The Nittany Lions came away with the championship, outlasting Stanford in a five-set match Friday and then sweeping Texas on Saturday.
In the Penn State-Stanford match, four of the five games were decided by the minimum two points (the Lions' score is listed first for each game; 25-13, 25-27, 25-23, 23-25, 15-13). It was not a big-hitting match, on the whole, as the Nittany Lions bested the Cardinal .231 to .173 (box score). There were some notable individual hitting percentages, however.
For Penn State, sophomore outside-hitter Nia Grant (9-0-13, .692) and junior middle-blocker Katie Slay (10-0-21, .476) each turned in error-free hitting performances against the Cardinal. Teammate Ariel Scott (junior right-side hitter) took a whopping 85 swings (39% of the team’s 216 attack attempts), registering a .165 percentage. Soph OH Morgan Boukather paced Stanford (11-2-21, .429).
In the Penn State-Texas match, the Longhorns' side-out percentages in the three games -- 63%, 54%, and 75% -- really don't look like those of a team that was swept. The only problem is that the Lions' side-out rates were 72%, 63%, and 86% (box score). Frosh OH Megan Courtney aided Penn State with an (8-0-15, .533) hitting line.
Florida, which lost both of its matches (to Texas and Stanford), has lost a lot of top seniors from last year, including setter-hitter Kelly Murphy. However, one player who may lead the Gators back into elite company is frosh OH Ziva Recek from Slovenia. She hit .475 against the Horns and .278 against the Cardinal.
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Yesterday, I attended Texas Tech's match against Northwestern State (Louisiana), as the Red Raiders held off a surprisingly tough Demon squad in four games to go 7-0 on the season.
Making the headlines for Texas Tech at this early point in the season is libero Rachel Brummitt, a sophomore transfer from Radford. She is averaging 4.92 digs per game, second in the Big 12 to Kansas's Brianne Riley, whose average is 5.57.
A dig is defined as "when a player receives an attacked ball and keeps the ball in play" (see the AVCA's "Making Volleyball Statistics Simple" in the links section to the right). After a ball is dug, a few different things can happen, such as the digging team running its offense "in system" culminating in a spike attempt or the digging team having to bump the ball back over to the other team, which gets a "free ball" attempt.
During the recent Olympics, I was impressed by how the Italian men were able to dig a lot of spike attempts by the U.S. and transition quickly into running their offense. Knowing ahead of time about Brummitt's digging prowess, I decided to keep an eye out for digs leading to an in-system attack, a new statistic I'm tentatively calling DLISA. The way I'm conceiving DLISA in my mind, the opponent's attack must be hard-hit and/or well-placed in order for the digger to be eligible for a DLISA.
I know there already are grading systems in place, in which raters can study videotapes and assign a quality score on each dig, for example, from 0 (passing error) to 5 (pass enabling multiple attack options). However, I'm simply looking for a way to augment the "dig" statistic reported in box scores with an extra designation for really good digs, hence DLISA.
Brummitt was credited in the box score with 21 digs vs. Northwestern State. I (unofficially) credited her with 4 DLISA. I'll have to watch a lot more matches to get an idea of what a high number of DLISA digs is for one player, but yesterday's match is a start!
A scientific ideal is that two judges, watching the same play, will have a high level of agreement in awarding credit for a particular kind of play (such as a DLISA). Scoring decisions are sometimes made unilaterally, however. In baseball, for example, there is one "official scorer" who decides between hit and error on a play.
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