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Post by oldnewbie on Oct 1, 2023 0:01:11 GMT -5
From where I was sitting, the injury definitely resulted from contact with an ASU player, although I didn’t see it closely enough to say who stepped on whose foot. Just watched the replay on YouTube and it looked like Sami landed on ASU's middle's foot. It looked like she grabbed her ankle so definitely not a knee injury. Dang Stanford and Sami really can't catch a break. Hopefully it's not too bad and she'll be back on the court soon! I just looked at this play. Francis jumped with the setter. The ASU setter landed with her right foot parallel and along the center line, but did not look to be all the way on the wrong side (a little hard to tell with the center tree), so didn't commit a fault. Francis came down perpendicular to the center line and it looked like the ball of her right foot was on the line, but she landed her right ankle on the front of the setters right foot and rolled outward. Again, looks like she was on the line but nowhere near over where it would have been a fault. The ASU middle was not involved. Francis grabbed the net on the way down (hopefully that helped her some) and as she went down her legs stuck out into the ASU side. The ASU middle had to step to straddle Francis' legs and was tripped up a little, but that was after the fact and had nothing to do with the initial contact or Francis falling. This is one of the really unfortunate plays that demonstrate why I hate the current centerline rule. Having to have your entire foot on the wrong side so that there is no contact with the line allows for way too much overlap. I've always thought the rule should simply be that you can't touch the line. Stay on your own side, or it is a fault. |
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Post by WahineFan44 on Oct 1, 2023 0:05:28 GMT -5
Does Stanford really not have another true middle on the roster??
That has to be a coaches thing at some point. I know Stanford is harder to get girls into especially via the portal, but what…
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Post by JJVb on Oct 1, 2023 0:34:30 GMT -5
Does Stanford really not have another true middle on the roster?? That has to be a coaches thing at some point. I know Stanford is harder to get girls into especially via the portal, but what… They have A. Smith, but she hasn't played at all this season, and apparently won't be an option. Looks like a freshmen pin will be in the middle moving forward. |
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Post by johnbar on Oct 1, 2023 10:36:05 GMT -5
Recall Stanford did have the highly-regarded Leilah Smith, who played as a redshirt freshman in 2021, but then left volleyball.
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Post by hammer on Oct 1, 2023 11:19:28 GMT -5
Does Stanford really not have another true middle on the roster?? That has to be a coaches thing at some point. I know Stanford is harder to get girls into especially via the portal, but what… They have A. Smith, but she hasn't played at all this season, and apparently won't be an option. Looks like a freshmen pin will be in the middle moving forward. We'll have to wait to see how serious the injury is, but of the pins Stanford currently have on their roster, Blyashov would probably be best to convert for half a season due to her height (6'3") and blocking ability. For today against Arizona, most likely it will be Tufuga, the Swiss army knife of volleyball players, taking the court as one of the two MBs. At today's chalk talk we'll probably get an estimate on the amount of time Francis will be out. Also, perhaps we'll get an update on A Smith. |
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Post by liberosetter101 on Oct 1, 2023 11:30:03 GMT -5
Does Stanford really not have another true middle on the roster?? That has to be a coaches thing at some point. I know Stanford is harder to get girls into especially via the portal, but what… We literally have no depth I agree it’s on Hambly 100% |
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Post by oldnewbie on Oct 1, 2023 12:03:57 GMT -5
Recall Stanford did have the highly-regarded Leilah Smith, who played as a redshirt freshman in 2021, but then left volleyball. If by "played", you mean 1 error in 1 attempt in 1 set, then sure. Unfortunately she was never, ever healthy in college. |
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Post by johnbar on Oct 2, 2023 16:15:13 GMT -5
Recall Stanford did have the highly-regarded Leilah Smith, who played as a redshirt freshman in 2021, but then left volleyball. If by "played", you mean 1 error in 1 attempt in 1 set, then sure. Unfortunately she was never, ever healthy in college. Yeah, I forgot her playing time was so brief. Unfortunate that Stanford lost two MBs in the same class to health issues. |
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Post by oldnewbie on Oct 2, 2023 17:45:53 GMT -5
If by "played", you mean 1 error in 1 attempt in 1 set, then sure. Unfortunately she was never, ever healthy in college. Yeah, I forgot her playing time was so brief. Unfortunate that Stanford lost two MBs in the same class to health issues. It is unfortunate, but they knew about them both before they even got to campus (knew one was limited and one had a long history of serious injuries). Sure, you can complain about the difficulty of filling in with transfers, but that doesn't explain 1 MB in the 3 recruiting classes following a class you knew to be suspect. 1 contributor at MB in 4 classes is a big problem. |
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Post by baytree on Oct 2, 2023 18:04:16 GMT -5
Does Stanford really not have another true middle on the roster?? That has to be a coaches thing at some point. I know Stanford is harder to get girls into especially via the portal, but what… As others have said, a lot of this is on Hambly. It was very unfortunate to have two middles from the same class medically retire with injuries. They've known about Leilah Smith for years but I think she just retired last season. Both Annabelle Smith and Sami Francis have a history of injuries/illness so he knew we had 0 middle depth.
It's hard to get transfers into Stanford (both from the recruits' and the university's sides) but not impossible. There were several grad middles who transferred last season. I'm very skeptical that none of them could have transferred to Stanford and helped our middle situation. There should have been a scholarship available bc IIRC L. Smith retired during (or just before) the season last year. Stanford might have even approved an undergrad transfer bc of L. Smith's retirement. (They have allowed undergrad FB transfers.) The number of available MBs would have probably been small. Not everyone can get into a grad program at Stanford and some don't want to. But it seems likely that at least one or two good MBs would have been available if our coaches tried hard to get a transfer MB.
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