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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2018 9:34:35 GMT -5
I totally agree the UNC we saw in the spring will be highly different then the one we see in the fall. The spring wasn’t a wash because some freshmen and other players got more experience but the line up will be very different. Wine was top 150 with prepvolleyball but the state of Arizona narrowed down the top high school prospects in 2015 and Wine was a top 10 finalist. Atherton on the other hand was a top setter according to prepvolleyball. I feel like she was in the shadow of Hunter and her talent was not recognized because of how good Hunter was. Atherton seemed to mesh well with Esterly and Cox on the foreign tour so those are good signs.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2018 8:31:44 GMT -5
North Carolina heads to Coastal Carolina tomorrow for an Exhibition match at 6pm. This will be a good gauge of both teams. Free event.
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Post by vballfreak808 on Aug 16, 2018 17:38:26 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2018 9:25:00 GMT -5
What I took from the scrimmage last night: UNC is much better than I thought they would be by this point. The only reason UNC lost the third set was because Joe wanted to give some other players time, so he had a lot of subs.
The offense seems to rely on the left, but the middles also got involved fairly well. The biggest difference was Atherton running a 5-1 the first, second, and fourth set, was a faster offense than I think UNC has ever run. It worked well. Another take away was even though you have some big hitters, the return of Fradenburg was big. Mia was everywhere and had some very good defensive plays. Weirdly, the floor defense was better than the normal Caroina block, although the block got better as the game went. Serve recieve has matured greatly and the service game was fairly strong. UNC used a mix of jump serves and some hard float serves. CCU was OOS a good amount, but CCU looked really good as well with Manning and a lot of foreign players. Here is how I ranked everyone:
Leaders and Star Potential:
Destiny Cox: All that is advertised. Her offense is smart and explosive. She found ways to score on some tough plays that most freshmen would not do. Good OOS swings and good passing to be a freshman.
Ava Bell: Ava had some monster kills and hit from both pin positions and the middle. Her jump serve was also strong at times.
Hunter Atherton: Hunter was very good with her decision making and set a good tempo ball in transition. Not to mention she added double digit digs to make a double double.
Katharine Esterly: Esterly started slow but when she started connecting with Hunter, she was hitting balls that landed at the 10 foot line, consistently. Her blocking has improved and her offense adds to the arsenal.
Strong Supporting Cast:
Mia Fradenburg: She anchored a strong defensive effort. Not only was she strong passing, she also had some good OOS setting.
Skylar Wine: Had a double double with kills and digs. Skylar was insturmental in defense. She was a solid passer. Her offense was not as powerful as some other hitters, but she was good at exploiting seams and using the block. She was also very vocal. Good jump serve.
Madison Laufenburg: She has been hampered with injury her whole career but she has really developed over the off season. Madison played scrappy defense on the RS and had some very hard swings. If she turns into the player she was recruited to be, UNC will be a force on the offensive end.
Supporting Cast: Aristea Tontai: Aristea had some good wings from the middle and the RS. She is still working on her connection with the setters. What was impressive with her was her ability to terminate whether using the block or high hands. And she put up a big block herself.
Greer Moseman: Greer played well as a DS. She seemed to develop more court awareness than she had in the past few seasons.
Raleigh Clark: Raleigh had some very good blocks and attacks but also some poor ones due to still establishing a connection. She will add to a strong middle presense.
All other players got time except Boone. Casey played more steady, MG had good service runs but had a taped leg so I don't think she played back much, and Archer seems to be a very talented setter. Koetter even seems to have a better form this year. All in all, the team looks very good. LaGarde is still a work in progress but showed flashes of being good. If anything, I think the middle connection still needs work but this is going to be a surprise team.
