All season long, the women’s volleyball team has mixed and matched starting lineups, hoping that its depth might make up for its lack of a dominant scorer.
That hope may finally be coming true. At least, it did Friday night.
Even though Friday’s straight-set win came over a La Salle team that has now lost 22 straight matches, the Colonials couldn’t have played better, putting together a successful all-around team effort.
“It’s the best [match] from top to bottom that we’ve put together. You can look at it just with side out percentage – 85, 75, 80 percent – it’s been nowhere close to this,” head coach Amanda Ault said.
The Explorers, who were held to just a .061 attack percentage, failed to score more than 14 points in any set, with GW winning 25-13, 25-12, and 25-14.
In a stark contrast of the team’s performances on the night, the Colonials executed their plays and put away their kills with force. La Salle, on the other hand, found themselves chasing after the ball and often hitting into the rising arms of the Colonial blockers.
GW, who has a sub-par .152 attacking percentage on the season, hit an impressive .352 percent in the match. They failed to hold the lead just twice all-match long, and routinely went on runs of five or more points.
“Our coaches did a unique thing tonight – we compared stats between us and La Salle and they were just reiterating that on paper we’re the same team,” senior Rachael Goss said. “So they challenged us to out-work them in all aspects of the game.”
Without their kills leader, junior Kelsey Newman – who was given more rest while nursing a back injury – the Colonials needed other role players to step up.
Ault said sophomore Maggie Skjelbred, who hasn’t played on the outside for GW this season, served as an example of the team’s lengthy rotation. Despite playing sparingly in the first and second sets, Skjelbred came alive in the third, bringing a heightened energy to the floor and getting five of her six kills in the frame.
“We’ve been thinking that it could be an option over the past couple of weeks in practice, and she’s been out there practicing, so we just wanted to see how it would go,” Ault said.
The biggest performance of the night, though, came from Goss, who had a match-high 16 kills while hitting .481 percent on the attack.
“I think I’m finally having the realization that I have seven weeks left and I’m just going to play as hard as I can every single match that I have left,” Goss said.
Multiple other Colonials made their mark on the stat sheet, including junior Landon Garvik and sophomore Chidima Osuchukwu, who had four and six kills, respectively. Simultaneously controlling and benefiting from the fluid offense, freshman setter Emily Clemens totaled 20 assists on the night.
“The lineup stuff is actually helping us now because there’s been so many changes, because they’ve had to be in their with different lineups, that when these kind of things [injuries] happen, they’re okay,” Ault said. “Instead of this being the first time that something’s different and then kind of maybe freaking out.”
To truly see if this lineup move will work, the Colonials will have to prove it tonight against a much more formidable opponent – VCU. In a quick turnaround, after just playing the Rams last weekend, GW will look to remain aggressive on the attack and service line, Ault said, while allowing their growing confidence to handle the rest.
“You can kind of see our confidence come back a little last week, and now with this I like where we’re going, I like where we’re headed. We talked about wanting to be playing our best volleyball in November and if this is the course were on then we’re headed in the right direction.”