Top 25 scores 10-8
#5 Penn State (H) def. #24 Northwestern 3-0
#14 Purdue (H) def. Indiana 3-0
#15 Illinois lost to Ohio State 2-3
#16 Arizona (H) def. Cal 3-0
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#5 Penn State (H) def. #24 Northwestern 3-0
#14 Purdue (H) def. Indiana 3-0
#15 Illinois lost to Ohio State 2-3
#16 Arizona (H) def. Cal 3-0
watching Arizona, really wish UH recruited Ashley Harris. the 6′ 8 daughter of former UH basketball player. She has improved tremendously. She was slow before but now she is not and can’t teach 6′ 8 with decent hops. Her improvement is a big reason why Arizona is good even without Croson and Magill.
1. Heard both her parents played at UH. Arizona Football and Vollyball really doing well.
I don,t get the criticism of Mendoza. She has been passing well, other teams used to serve her but she is no longer a target because she has improved in this area. She may not be fast but she gets into position and makes some great saves. There are not many Ali Longo’s around so it is not fair to judge Sarah against Ali. Lay off some one who is paying to play for UH!
Totally agree about Sarah. She has been outstanding. She is not blessed with the quickest feet. However, she has always been a real solid passer and has been digging balls like crazy. She carries a certain edge and fight that I can only describe as quintessential “wahine”. You just know that she is going to fight you on every single point. As a big Longo fan, I have a lot of confidence in Sarah.
3. I’m with you Ron. Lay off someone who is paying her way to play for UH. If you want to be critical of any player talk about players on scholarship who aren’t contributing and hardly have any playing time at all now.
Arizona beat Cal in straight sets: 25-19, 25-19, 25-11. Harris was dominating.
i’ll also give mendoza credit. you also have to consider that she’s playing a different defensive assignment. she’s still learning to play left-back. recall that most of last year she was a DS that played right-back, and a few times at middle-back. playing left-back is new ground for her. it’s not so much that she’s just slow (she’s fast enough to play libero and defense) … rather, her anticipation is not yet as fast, b/c she’s playing (and still learning) a different defensive role in the left-back position.
we were amazed at mendoza’s defense playing out of the right-back last year, including her ability to pick up tips. but it was a position she was accustomed to. picking up the same tips and anticipating hitters is different out of the left-back than right back. i hope that her anticipation and ability to read hitters from the left back position will improve.
at times this year, mendoza has played both left-back and right-back on defense over the course of a match. that’s 2 different scouting reports and roles to learn and know, all in the same match. props to her adaptability.
warriorfan — ur right, i would’ve liked to see a player of harris’ size and ability at hawaii too. the problem is that recruitment is often based on who is interested in ur program, the needs of your program in a given year, and the number of scollies available. harris is a sophomore. she would have been recruited in the same class as higgins and taylor. hawaii needed a setter, and i can’t see not giving a scholarship to taylor.
Stanford@Arizona on Fri…should be good…
I agree with all of you. Mendoza is doing just fine. Coach Shoji knows his players and that what counts the most not arm chair quarterbacks. I believe Kahakai will be the starting libero next year. She has so much potential and grit.
conversation about mendoza spilled over here eh?
mendoza is ok. she works hard and is steady but she is slow and a libero is supposed to be faster. her speed is that of a defensive specialist as is she before. she doesnt have to be super fast or anything expected like longo but bottom line she needs to pick up the pace. remember that she was relieved as libero during the match vs asu.
Dave tweets …7 1/2 hour delay in Honolulu, not a great start for road trip for wahine vb and soccer teams. We shall overcome!
That tweet was at 2:24 AM – 9 Oct 2014
11 I haven’t seen any quickness guidelines posted by the NCAA on what a libero is “suppose to be”, have you? We all want our players to be taller, quicker, stronger, jump higher, etc. How about dealing with reality as oppose to what is “suppose to be”?
I agree with Cubicle1126 that as players finally settle into their roles, their anticipation, reaction time, and decisiveness will improve – and silly mistakes are minimized.
I for one has been pleasantly surprised at Mendoza’s play this season. I loved her in her role last year, but I was unsure of her ability to play every rotation and take the pressure of being a Libero. That said….
I don’t see any difference in the skill set of a Libero and Defensive Specialist. Especially in the “speed” that a Libero should have over a DS. Really, isn’t a DS a Libero who isn’t the best Libero on the team?
1. Mentioned Ashley Harris last year when Arizona played Hawaii. She was hurt and didn’t play
“i wish they had recruited her.” UH looked at her, and especially since they do it with players who have Hawaii ties. She chose to play for U of A.
