bierce

Announcers wondering the wisdom of challenging when up 21-12. Challenge succeeds. 22-11. This set has been very ugly. Poor passing and setting leading o few hitting chances. Most of those missed. Kahahawai kills one down line. 22-12. She's back to hitting .000. Hellmuth blocked again. She might be feeling like she should have stayed home. 22-13. A&M long but touch. 23-13. Cos-Okpalla kill. 24-13. Cos-Okpalla tapped into net after long rally. 24-14. Cos-Okpalla kill middle. 25-14. She's killing us.

Skinner kill weakside off block into the crowd. 18-11. A&M kill weakside. 19-11. Wenaas stuffed. 20-11. Lopoyu is tall. Cos=Okpalla kill. 21-11. Wenaas withkill. 21-12. A&M challenging if net violation earlier.

We're hitting just .111 this match, despite A&M having only 4 blocks to our 8.

Kahahawai/singletary block. 15-10. Texas save of dink sent wide. Skinner can't pass it over inside the pole. 16-10. A&M ace. 17-10. Singletary hit long. I would challenge that. 18-10. Timeout Texas.

Lednicky kill weakside. 14-7. Nya Bunton is middle blocker. Rutherford/Bunton block. 14-8. Hellmuth denied again. Lednicky off block out of bounds. 15-8. Rutherford off A&M chest. 15-9.

Wenaas kill. 11-5. Needed 6 swings this set to get a kill. Hellmuth stuffed again. 11-6. Kahahawai nets the serve. 12-6. Middle kill cos-Okpalla. 13-6. Lednicky wide. 13-7.

Skinner kill through blockers. 6-3. Lednicky blocked (or netted it). 6-4. Akana serve error. 7-4. Wenaas denied twice. Second block falls in. 8-4. Ames blocked. 9-4. A&M ace. 10-4. Miscommunication between skinner and Halter. Lednicky kill. 11-4.

Texas challenging rule of touch and whether there was an attack line fault. Overruled. 5-2. Carlson called for carry after pass nearly goes into the net. 6-2. Looks a lot like set #2 in College Station so far.

Singletary with her first kill in the match on a dink. 1-0. Hellmuth sailed one into the crowd. 2-0. Perkins kill middle. 2-1. Back to back aces by Perkins. 3-2 agroids. Kahahawai blocked. 4-2. Lednicky kill. 5-2.

Lednicky is killing it from the opposite side but not having big success strong side. Hellmuth has been shut down so far. Wenaas is 3/3. Rest of team is 7/26 with 5 hitting errors.

Challenge lost. 27-25 Texas. Little toe on the line. OK, first set was too close. We dominated the blocking, but hitting percentages were nearly the same. A&M serving errors made the difference.

A&M with back row violation. Lednicky taking off over the line from the back row. A&M challenge. Set Texas if challenge fails.

Skinner/Carlson block. Don't see that often. set point Texas.

Skinner kill from back row. 22 all. A&m middle kill. 23-22 agroids. A&M 5th service error. 23 all. A&M middle kill. set point A&M Wenaas kill to knot it. 24 all. Cos-Okpalla, who had last 2 A7M kills is not on the floor. Lednickcy kill. Set point #2 agroids. A&m serve error #6. 25 all.

They didn't go Full Monty, so that's good. A&M middle kill. 20-19. another A&m serve error. 21-19. Kahahawai hit wide. 21-20. Skinner flubs return. 21 all. A&M serves fall in corner for back to back aces. 22-21 A&M. Timeout Texas. Kahahawai leads us with 5.5 points.

Wenaas off block. 15 all. Hellmuth off block. 16-15 agroids. Skinner dink can't clear the net. 17-15. Way too many points without Texas getting a swing. That ends with Rutherford murdering one. 17-16. Rutherford blocked. 18-16. Once again, no points on halter's serve. Hellmuth blocked. 18-17, Skinner kill after Hellmuth stopped twice and Lednicky deflected and hit saved. 18 all. Hellmuth blocked again by Kahahawai/Singletary. 19-18 UT> Kahahawai kill off touch. UT men's swim team stripping in the crowd. 20-18.

Lednicky off block on strong side. 11-10. Wenaas with a great slam falling just inside the line cross court. Great hit. 12-10. Kahahawai ace #2. 13-10. Ace # 3. 14-10. She be on a roll! Long on the next serve. 14-11. Rutherford with a mis-timing with the setter. 14-12. Free ball into the net Rutherford free balled again. A&m kill. 14-13. Ames had to dink. A&M covered and got the kill. 14 all. Three straight points without a good swing. Long rally ends with Rutherford hitting long from left side. 15-14 A&M. Really discombobulated right now.

A&M serve error. 9-7. Lednicky off the blockers. 9-8. A&M serve error. 10-8 Hellmuth kill. 10-9. A&M makes it a hat trick with serve errors. 11-9.

Wenaas served into the net. 7-5. Skinner with kill with set coming from the back row. 8-5. Halter serve error. 8-6. Lednicky kill. 8-7.

Lednicky blocked by Singletary/Wenaas. 4-2. Cos-Okpalla middle hit falls in. 4-3. ames hit it middle through block. 5-3. Kahahawai ace. 6-3. Sails next one long. 6-4. Rutherford killed one. 7-4.

Lednicky with opening kill off block out of bounds. missed dink by A&M mb. 1-1. Hellmuth netted one. 2-1 Texas. Hellmuth blocked by Kahahawai/Singletary. 3-1. Lednicky down line. 3-2.

And guess what characteristic the A&M coach shares with so many male coaches of women's volleyball? Yup, he's bald. It's just freaky.

I hoping more for a one-sided laugher of a match. But wait, that would be fun, wouldn't it?

Interesting rematch since Texas won the first match 3-1, but we were outblocked 14-5, something we pretty much never see. A&M is a very strong blocking team, 4th best in conference, but we are best in conference in conference play], more on that below. Skinner, Rutherford, and Kahahawai each had 11 kills, but Skinner had 10 hitting errors, often being targeted by Agroid blockers. We romped in the first set 25-16, but we fell behind 2-8 in the second set and never recovered in that set, hitting -.079 and losing it 14-25. We won a couple of relatively close sets to close the match. Since that conference opening match, we won 15 more straight sets including at ranked Florida and Kentucky before dropping the opening set to Georgia Sunday. A&M has since beaten #24 Auburn in Auburn, but it lost at home in straight sets to Florida and 2-3 @ unranked LSU. Their three headed block monster of Cos-Okpalla, Lednicky, and Perkins have combined for 204 blocks in 64 sets so far. By comparison, Singletary, Kahahawai, and Ames have combined for 171 in 53 sets. Cos-Okpalla is second in the conference in blocks, but of course Singletary is first. In confefrence play alone, Cos-Okpalla drops to 6th, while Singletary increases her lead over second to 2.13 to 1.59 b/set. Kahahawai is third in the conference in b/set in conference play. She is also 5th in aces and 7th in hitting percentage, a stat normally dominated by middle blockers used as secondary hitters. A&M offense is heavily weighted to Lednicky and Hellmuth, who have combined for 55% of team kills. Our top two hitters have combined for about 40% of our kills, but our offense is really spread this year among the 6 woman front of Skinner, Wenaas, Rutherford, Kahahawai, Singletary, and Ames. Each of have have at least 10% of our team kills. You don't see that on many teams.

Get back to me when he spends the off-season as an ESPN commentator and analyst and follows it up with a 5 win season.