Michigan State volleyball team back on track
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
BY TODD HENRICHS / Lincoln Journal Star
It’s Sunday morning, and the Michigan State volleyball team is hitting the practice court.
At 0-4 in the Big Ten, the Spartans were in need of some divine intervention.
“At that time, it was easy to think, ‘We’re not going to be too good this year,’” senior Ashley Schatzle recalled of that moment when simply making it to the NCAA Tournament looked like an uphill struggle.
Schatzle and Michigan State bounced back to beat Northwestern, but then faced another bump in the road. They lost badly at rival Michigan in a match where the Spartans erred on 19 of 71 serves to drop to 1-5.
“We talked the whole bus ride home,” Schatzle said. “And the next week, we started to turn things around.”
In an NCAA Tournament where the Sweet 16 has wild new flavors in Iowa State, Middle Tennessee and St. John’s, Michigan State’s quick return to national prominence is a bit overshadowed this week.
But as second-ranked Nebraska (29-1) prepares to face the Spartans (21-13) in Friday’s semifinals of the Madison Regional, NU coach John Cook says what Michigan State counterpart Cathy George has done is worthy of coach of the year consideration.
Three years ago, she took over a program divided by the forced retirement of coaching legend Chuck Erbe and was probably lucky to win 12 matches in her first season.
Among the players to leave Michigan State during the transition was freshman starter Maggie Griffin, who transferred to Nebraska after playing for George in the spring exhibition season.
Others moved on, as well, but a year ago, Michigan State was back in the NCAA Tournament, and this year, the Spartans have reached a regional for just the second time in 11 seasons. The Spartans have won four of their last five matches against top-25 opponents, capped by Saturday’s sweep of then-No. 15 Dayton on the Flyers’ home floor.
“That’s a huge turnaround,” Cook said. “To beat Wisconsin (late in the regular season) and Dayton on the road, those are two really big wins.”
With five straight wins, Michigan State cracked the coaches’ top 25 at No. 24 on Monday. It’s the first ranking for the Spartans in more than four years and another big step in resurrecting a program that played Nebraska in the 1995 national semifinals.
En route to a fifth-place finish in the final Big Ten standings this season, Michigan State ended a 10-match losing streak to Minnesota and a seven-loss skid against Ohio State. The Spartans’ win at then-No. 7 Wisconsin was their first against the Badgers since 2003 and gave George, who coached previously at Western Michigan, her first victory against a top-10 team as Spartan coach.
“Every year that has gone by, we’ve improved defensively, we’ve improved offensively and everyone just has a better understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish here,” George said. “This year, we came into the tournament playing at a different level.”
Michigan State’s offense is led by freshman setter Lauren O’Reilly, a Canadian Junior National Team member, but its strength is the potent outside hitting combination of Schatzle and fellow senior Katie Johnson.
Together, they average close to nine kills and more than 21 attacks per game.
“They’re both very special,” George said. “They’re both exceptional athletes who have been able to pull us out of some tough situations.”
Michigan State swept both Kentucky and Dayton last weekend without the services of sophomore starting middle blocker Vanessa King, who was out with an ankle injury. Mischelle Nelson stepped in, and in those two matches, equaled her kill total for the entire regular season with 11 kills.
Defensively, Michigan State has gone from averaging 13.4 digs a game prior to Oct. 5 to 17.1 over the last two months of the season.
Briefly
After seeing limited action in Saturday’s match against Wichita State, Nebraska senior Christina Houghtelling isn’t expected to practice again until Wednesday. Houghtelling, who is bothered by back spasms, did work out in the pool Monday, Cook said.
Reach Todd Henrichs at 473-7320 or thenrichs@journalstar.com.
Most Commented news