2. Dad didn’t play football at UH. Dad is Rogue Harris, played basketball at UH under Riley Wallace.
Mom is Jeanne Wade Harris, played basketball for the Wahine under Vince Goo. Same recruiting class as Da Houl.
5. I would lay off the criticism period.
12 scholarships, 6 playing at any one time. which means at least half the scholarship players aren’t on the court at any given time.
The players all contribute and as Shoji will tell you. the ‘B’ team makes the ‘A’ team better.
11. she gets to the ball which is the important thing.
ASU was the second match of the season. They were trying to make something happen when switching liberos and settle their passing. That starting lineup in Set 3 had Kahakai at L AND Mendoza starting at DS.
15. There is no difference other than how the libero has unlimited substations, can’t set overhand or attack from in front of the 3-meter
They are all DSs.
12. yes, not good. But at least they aren’t playing today. Can remember at least one time that the UH men barely made it to the match, believe it was UCLA. That was more of a traffic issue that had players running several blocks to get to campus.
13. Thought it looked like it was tweeted at 524. which makes sense since believe they were taking the overnight flight at 1015.
Cut and pasted from the tweet 2:24 AM – 9 Oct 2014. He has location disabled so hard to tell where he is but I’m sure we will find out what time they got in later.
18. Agree there is no difference between the two positions. Besides, all coaches probably want ALL their athletes to be bigger, faster, stronger.
11. Again, Mendoza is NOT slow. She isn’t as fast as Longo or Watanabe, but she isn’t slow.
“Her speed is that of a defensive specialist” – Nonsense. In some cases, the defensive specialists are quicker than the libero. But the libero is the best passer – and that is what Mendoza is. Case in point: Villaroman vs. Ilustre. I’ve always thought the latter was quicker, more aggressive on defense, but it was the former who wore the libero jersey because she was the better passer.
“She was relieved as libero vs. ASU” – Way early in the season and I was under the impression that Mendoza and Kahakai were still in competition for the libero job. Mendoza won the job and has kept it.
Looks like most of Hawaiian’s HNL-LAX flights were delayed yesterday. Too bad the team didn’t get out of Honolulu on time…but they have a day to adjust which is good. I guess its worse for the Soccer team as they have to drive up to Santa Barbara & Cal Poly SLO.
Looks like the team was on HA2:
Scheduled Departure: 1:35 PM, Oct 8
Actual Departure: 9:04 PM, Oct 8 (7:29 delay)
Scheduled Arrival: 9:55 PM, Oct 8
Actual Arrival: 5:24 AM, Oct 9
16. — natsuko on scout.com forum said Rogue was 7′ 2″ and Jeanne was 6′ 5″ .
Live in So. CA and my wife and I always go to see the girls play. A lot of wahine fans living in So. CA go to the Long Beach game -but not nearly enough for the CSUN games. I believe the CSUN student section was particularly hard on them. Hope more UH fans will make the short drive up the I-5 to 118 to support the girls!
According to one impartial observer: “Given Hawai’i’s need to run a lot of middle, defense is critical to their success. Sarah Mendoza (Sr., L) does a nice job in that realm.” [ avcavolleyball.blogspot.com/2014/10/debs-top-5-predictions.html ]
And if you compare the numbers, Mendoza is averaging 4 dpg, just like Longo, although w/fewer receive errors (i.e., lower rerr-rate). The only difference is apg, where Longo’s 2nd season w/her hitters (.91 apg) was *predictably* much better than her 1st (.59 apg) — which is very comparable to Mendoza’s 1st & only year as a starter (.58 apg). In other words, if Mendoza had a 2nd season w/the same hitters (as Longo did), one could reasonably expect her apg to spike. Unfortunately, Mendoza won’t get that shot but she’s doing exceptionally well (imo) under the tuff mandate of one-and-done.
16. Thought Rogue was closer to 7-1 but after 7 feet does it matter?
It was pretty funny when Wade and Houl came to the Wahine basketball banquet as high school seniors. If you know Vince Goo’s sense of humor you can only imagine some of the jokes.
25. thanks
we shall see how well Mendoza performs in fact in back to back crucial games on Friday and Saturday regardless of hype or type…these games are where the rubber meets the road and the walk counts more than the talk. People, be sure you watch more than listen. Trust your eyes…Best wishes to Sarah Mendoza and her wahine team…
You might not believe me but there are Wahine fans who actually believe that the Hawai`i roster should be all local kids or mainland kids who are of Pacific Rim descent and if that isn’t possible then they should be the starters.
