This team still is not great at passing, and blocking seems to have regressed. Still curious of the deal with Mauke not playing.
I have always wondered how Hannah Lochtin Sedwick (she married the Baylor kicker this past summer) ended up an AA at Baylor, and we got Mauke. I read a blog she did for Baylor about her faith. She said she went to ISU games as a kid, and always dreamed of playing for ISU. In fact, she figured she would go there until one day as a high school freshman, she talked with the coach and realized it wouls not happen. I assume Mauke had already verballed. Long story short, she ended up committing to Baylor as a HS soph after a previous stter commit there backed out. Setter recruiting must be crazy if they regularly commit that early
Saturday's match loss was very disappointing on several counts. The total 5 set stats were all in favor of ISU so there wasn't one over riding issue that caused the loss. Sets 2 and obviously 5 were the killers. Set 2 was tied at 24 when Holthaus had a critical service error and ISU then lost the next point to lose that set. In Set 5, Brandt got tentative with several of her sets and that caused a lack of quality attacks from the OHs/MBs and there were some good sets from her that were tentatively attacked. That flipped the last set and match to Tech.
Regarding Mauck, CJL liked her upside moreso than Lockin during the recruiting process. Pressley has helped Lockin look good at BU, but CJL may have some regrets with that decision.
Based on what I've read, CJL prefers Brandt's ability to set out of system and her ability to read blocks and set the attacker with the best odds of the kill. I think that has been evident in the 4 matches I've watched with the exception of Set 5 of Saturday's TT match. The drawback with Brandt is her lack of height makes her somewhat of a liability on the block when compared to the taller Mauck and the TT attack took advantage of that during Saturday's match. I think CJL will stick with Brandt as the full time setter for now.
TT also aggressively served to Holthaus with some success when she was on the back row to the point where CJL had to sub her out there and initially replaced her with Centeno (who struggled) and then Shannon. Several key points were lost on that rotation. When Schuler returns, I am assuming that she will for sure replace Holthaus on the back row and may get some OH reps on the front row (replacing Hatch at times). Schuler's serve has also been missed.