VB Weekend in Dallas

[psycHOGlogist]

I made a road trip to take in the tourney this weekend in Dallas. We played Sam Houston St on Friday and host SMU today.

Against SHSU, we dominated as you would like to see us do. We started Logan Brown -- a Dallas kid -- in the OH2 position opposite Pilar, and she did well. We let them get to 20 in the second set, but we won the other two -16 and -15. Not a great test of the team's mettle, but a fun game to watch.

Today we took on SMU, a team that made the NCAAT last year and actually upset TAMU in the first round. They lost some talent after last year, but they've been rounding into shape as the season went on and have been on a bit of a roll. However, they dropped a four-set match Friday night to TCU, so they were gunning to win today in the last match of the tournament.

To make a long story short(er), we won in 5 sets, 15-13 in the 5th. It was a great, very exciting match. I don't think there is any question that we were the better team (we are also better, imo, than TCU, although we did not play them in this format). Pilar was her typical outstanding self, with 31 kills for the match (including the clutch ones at the end of set 5). Reagan Robinson did pretty well starting at the OH2 position, though she had a very rough stretch at the end of set 4 (which we won) where she made three bad errors in a row, which brought her efficiency way down. Liz Pamphile hit very well in the middle, and her fellow MB Kelly O'Brien did a nice job with 9 total blocks. Valle did very well at libero. It was a really fun match to watch, made even better by the Hog win.

Pilar was MVP of the tourney, and Valle was named best libero. Pamphile was also named All-tournament.

Chatted with the coaching staff after the match. Really think this group is doing good things.

Up next: Wed night, SEC play starts in Barnhill vs. Tennessee. Game is being broadcast on ESPNU.  WPS!!!