My idea of starting line-up:
OH: Cox OH: Wine MB: Esterly MB: Bell OPP: Laufenburg DS Moseman or Jacobs S: Atherton L: Fradenburg
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Post by VolleyballMag on Aug 18, 2018 13:59:14 GMT -5
This is part of our series on Volleyball Concussions. No team or coach should have to go through what happened to North Carolina in 2017. So many injuries and way too many concussions: volleyballmag.com/concussions-unc-081818/
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2018 21:22:06 GMT -5
Although it was a scrimmage against team mates, some encouraging signs from CCU exhibition and the Blue White scrimmage tonight. Some stand out performances both nights. There also seems to be some trends. The back row defense seems to be much better than past teams and better then the normal trademark block. However, the block seemed to be coming alive tonight more than Thursday. Also, it seems the outside and middle positions are set but the RS looks like a competition between Laufenburg and Tontai. Interesting preseason ahead. goheels.com/news/2018/8/18/volleyball-newcomers-shine-in-annual-blue-white-scrimmage.aspx
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Post by leftyopp on Aug 18, 2018 23:16:13 GMT -5
I was at the Blue/White game as swell, my 2 cents:
*There are only two OH options based on tonight - Cox (who is clearly #1 and a legit 6 rotation player), and Wine (can be explosive, and erratic, but from what I saw tonight only a 3 rotation player - Sagula will force her to play 6 though). The White team had a dude from the Men's club team playing OH the entire match, save a few points where Lagarde filled the spot. I thought it was telling that no one else played OH for White (Lagarde, Tontai, and Boone all played on the White side. The loss of Harrison is a big deal.
*Ava Bell is the best Middle on the team - based on tonight which is the only time I've seen her play. It was also clear she has gelled well with teammates, joking around and looking like she fits in. She is definitely a sleeper.
*The team goes as far as Hunter takes them. She is the clear #1 setter and will be running point in a 5-1. She has good blocking instincts as well. Archer looked pretty good as well, she has soft hands and delivered the ball well for the most part. I think she is the #2 setter at this point.
*Right side will be a revolving door. Laufenberg is the #1 right now but I think Tontai eventually ends up being the starter.
*Middle is a position of strength. Someone from the group of Esterley, Bell, Clark, Tontai will need to look at right side - see above I think it will be Tontai.
*Back row looks improved. Mia is solid and I just love the personality and energy of Moseman.
*I don't see Boone having any role on the team this year. Lagarde might get a look at RS, but not much. Clark might be the odd woman out in the Middle.
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Post by firedup on Aug 18, 2018 23:35:55 GMT -5
I was at the Blue/White game as swell, my 2 cents:
*There are only two OH options based on tonight - Cox (who is clearly #1 and a legit 6 rotation player), and Wine (can be explosive, and erratic, but from what I saw tonight only a 3 rotation player - Sagula will force her to play 6 though). The White team had a dude from the Men's club team playing OH the entire match, save a few points where Lagarde filled the spot. I thought it was telling that no one else played OH for White (Lagarde, Tontai, and Boone all played on the White side. The loss of Harrison is a big deal.
*Ava Bell is the best Middle on the team - based on tonight which is the only time I've seen her play. It was also clear she has gelled well with teammates, joking around and looking like she fits in. She is definitely a sleeper.
*The team goes as far as Hunter takes them. She is the clear #1 setter and will be running point in a 5-1. She has good blocking instincts as well. Archer looked pretty good as well, she has soft hands and delivered the ball well for the most part. I think she is the #2 setter at this point.
*Right side will be a revolving door. Laufenberg is the #1 right now but I think Tontai eventually ends up being the starter.
*Middle is a position of strength. Someone from the group of Esterley, Bell, Clark, Tontai will need to look at right side - see above I think it will be Tontai.
*Back row looks improved. Mia is solid and I just love the personality and energy of Moseman.
*I don't see Boone having any role on the team this year. Lagarde might get a look at RS, but not much. Clark might be the odd woman out in the Middle. [br
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 6:56:27 GMT -5
I was at the Blue/White game as swell, my 2 cents:
*There are only two OH options based on tonight - Cox (who is clearly #1 and a legit 6 rotation player), and Wine (can be explosive, and erratic, but from what I saw tonight only a 3 rotation player - Sagula will force her to play 6 though). The White team had a dude from the Men's club team playing OH the entire match, save a few points where Lagarde filled the spot. I thought it was telling that no one else played OH for White (Lagarde, Tontai, and Boone all played on the White side. The loss of Harrison is a big deal.
*Ava Bell is the best Middle on the team - based on tonight which is the only time I've seen her play. It was also clear she has gelled well with teammates, joking around and looking like she fits in. She is definitely a sleeper.
