night. Only once.
They were solid all around - I heard a lot of people say that they could tell they'd been working on the serving. But like I said, 9 service errors - more in the net than long if I remember correctly.
Coming up this Saturday: vs. Boise State at 7pm at Las Cruces High. I'll get a gameday done this time.
Also - starting at 5:30pm, a tailgate sponsored by the Aggie Gals. And yes, Aggie Guys are invited.
Fact: NMSU has won all three tournaments they've played in this year - UTEP, Hilton Classic and the Jackrabbit Classic.
In talking with a couple of folks, I've discovered that some think the 24 rank is a little premature. To quote a 'friend' who has since told me he wants to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation at Thursday's game, "If you stack up who we've played vs. who the other teams in the top 25 have played, it doesn't make much sense to see us ranked. Yeah, we've played a couple tough teams but we haven't played the big teams like Hawaii, Pepperdine, BYU or even Long Beach State. Our opponents haven't given us much to compete against, aside from Tech or San Diego."
First of all, as I told him (in an all caps email for which I apologize), we'll get to Hawaii, Nevada and Utah soon enough. I may be emotional when it comes to Aggie Volleyball but the ranking was definitely warranted. Why? Well first off, I don't see any other teams in the top 25 with a 14-0 record. The closest is a 13-0 from UCLA and Michigan.
Secondly, we've been solid in our numbers and on both sides of the ball. After the Hilton Classic, some of us fans were saying that we needed work on serving but it seems Coach has taken care of that.
Thirdly, if the rankings were based solely on the heart of the team, we'd be number 1. I've said it so many times - this is a solid unit, a solid family. (That's the emotional side of me talking again.)
All along I've heard the same things from people - "Work on the serving" "Work on the simple mistakes" "Work on the communication". Yeah yeah yeah already. What do you think goes on in practice? Aside from the random outbreak of "Happy Birthday to You", they aren't just sitting there having tea and crumpets. I've never been to a practice but from what I've heard, its tough work. Stop over to bleedcrimson.net and read Jordan Bostic's volleyball diary. Her entries will give you an idea of what goes on in practice.
I'll get off my soapbox now, but I'll leave you with something I picked up at nmstatesports.com:
Against the WAC (as of Sept. 18)
New Mexico State ranks first in the conference in team hitting percentage (.289), opponent hitting percentage (.093), blocks per game (3.04) and service aces (114). Individually, Amber Simpson (.464) and Kim Oguh (.394) are first and second in the league in hitting percentage. Simpson is second in blocks per game (1.42) with Oguh ranking fourth (1.31). Alice Borden is sixth in kills per game (178) while Jackie Choi ranked second in assists per game (11.90).
Oh, and by the way - Happy Birthday Coach Jordan!
Tomorrow I'll have some final thoughts about the Vandals.
The day has finally come. This team has finally been recognized.
For the first time in school history, the NMSU Womens Volleyball team recieved 122 votes in the AVCA poll this week which put them in 24th place.
Ladies and gentlemen, my hat is off to Coach Jordan and his coaching staff of Debby Baker and Ashley Hardee, Ben Wallis and Chris Hertel. My hat is off to the team: Krystal, Angel, Mary, Jackie, Anna, Briana, Angelle, Kim, Jordan, Krista, Ashley, Kelli, Nicole, Whitney, Tanya, Jessee, Amber and Alice. I know some of those names haven't gotten any court time due to redshirts and so on but they are all part of this historic team.
I hope that the gym is absolutely packed this Thursday night at Las Cruces High School. It's going to be so sweet to hear the words "Nationally Ranked Aggies".
I'm proud to say that I had a tear or two when I saw the poll this afternoon around ten til 2. Wow.
Just so everyone knows - the
new AVCA poll comes out tomorrow afternoon... avca.org . Last week - 81 votes put us in 28th. We're still undefeated. Let's see if the teams we played this weekend in South Dakota helped us at all.
