This year, it was a split, with each match going four games (or sets). The Gophers won the opener by scores of 25-22, 25-13, 27-29, 29-27, whereas the Longhorns bounced back the following evening to win 25-20, 20-25, 25-22, 25-21. Here are the box scores for Thursday and Friday nights. I like these two-match series, as the added data provide a more reliable picture of how the teams are doing than the usual single match.
In Thursday night's Gopher win, offensive balance was the key. The following table shows the hitting percentages achieved by five leading Minnesota spikers, with their numbers of swings in parentheses. Two newcomers complement the established Gopher trio of Katherine Harms (senior outside hitter), Tori Dixon (junior middle blocker), and Ashley Wittman (junior OH). Daly Santana is a frosh OH from Puerto Rico, whereas Dana Knudsen (MB) is a senior transfer from Santa Clara. As the table shows, all five hit .276 or better in the series opener at Texas; Knudsen had 14 attempts, but all the others had 25 or more.
| Thursday | Friday | |
| Tori Dixon | .286 (28) | .320 (25) |
| Katherine Harms | .319 (47) | .357 (28) |
| Dana Knudsen | .286 (14) | .000 (12) |
| Daly Santana | .276 (29) | .030 (33) |
| Ashley Wittman | .400 (25) | .000 (34) |
Friday night was a very different story, however. Dixon and Harms continued to hit well for the Gophers, but the Longhorns shut down Knudsen, Santana, and Wittman. One apparent reason for this is that Texas dominated the blocking Friday, by a 15.5-7 margin (the teams were essentially even on Thursday night, Texas 12, Minnesota 11.5).
For Texas offensively, it was the Haley and Bailey show, as outside hitters Haley Eckerman and Bailey Webster took the largest shares of the team's swings. The problem was that only one of the two could get untracked each night, Webster hitting .368 on Thursday and Eckerman, .289, on Friday. The following table shows the same statistics as in the earlier one for Minnesota.
| Thursday | Friday | |
| Haley Eckerman | .080 (50) | .289 (45) |
| Bailey Webster | .368 (38) | .100 (50) |
On Thursday, Eckerman and Webster took 60% of the Horns' hitting attempts (88/147), with MB Khat Bell hitting .292 on 24 swings. Bell was held out on Friday; she is recovering from a torn ACL last season and Coach Jerritt Elliott evidently thought it prudent to rest Bell rather than have her play on back-to-back nights. Eckerman and Webster took on more of the hitting load Friday night, their combined 95 swings constituting 71% of the Longhorns' 134 total attempts.
Another apparent factor in Minnesota's Thursday win was the Gophers' digging advantage. Looking at the proportion of possible opponent attacks dug up (i.e., digs divided by opponents' non-error attacks), we see the following:
Thursday
Minnesota 67 digs / (Texas 147 spike attempts - 22 hitting errors) = .536
Texas 46 digs / (Minnesota 147 spike attempts - 23 hitting errors) = .371
Friday
Minnesota 51 digs / (Texas 134 spike attempts - 20 hitting errors) = .447
Texas 54 digs / (Minnesota 141 spike attempts - 29 hitting errors) = .482
On Thursday, the Gophers dug up more than half of the Longhorn hitting attempts that were not hit out-of-bounds or blocked for immediate Minnesota points. The following night, Minnesota was just under 50% in this department. Texas performed well in this area Friday night (48%), but not Thursday.
Texas coach Elliott did some shifting of players from their usual positions on Thursday, and then of course went without Bell on Friday. Perhaps the Longhorns will show greater match-to-match consistency as they settle into a regular lineup later in the season (if they do).
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