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Tiger volleyball focuses on serving, serve-receive after losses
9/29/2009
By CONOR NICHOLL cnicholl@dailynews.net
For the Fort Hays State University volleyball team, serving and serve-receive has been an issue all fall, including in a pair of 3-0 home losses to No. 18 University of Nebraska-Omaha and No. 9 University of Central Missouri on Friday and Saturday.
"It's a big problem," first-year Tiger coach Kurt Kohler said. "Our service errors and our serve-receive has struggled."
"Serve-receive we work on every single day and it's got to keep on improving. If not, then we might as well just go home," sophomore libero Tracie Hileman said.
The Tigers dropped to 4-14 overall and 1-5 in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association after the two defeats.
Fort Hays is now 0-5 at home and has lost to four straight ranked teams.
This week, the Tigers have one match against unranked Newman University on the road Wednesday night. Match time is 7 p.m. in Wichita.
Newman defeated Fort Hays 3-1 in the season opener on Aug. 28 in the University of Nebraska-Kearney tournament.
Last weekend, the Tigers had 12 reception (serve-receive) errors and 11 service errors.
Overall, Fort Hays has accumulated 117 serving errors compared to just 79 for its opponents.
"Serving errors, man, there is just no excuse for what we do," Kohler said. "You got a 9 inch ball and 900 square feet to put it in, and we are missing constantly. Some of that, I think I need to work our kids a little better and training our serving.
"But there is just no excuse for those breakdowns that we are having this year," he added.
Fort Hays has the fourth-most service errors among conference teams. The Tigers' minus-35 differential between aces and errors ranks third-worst in the conference.
"Our serving has been pretty weak, but we have worked on it in practice, and I know it has improved quite a bit, actually," Hileman said.
"We still have a few errors, but it's improved, and it's going to keep on improving."
Fort Hays has collected 81 serve-receive errors, tied for the fourth-most in the conference, and continually had trouble in both weekend matches.
Against Nebraska-Omaha, a team that Kohler labeled "smartest team I have seen play in years,"
Fort Hays committed nine reception errors, the most the Tigers have had in a match all season.
The .868 reception percentage was the lowest by a Fort Hays squad and just the second time the Tigers have been under .900 for a match.
"We knew that going in that UNO was a very aggressive serving team, so we really have to focus a little more on our passing," Kohler said.
On Saturday, Central Missouri's serving kept Fort Hays from running its offense effectively. The Tigers had 33 kills, their second-fewest in a match since Sept. 11.
"We were able to force the issue a little bit," Central Missouri coach Flip Piontek said. "I thought from the service line we did a really good job keeping them off-balance. They couldn't really run the ball to the players that they wanted to. We knew who they wanted to set, but by serving so well, I thought we made it hard for them."
Central Missouri's serving often forced Fort Hays to set away from senior outside hitter Lilian Rezende, the team's leader in kills, attacks and hitting percentage. Rezende, third in the conference with 3.83 kills per set, was held to just seven kills, her fewest in nine matches. Her 26 attempts tied for the fewest since a Sept. 4 loss to Colorado State University-Pueblo.
"We knew what she could do and so we just had to keep the ball away from her and serving behind her and serving tough, that made it difficult," Piontek said. "For a player like her, I feel like the more swings she gets, the more rhythm she gets, the better she gets."
| Scoreboard | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Date | Opponent | Score |
| TS | 04/06 | Emporia State | L 8-1 |
| SB | 03/30 | Panhandle State | W 10-2 (5 inn.) |
| SB | 03/30 | Panhandle State | W 13-3 (5 inn.) |
| BB | 03/30 | Washburn | W 3-1 |
| BB | 03/30 | Washburn | W 3-1 |
| TS | 03/23 | Kansas Wesleyan | L 6-3 |
| BB | 03/23 | Metro State | W 20-8 |
| BB | 03/23 | Metro State | W 6-5 |
| SB | 03/19 | Nebraska-Omaha | L 4-2 |
| SB | 03/19 | Truman State | W 4-1 |
| SB | 03/18 | Mo. Western | L 6-2 |
| BB | 03/17 | Missouri S&T | W 2-1 (10) |
| SB | 03/17 | Bethany | W 6-1 |
| SB | 03/17 | Bethany | W 8-1 |
| BB | 03/16 | Misosuri S&T | L 13-4 |
| MB | 03/14 | Central Missouri | L 80-73 |
| BB | 3/13 | NW Missouri | W 13-10 |
| BB | 03/13 | NW Missouri | W 4-3 |
| MB | 03/13 | Central Oklahoma | W 80-64 |
| SB | 03/08 | Fort Lewis | W 5-4 |