Hitting Charts for Washington vs. USC/UCLA

This past weekend, the University of Washington women went down to Los Angeles where they lost matches to USC (in five games) and UCLA (in four). Both matches were televised on the Pac 12 Network, so I was able to compile hitting charts for selected games from both matches. You may click on the following graphics to enlarge them.

My notation and terminology are evolving as I create these diagrams. One recent development is that, if you see "IP" only, it means a hit attempt was kept in play due to being dug, whereas IP accompanied by "b reboot" means that the hit attempt was blocked back to the attacking team, which had to start over with a new attack. As I have noted previously, I'm doing my best to identify the player who took each spike attempt, but sometimes I'm only able to identify the team of the attacker. First, we have Game 4 of the USC-Washington match...

Next, we have two diagrams for Games 3 and 4, respectively, of the UCLA-Washington contest...

One trend apparent in the above charts (albeit with small sample sizes) is that Washington appears to be moving around its main offensive weapon, outside hitter Krista Vansant, from her usual location on the left-hand side of the front row, so she can take occasional swings from the right side or even the middle, on a combination play (see the quote from the TV announcers in Game 3 of the UCLA match).

Against USC, Vansant took 80 of the Huskies' 203 attemps (39.4%), hitting .150. She doubled her hitting percentage against UCLA, reaching .305 on 59 attempts. You can compare the Huskies' hitting attempts above vs. USC and UCLA to an earlier Washington match vs. Stanford.

From the one game above featuring USC, the main pattern I'm able to glean for the Trojans is nothing earth-shattering. Specifically, they frequently called the number of frosh outside hitter Samantha Bricio. For the match as a whole, she took 74 of USC's 202 swings (36.6%), hitting .243 (box score).

In UCLA's match against Washington, the Bruins went heavily to Tabi Love on the outside. In addition, UCLA middle blockers Zoe Nightingale and Mariana Aquino hit with great proficiency, both in the depicted games and for the match as a whole; their final hitting percentages were .421 and .500, respectively (box score).

I probably won't be charting many more Pac 12 matches this season. I had been receiving the Pac 12 Network on my satellite package, which is a little unusual because I live in Texas. The Pac 12 Network no longer appears on my television, however. Perhaps it appeared during October as a free preview to entice viewers outside the Pac 12's "footprint" to subscribe.