So, this morning over on the sports homepage of the LC Sun News, there's a poll. (
http://www.lcsun-news.com/sports )
The Aggie volleyball team is now 14-0. Do you plan to attend one of their games this season? I'm not going to tell you how its running - all I'll say is go check it out. There are a lot of people who will be missing out.
The Lady Aggies are either home or on their way home from South Dakota. As you can see from the poll, they had a successful trip, upping their win streak to 14. They're back here on Thursday night to open WAC play against the University of Idaho.
Let's take a look at the Vandals. Keep in mind I'm still learning about stats and so on.
The Vandals are currently 1-10, according to their
team stats page . But don't think they've all been matches where they went down in 3. 5 games went down in 3, 4 in 4 and 1 in 5. They lost to Notre Dame (Ranked 21) in 4 games 21-30, 25-30, 30-27 and 30-15.
A quick side by side comparison of NMSU and the Vandals show that the Vandals seem to be a more defensive team with 2.8 blocks per game vs. opponents to our 1.6. However, block errors are 29 to our 7. We definitely have the edge, kill-wise with 15.2 per game vs. their 11.1.
After 9 losses, they finally got a win on the 15th against Washington State. That was a big win as the Cougars are 12-2 on the season. They lost in 5 to South Dakota State.
Team-wise - it's a young team. 3 seniors, 1 junior and the rest is made up of freshmen and sophomores.
Last year we won in 3 when they came here ( 30-21,30-19,30-17) but lost in 4 when we visited ( 28-30,30-28,25-30,21-30).
I think it's going to be a good conference opener for us. As long as our Aggies keep their heads about them and continue to act as a cohesive group on the court.
Next up: Boise State
One of the great things about this team is the fact that they don't let past disappointments get to them. Of course, I'm talking about the fact that they were robbed last year when they didn't get the invite to the NCAA tournament.
They keep on going, building their confidence with every serve, set, kill and block.
Another neat thing about following the Lady Aggies is watching them get the national attention they so richly deserve. Case in point:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2586670 - espn.com article by Dave Reed on the program. If you're just starting to follow volleyball in Las Cruces, this is a great introduction to the team.
Oh, and by the way - the Aggies are in South Dakota this weekend for the Jackrabbit Invitational. The schedule:
Friday 9/15 vs Lamar at 10:30am
Friday 9/15 vs SDSU at 6pm
Saturday 9/16 vs N. Dakota at 3:30pm
If you want to follow the action:
Listen into the game tomorrow night at 6pm our time at
www3.sdstate.edu/Athletic.../Index.cfm . They're only broadcasting the SDSU games.
Lamar University doesn't look like it'll be broadcasting but they do have a link to follow the live scores:
lamarcardinals.cstv.com/superscoreboard/I'm still looking around for something for North Dakota State.
Gooooooooooooo Aggies!
Hi. My name is Melanie Brooks and I'm a NMSU Volleyball Addict.
It started quite simply enough in 2003. We moved back to Las Cruces from the east coast. A friend of ours said to 'just check out one game'. Now we are hopelessly addicted. Perhaps down the road, I'll come up with a "You Know You're Addicted to Aggie Volleyball When..." list.
In case you don't know about Aggie Volleyball - let me attempt to fill you in.
We have an amazing team, coached for 9 years by Michael Jordan. His record over the last four seasons speaks for itself as he's recorded a mark of 106-22 with two conference championships and back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament in 2003 and 2004. (source: nmstatesports.com bio) He was also named Coach of the Year by the WAC last year.
The thing about this team is that you can tell a few things by just watching them interact with each other, and with the coaches. First of all, the amount of respect they have for the staff is amazing. I've watched opponents interact with their respective coaches. Some get angry, others roll their eyes and some even shout back at them. You'll never see that on our sidelines. What you'll see is Coach Jordan yelling a little bit one minute, then the next minute he'll have his arm around the shoulders of the player, encouraging her on.
Suffice to say - amazing group and its an honor to be able to watch them.
I'm not really sure where I'll be going with this blog but I've been wanting to write about Aggie Volleyball for awhile. I guess we'll see what happens!