With Kahakai being a local that might have something to do with attacks on Mendoza. Something to think about.
Anyone watch CSUN already and can comment in Hinger’s claim that “Nobody really knows the systems that we run. It’s a little bit different than traditional volleyball, so it really puts us in a good position against other teams”? What makes it different?
23. mendoza isnt slow? well dave shoji admitted that she was and also that she isnt as athletic. but after irvine i hope thats no longer the case.
if defensive specialists are faster than the libero then you going to have problems. a libero is supposed to be specialized in defensive skills than the others indicating they should be faster and pass the ball better. only real difference is a ds can attack while a libero cannot but gets no substitution limit.
my point is if defense is not fast enough (especially vs the beach and csun), than there should be some offset making up for it in offense (attack). too slow to receive the ball? do what tai does (especially of lately) and attack instead. but liberos cannot legally attack so that kind of takes away some of mendozas game if she is not fast enough right?
28. and guess what her prediction was? the beach in four. and a big reason because na wahine defense has some questions and doubt that is about the block. sarah mendoza does a ‘nice’ job in that realm. she either needs to be ready to do a ‘better’ job or the others need to heavily support her. as libero on court you kind of expect her to do most of the work.
sarah is steady and passes the ball better, but shell need to be speedier if the ball gets into broken play and hopefully theres no more of her herself shanking the ball aside like the beginning.
wildc. you keep mentioning Dave said/admitted she’s slow and not as athletic. When did you hear him say this?
Debbie doesn’t know jack unless it has to do with Iowa State where she wasn’t even a mediocre player. She doesn’t even know who the visiting or home team is half of the time.
She was run off of Volleytalk and had to shut down her twitter account because of fans calling her stupid.
AVCA was catching hell on twitter and facebook about her and fixed it so you can’t respond to her.
So I would be careful about referring to anything she says. 😉
31…I highly doubt that being that there were a lot of attacks on Taylor Higgins as well to be benched and Koelsch to start…as well as the others…Well at least on this thread…but nice try…
36. There were. Those were deleted. Unfortunately they were up for a little before I saw them.
October 9, 2014 at 3:06 pm Lol. I know Jack. A little. Longtime fan of his bacon double-cheezers & onion rings. Know much less about “Debbie”, her detractors or related gossip. Just passed along the excerpt from a link posted at the NBR blog.
October 9, 2014 at 12:13 pm Big fan of Anderson too. Hard (impossible) for me to predict how she’d do fulltime. But definitely share your wishes.
I’m hoping that the Wahine is prepared to go 5 sets. I have a feeling that they will have a 5 set match this week end or maybe both.
35. watch game on for the fullerton game under ‘mendoza digs’. shoji said that she isnt a great athlete and that shes not particularly quick.
aside from that though shoji did mention that she took more than 1/3 of the court before so that the outsides are free and arent digging as many balls. unfortunately there were 13 out of 15 matches so far (14 out of 16 if including vs toyota) where that didnt happen.
4/15 (4/16) where sarah got outdug by tai and greeley (meaning outsides arent free and are doing the work.) the worst was vs asu where mendoza was relieved as libero in set 3 and the overall match had tai, kahakai and higgins with more digs than mendoza. the latest was vs nau 2nd game, notably tai did most of the work.
3/15 (3/16) where tayler higgins had a tie in digs with sarah, worst being vs oregon and that is not considering the numbers everybody else had to dig up. the latest was vs irvine where nikki taylor had just as many digs as sarah.
4/15 (5/16) where 1 player or more had just as many digs as sarah (again meaning they are tied up and not free to attack/set) notably tai, greeley and taylor higgins did that work. the worst as people complained was vs riverside which is part of why hawai’i didnt dominate them as demanded and allowed riverside to go toe to toe with na wahine particularly in set 2.
there was 1 match (vs davis) where the others combined have way more digs than sarah (also part of why people complained na wahine didnt really play well vs davis despite sweeping them)
finally 1 match (vs fullerton, the same as the origin of this topic) where sarah just didnt have many digs at all and ultimately digs were rated under. blocking wasnt a whole lot neither which is curious how there are so few digs, especially needed when the ball is dumped over.
not to worry, there are nice positives with sarah ie her attitude, her steadiness as a player, her serve and she takes in to her duties.
31, are you serious? Maybe mainland fans want an all mainland team then. Seems like a couple here do.
hmm thread still alive?
31. false