The Roman jinx was avoided. I wrote how strong the Gophers volleyball team might be in Friday’s morning paper and then held my breath all day.

Would the U win, playing the host team in Omaha? Yes. Easily. The Gophers, ranked No. 16, crushed Creighton 25-14, 25-20, 25-16 in 68 minutes.

The big boppers, preseason all-conference picks Lauren Gibbemeyer and Brook Dieter, had their way with the Bluejays. Both had over .400 hitting percentages — a .300 average is considered good. Gibbemeyer had seven kills, five digs and two block assists. Dieter had 14 kills and five digs.

Pamela Luiz, the juco all-american from Brazil, had seven kills in her Gophers’ debut and senior Kyla Roehrig had eight. Christine Tan, the team MVP a year ago, had 18 digs and Rachel Hartmann, the setter, had 10 digs.

Coach Mike Hebert’s teams are 10-3 in season openers.

One key stat, receiving errors for the Gophers was zero, nadda, none. That part of the game was a problem for the U sometimes last season and a point of emphasis.

On Saturday, the Gophers play Texas A&M and No. 21 LSU in Omaha. Can they sweep?

BROOKISMS

I was standing by the wall at The Pav (the Sports Pavilion) the other day, waiting for the team captain to come to practice to interview her. But Kelly Schmidt wasn’t coming, wasn’t coming and I had little to do.

Turns out Schmidt had shin problems on both legs — and occupational hazard for vb players — and was not practicing so she did not arrive early. She assured me she would play this weekend, that is was nothing serious.

But Brook Dieter was being interviewed nearby and I had to listen. She seems to have the pulse of the team:

“Last year our biggest problem was serve receive. We are better at that now and we are not hitting as many balls out of bounds.”

“We have a willingness to sacrifice a lot more.”

Has the right side hitter problem been solved? Dieter thinks so with the addition of 5-11 Pamela Luiz, the juco transfer. “She is 23 and she has a different mindset coming into practices and matches.”

“After three weeks of playing each other, it is time to play somebody else.”

“We are not worried about little petty things, about how we fit i or what other think of me?” Those were issues more last year.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Gophers volleyball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.