*The team goes as far as Hunter takes them. She is the clear #1 setter and will be running point in a 5-1. She has good blocking instincts as well. Archer looked pretty good as well, she has soft hands and delivered the ball well for the most part. I think she is the #2 setter at this point.
*Right side will be a revolving door. Laufenberg is the #1 right now but I think Tontai eventually ends up being the starter.
*Middle is a position of strength. Someone from the group of Esterley, Bell, Clark, Tontai will need to look at right side - see above I think it will be Tontai.
*Back row looks improved. Mia is solid and I just love the personality and energy of Moseman.
*I don't see Boone having any role on the team this year. Lagarde might get a look at RS, but not much. Clark might be the odd woman out in the Middle. I agree with a lot of your points. I don’t think there is a ton of depth but I think there is a lot of versatility. If something happened to one of the OH, Laufenburg, Bell, or LaGarde can all play on the left and you still have two quality middles in Clark and Esterly, and a right side in Tontai. I definitely think Wine just had a bad passing night. She was stellar on Thursday in the back row and her beach background helps with ball control. In regards to the right side, I think Madison probably will start but Sagula will probably give Tontai the nod because her offense and blocking are just better and he will probably use Laufenburg as a reliever for one of the LS if needed. It’s going to be an exciting team. Mia and all the defensive players look much better and Hunter is probably the most dynamic setter UNC has ever had if they give her what she needs to grow and work with. Cox and Bell are going to be special but if Lauren was healthy and playing you would be looking at a more solid team since LaGarde is still needing to grow and Boone seems to be more for back up. I definitely think potential is there for them to make noise.
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Post by bvolley17 on Aug 19, 2018 18:11:46 GMT -5
I was at the Blue/White game as swell, my 2 cents:
*There are only two OH options based on tonight - Cox (who is clearly #1 and a legit 6 rotation player), and Wine (can be explosive, and erratic, but from what I saw tonight only a 3 rotation player - Sagula will force her to play 6 though). The White team had a dude from the Men's club team playing OH the entire match, save a few points where Lagarde filled the spot. I thought it was telling that no one else played OH for White (Lagarde, Tontai, and Boone all played on the White side. The loss of Harrison is a big deal.
*Ava Bell is the best Middle on the team - based on tonight which is the only time I've seen her play. It was also clear she has gelled well with teammates, joking around and looking like she fits in. She is definitely a sleeper.
*The team goes as far as Hunter takes them. She is the clear #1 setter and will be running point in a 5-1. She has good blocking instincts as well. Archer looked pretty good as well, she has soft hands and delivered the ball well for the most part. I think she is the #2 setter at this point.
*Right side will be a revolving door. Laufenberg is the #1 right now but I think Tontai eventually ends up being the starter.
*Middle is a position of strength. Someone from the group of Esterley, Bell, Clark, Tontai will need to look at right side - see above I think it will be Tontai.
*Back row looks improved. Mia is solid and I just love the personality and energy of Moseman.
*I don't see Boone having any role on the team this year. Lagarde might get a look at RS, but not much. Clark might be the odd woman out in the Middle. I was also at the scrimmage. First off, this is the first volleyball match I've been to live that has had replay. It's awful. It kills the flow of a match badly. Also, I'm not sure if they are trying to play music between each point, but if they do, I need them to pick a genre and stick to it. I agree with you on pretty much everything. Cox is the clear #1 outside hitter. I agree she's a six-rotation player from an offensive standpoint - that kill from the back row she had was incredibly impressive - but Wine is a better passer than she is. More often than not, Cox was hidden in serve receive. Wine's offense was a pleasant surprise. Based on previous discussions I was expecting a "junk" hitter but she had some powerful kills as well. I agree that Laufenburg is option three on the outside followed by LaGarde. Although, LaGarde had a few impressive swings as well. Laufenburg has looked pretty good; I hope she can stay healthy. I thought they should have set her more during the scrimmage. I thought Ava Bell was the best player on the floor during the scrimmage and we will need to figure out more ways to get her involved in the offense if we want to excel this season. I'll be honest, I was a little surprised she was in the middle. I thought she'd take the right side position - she was very good in the spring scrimmage on the pins (and she can pass!). Not only would she get significantly more balls set to her, she adds a wrinkle that would allow us to run double quicks or some good combination plays running the middle on a slide. Regardless, I agree