Oregon volleyball played over the weekend in the SEMO Tournament, held in Cape Girardeau, home of Southeast Missouri State. They faced the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks in first-ever matches against both of these teams. Here is how the action went down:
Western Kentucky
Oregon’s season opener pitted the Ducks against an opponent they had never faced, the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Although the match resulted in a 3-0 sweep, it was definitely not as easy as that.
The Hilltoppers were a very young team last year but still ended with a 27-6 record, including winning the CUSA tournament and getting into the first round of the NCAA tournament. This year’s team returned all of their big players at the net and most of their defense. They did lose their starting setter from last year, but So. Kate Rush did play in nearly ⅔ of last year’s sets, so she wasn’t coming in inexperienced and did a fine job leading the offense.
WKU gave Oregon all they could handle in this match. The Hilltoppers led or tied for most of the first set, and if one knew nothing about this WKU team then they would have wondered what is wrong with the Ducks. Well, there’s nothing wrong with Oregon; Western Kentucky is a very good team that is probably going to win CUSA again, and they showed it.
After a 15-15 tie, Iva Šucurovic finally gave the Ducks their first lead of the set. It was a back-and-forth struggle until a Dalia Vîrlan kill gave Oregon a lead that they would not relinquish, winning a very close Set 1 25-23.
The Ducks were slightly behind early in Set 2, but put together multiple runs in mid-set to get an eight-point lead. WKU came back, but could only pull to within three points and Oregon took Set 2, 25-20.
The third set was a bit more concerning, as Oregon found themselves down four points early on. The Ducks pecked away at WKU’s lead, but were still trailing 18-14. After the teams traded service errors, Oregon finally stepped up their attack, with Dalia Vîrlan killing it for the 22-22 and 23-23 tie. Oregon’s final two points to win the set – and match – came from the defense, with a Valentina Vaulet solo block, followed by a Vaulet/Virian block to take it all.
WKU’s big three of Kaira Knox, Alivia Skidmore, and Faith Young led the way for the Hilltoppers. The big stat that jumps out is the 23 service errors that WKU committed. In close sets in a close match, you can’t gift a team like Oregon 23 points, and the Hilltoppers know it.
It’s not like Oregon’s serve game can’t use some improvement as well, as they committed 17 service errors. Also, Oregon only had three blocks on the match to seven for WKU.
In the other areas of the offense and defense, Oregon shined. Their defense pulled out 23 digs, led by Valentina Vaulet and libero Reese Sheppard with seven apiece. Dalia Vîrlan led the way on offense with eight kills and an attack percentage of .583. Oregon’s team attack percentage was .304 to .277 for WKU (and as we all know, .300+ is the magic attack percentage number for winning matches).
Southeast Missouri State
After playing Western Kentucky for the first time ever on Friday, Oregon volleyball followed that match up by playing the host team, the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks for the first time ever on Saturday. Last season, the Redhawks’ record was 21-13 and they placed fourth in the Ohio Valley Conference. Before the first serve, this match looked to be an easy sweep before heading to Columbia to face Missouri on Tuesday.
So much for that game plan, because that’s not quite how this match played out.
Oregon won the first two sets 25-14, and it looked like they were cruising to a sweep. Valentina Vaulet and Alanah Clemente were laying down kills seemingly at will, as Oregon hit kill percentages of .609 in the first set and .440 in the second set.
But after the first two sets, the kills by Clemente disappeared; she hit two more in the third set and none in the fourth set. Oregon took an early lead in the third set, but after SEMS went on a 6-0 run they had the Ducks on their heels and never gave up the lead in the third set. The 25-20 score in the third set was surprising, to say the least. Oregon only hit .256 to .306 for the Redhawks. SEMS had only one attack error in the set.
Vaulet was keeping Oregon close, but she couldn’t do everything all the time, and the Ducks needed someone to step up. Enter freshman OH Laura Eichert.
Oregon had to play catch up in the early part of the fourth set, but that’s an easier task to do when you’re only down a couple of points. The Ducks tied 8-8 with Eichert’s fifth kill of the set to that point. The Ducks then took the lead for good after that. Vaulet then got back into the picture and Oregon took advantage of Redhawk attack errors to charge to a 25-21 set win and take the match in four sets.
Valentina Vaulet was an unstoppable force that willed the Oregon win, ending the match with 21 kills on a .514 hit percentage and a kill percentage of .600. Alanah Clemente was the only other player with double digit kills with 11. After coming off the bench late in the third set, Laura Eichert finished with 8 kills and only one attack error, giving her a .700 H% and a .800 K%.
Vaulet and setter Marina Crownover led the service game with four aces each. Crownover had 33 assists in the match, and libero Reese Sheppard led the defense with 15 digs.
Hopefully lessons have been learned, because Oregon volleyball has only a couple of days off before they face Missouri on the Tigers’ home court in Columbia on Tuesday. That match is at 6:00 pm PT and can be seen on the SEC Network.
