George Mason vs. George Washington, 10/25/95 (vewy lawng)
Alex Benjamin
goes crosscourt to Barbara Kovacs, who sprawls to the floor for an
ankle-high pass. GW celebrates, hands raised high.
Carolyn Jaeger also dives, catching the pass from Kovacs on her
shoulder. Joy Kingsley-Ibeh chases the ball over her shoulder and throws
the ball up...
up...
up...
over the net...
past the celebrating GW team...
and in the left back corner.
Point, George Mason! 14-13
Timeout, GW.
If you can imagine it, it happened in this game. Momentum
shifts, hitting cold, getting burned, big digs and little digs, hits in
front of the 3m line, bad line calls, fly balls into the stands, plays off
the scoreboard hanging tens of feet in the air.
And as the final point went to GW, I could imagine that tired old
cliche which says the match could have gone either way. If you're a
Patriot, that phrase and a 2-3 loss is no consolation. From both teams, 6
players tallied double-digit kills, 4 of whom had at least 20, and eight
players collected more than 10 digs.
George Mason 15 13 15 11 13 (13-7 overall)
George Washington 12 15 10 15 15 (18-5 overall)
TEAM ATTACK PER GAME:
game George Mason-----vs----George Washington
# K E A %age %age K E A
----------------------------------------------------
1 32 15 78 .218 .152 19 9 66
2 17 6 41 .268 .459 18 1 37
3 16 10 44 .136 .143 16 9 49
4 24 10 45 .311 .462 20 2 39
5 7 5 19 .105 .200 10 6 20
---------------------------------------------------
96 46 227 .220 .265 83 27 211
Next match for GW: Friday, October 27, 1995, 7:30 pm, against Dayton,
who beat them in the early conference match-up.
The match:
The warmup told the story for GW. In their five minutes alone on
the court, the Colonials hit for 3 minutes and served for 2, many of which
did not clear the net.
Let me correct those numbers. They hit for 2.5, served for 1.5,
and the last minute led them to this "drill": they take the floor on both
sides of the net and, all at the same time, call out the position of every
person on the other side of the net. Each "team" then switches front to
back, and they repeat the chanting.
But anyway...
Game one saw the Colonials play flat, their first two swings
blocked straight down. GMU raced to a 12-6 lead before GW decided to wake
up and play, after which they tied the game at 12-12. At this point, the
Patriots bore down and closed it out with the final three points. GW's
Jill Lammert (OH, sr.), known for her amazing ball control, was not
receiving serves so well. The Patriots also exploited Mya Eveland (OH,
fr.) and Tai Bethune (OH, fr.), thanks in part to the lone jump server of
the night, Barbara Kovacs (OH, jr.).
By the time game 2 had ended, an hour and some minutes had
elapsed since the 7:30 pm start. For this game, GW relied heavily on the
swings from Megan Korver (MH, fr.), a high school standout in Nebraska.
She led both teams in hitting efficiency (.536) and service aces (3). In
the early games she was subbed out of the back row, replaced by Khuong Ta
(S/DS, redshirt sr.). I'm not sure, but in game 2, the Patriots again
swung for a 13-4 lead, but the Colonial attack chipped away until they
tied it up at 13-13 and eventually won the game.
George Mason used the break to rest their hitters and came out
intensely. The key to this game I think was digging GW's Svetlana
Vtyurina (OH, sr.) According to the box scores, she made 71 attempts
just under half of which were dug. Important in this defense were
Martyne Schroder (S, jr.?) and Joy Kinglsey-Ibeh (OH, jr.) with 15 and
19 digs respectively. To help this defense, EVERYONE from the Mason team
seemed to help the setter out, and well - the Patriots had 15 assists
from players other than their setter, Schroder, while the Colonials had 8.
On the other side of the net, however, a new defensive rotation
was badly exploited. Setter Kate Haubenreich readied herself just outside
and under her blockers for the tip, and often this placed her on the
middle of the 3m line. In previous matches, GMU's Virag Domokos (MB, jr.)
has been known to tip when she gets comfortable with the other team's
block, and perhaps GW was anticipating this. Kingsley-Ibeh (who is also a
high jumper for the Patriot track team) and Kovacs however, were ruthless
in smoking the line shot, and everyone who covered the line - Kara
Deringer (OH, fr.), Mya Eveland, Khuong Ta - became bystanders to this
attack. In several instances, Haubenreich's move to no-woman's-land forced
the middle back to cover the entire right side of the court! And who was
there by rotation? Vtyurina, who isn't known for her foot speed.