that people are sleeping on her. I am worried that during the entire scrimmage our middles only ran a slide a handful of times. If we cannot run plays behind the setter, it's going to be a very long season in a 5-1. I'm glad you mentioned Archer and Moseman. I think Archer is clearly the number two setter on the team. She had a better connection with the hitters on the white team than Koetter did and she's a solid setter. To me, she looks like a mix of JoJo Schnabl and Abby Curry. I think Moseman is the best option at DS. Her serve receive can be suspect at times, but even when she missed they were playable. Her energy is infectious, she is a talker(!), and she is scrappy as hell. The energy and feel of the blue team changed dramatically when she switched over in game three. I like a back row of Fradenberg (she looked awesome!) and her. All-in-all, this team has a really good energy. The energy and chemistry seems significantly better than last year, which isn't shocking considering everything the team went through last year. Here's my lineup (depth chart)... I know it isn't what they are going to do, but in my mind, I'd like to see this: OH: Cox, Wine (Laufenburg, LaGarde) MB: Esterly, Tontei (Clark) RS: Bell (Tontei, Laufenburg, Boone) S: Atherton (Archer, Koetter) DS: Fradenberg (L), Moseman (Jacobs, MG) SaveSaveSaveSave
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Post by bvolley17 on Aug 19, 2018 18:12:57 GMT -5
Oh, and I think it was bll10 that mention this on his post about the Coastal scrimmage, but the serving is much tougher this year. That was exciting to see. There are a lot of our players with tough serves this year!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 18:47:55 GMT -5
Oh, and I think it was bll10 that mention this on his post about the Coastal scrimmage, but the serving is much tougher this year. That was exciting to see. There are a lot of our players with tough serves this year! Even without Scoles, Bell and Wine have decent jump serves and Cox, Atherton, and Mia have strong float serves. I have been most impressed that the back row, after being so bad last year, has been better than the block that is normally Carolina’s MO.
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Post by leftyopp on Aug 20, 2018 8:16:44 GMT -5
Looking back now, you are right about protecting Cox in the back row on serve/receive. Her back row attack can be powerful though, so I can live with that as she develops. Wine did flash moments of power and maybe she just had a bit of an off-night defensively, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt as she will need to be the clear #2 OH this season.
Bell really showed well all over the court. I was especially impressed with her serve. Since she only played Middle in the B/W game I don't have a frame of reference for her on the pins, but I would not doubt she is capable. If she can play RS as well or better than she can Middle, I'm totally on board moving her there and switching Tontai to Middle as I think Tontai maybe looked better and more natural there than RS.
Totally agree about replay. It was exhausting. I felt, though, that the coaches were doing it to get a feel themselves for how it would work and to test the system installed (and probably giving the official the experience). Definitely needs to be quicker and killed the flow for sure.
This weekend will be a "throw them in the fire" test for a very young team against two Big Ten powerhouses. We'll learn some things for sure. Regardless, it's Volleyball season so it's all good in the hood!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2018 13:46:17 GMT -5
I definitely think UNC will perform better than most expect this weekend, not claiming wins, but maybe some key growth. I really think that it would be stronger to have Bell on the Rs as OPP and Tontai in the middle as someone described. I do not see the benefit in Clark on the bench. But, we do not know what Joe has in store or what it looks like in practice. Madison has looked good this year and if she can break out, it will be huge. Wine is normally good defensively and out of all the hitters she seems to hit smarter around blocks and through them. Cox has the ability to hit over the block and around it but sometimes seems to forget she cannot go through them as easy at this level. Wine has more power than I thought and Cox is just sheer brutal on the ball. The biggest question for me is OPP and do you DS the opposite? If he goes with Bell, I say no. But Madison or Tontai, then yes.
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Post by bvolley17 on Aug 20, 2018 18:05:14 GMT -5
I agree with you. If it's Bell on the RS, I think you keep her in the back row. She can hit from the back row very well - she did so in the spring tournament. It would be tough to defend if you had an OH, MB, as well as options in zones 1 and 6. Then, if you had to, you DS either her or Cox in the back row if someone is having a particularly bad game.
Running the 5-1, I'd like to see Sagula utilize the double sub on occasion to keep three hitters in the front row for nine rotations. It's going to be hard to stay in front of these Big 10 hitters with a <6' setter.
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