Now down 2-1 in the match, GW raced to a 5-1 start, but Mason kept
pace with the Colonials, keeping the point margin down to 2 points for the
rest of the game. Pretty much all of the swings were terminated, either
by complete roofing or finding the hard wood. It was obvious that the
hitting load for GMU's three main attackers - Kovacs, Domokos, and
Kingsley-Ibeh - was taking its toll. Consider that, of the 96 total kills
for the Patriots, these three ladies contributed 89 of them. Consider
further that the 7 remaining kills can be accounted for by three players:
Kami Mullings (MB, soph?) and Carolyn Jaeger (OH), and Schroder (S). Both
Mullings and Jaeger hit negatively for the match. Meanwhile, the GW block
began finally to solidify under middles Korver and Anna Krimmel (MB, jr.),
and GW took the crucial game 4, 15-11.
The rally point game was decided on who could control the
momentum the longest. George Mason stormed the opening of the game with a
blocking clinic that took them to a 4-0 start before Colonial head coach
called a time out. Megan Korver's back slides and quicks were
unstoppable, and Svetlana Vtyurina's solo stuff block on Virag Domokos'
back slide seemed to characterize the intensity of entire match (as she
came down, she yelled and pointed her finger to the floor). Most
interesting was the almost non-existent service error from GW in this
game. People may say, of course - this is a rally point game, but I
would reply by saying, "Yes, but this is GW we're talking about." GMU's
Kovacs stayed on the ground, but it was Khuong Ta's DEEP crosscourt serve
that forced a tight set and an attempt that was blocked into uncovered
territory.
The scores:
In the following box scores, I have left out team members who did not
play in the match. Scores are courtesy of Brad Bower, Sports Information
Director, and Courtside Software by CompuSTATS (tm), San Diego, CA,
(619) 296-7834.
Team: George Mason University (Colonial Athletic Association)
-----hitting-------set---service--------blocks-
# Name gp K E A hit% a e a e re dig s a e
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Mullings, Kami 5 3 4 9 -.111 1 0 0 0 0 5 0 4 0
2 Dalakis, Christa 1 0 0 1 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
4 Kingsley-Ibeh, Joy 5 29 16 68 .191 3 0 2 0 1 19 1 2 0
5 Jaeger, Carolyn 5 3 6 16 -.188 3 0 0 1 1 10 1 3 0
6 Summerall, Sarah 4 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0 0 1 4 0 0 0
9 Bratchner, Erin 5 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0 2 1 6 0 0 0
10 Schrodner, Martyne 5 1 1 6 .000 76 1 1 1 0 15 0 4 0
11 Kovacs, Martyne 5 36 12 84 .286 1 0 3 4 2 16 2 2 0
13 Domokos, Virag 5 24 7 43 .395 5 0 2 3 3 8 1 7 0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS 5 96 46 227 .220 91 1 8 11 9 83 5 22 0
team blocks: 16
-DNP- #8 Jeanette Collins, #12 Faline Phucas
Team: The George Washington University (Atlantic-10 Conference)
-----hitting-------set---service--------blocks-
# Name gp K E A hit% a e a e re dig s a e
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Eveland, Mya 5 3 3 12 .000 1 0 2 1 1 12 0 2 0
3 Deringer, Kara 3 0 4 17 -.235 3 0 0 0 1 8 0 3 1
5 Vtyurina, Svetlana 5 31 8 71 .324 2 0 2 5 3 10 0 6 1
6 Korver, Megan 5 19 4 28 .536 0 1 3 2 0 2 1 9 1
8 Lammert, Jill 5 17 3 47 .298 1 0 2 0 1 11 0 1 0
9 Ta, Khuong 5 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0
10 Haubenreich, Kate 5 4 3 11 .091 72 4 0 2 0 11 0 5 1
11 Krimmel, Anna 5 9 2 25 .280 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 8 0
12 McNab, Heather 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13 Bethune, Tai 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 0
14 Paz Soldan, Brenda 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS 5 83 27 211 .265 80 5 9 12 8 69 1 35 4
team blocks: 18
-DNP- #1 Crystal Akens, #15 Sharon Chinault
--
--alex benjamin------------------------------------------------------------
is it dictated, or chosen?/does it sing like the hymns of a thousand years/
or is it just pop emotion?/and if it ever was there, and it left/does it
mean it was never true?/and to exist it must elude/is that why i think
these things of you?
-------------------------------------------------------------indigo girls--