OT, women's soccer, VB and BB this coming year

As most of you know, I am the father of three women, and grandfather of another four. So, I coached and still follow women's sport both at KU and beyond. Below is my take on the current status of three KU women' sports teams at KU

1. Soccer. With a change in coaching and a slew of new players, both freshmen and transfers, Coach Lie has brought a lot of enthusiasm to the team. They started with two road wins, SDSU and Drake, two teams that won their leagues last year and just missed out in making the NCAA tournament. Two road wins with all the scoring coming from either freshmen or a transfer. The team is aggressive, fast and even with the new coach, look like they know what they are doing. Most of their games will be on ESPN+. Will they make a big impact in the Big 12? Good chance BUT only time will tell. They will be a fun team to follow.

2. VB. Bechard has a good team with lots of seniors back BUT a bit of a hole at one outside hitter spot with the graduation of Reagan Cooper. Yes they have adequate replacements, BUT, Reagan was a unique talent. Man could she sky. Balanced against the loss of Reagan is the appearance of one or more really tall and talented middle blockers, one of which, Zoey Burgess is preseason Big 12 rookie of the year. I see more of our offense going though our middles causing defensive challenges for the opposition. With Texas out of the picture, could we win the Big 12? Yes we can. Most of their games will be on ESPN+.

3. Basketball. I hope to be surprised but I am not holding my breath. Some new talent but a big hole at the 5 spot. Not a coach Schneider fan.

A follow up

1. Soccer. KU was tied by Tulsa in their first home game, 2/2, after leading much of the game. Should have won with many more shots on goal but the Tulsa goalie played an excellent game. In a disappointing finish yesterday on the road, KU was leading Brown 1/0 when the game was stopped due to lightning and Brown refused to finish the game after 2 hours. Two home games coming up against South Florida and Gonzaga.

2. VB. Went to the exhibition game against Drake. KU out played Drake 4/0. They played Drake 4 sets since it was an exhibition. The team looked great and everyone played. I was impressed by many of the new comers but especially middle, Zoey Burgess. I was very pleasantly surprised by the play of Aisha Aiono, a So. A tough road trip coming up this weekend at the Duke tournament, playing South Carolina, Duke and Colgate.

An update

1. The soccer team is now 2-1-3. Offensively they have been disappointing in that they they have outshot nearly all opponents, BUT, have not been able to finish very well. Keeping fingers crossed that the team will finish better they they have started.

2 VB. The team is unbeaten and ranked. They have beaten one ranked team on the road and a played a lot of other tough road games. The team is jelling with new middle, freshman Zoey Burgess coming along. Playing Lipscomb at home next Sunday then their biggest challenges to date the following week in highly ranked Purdue and Creighton as well as a good Tulsa team in the Jayhawk Classic followed by the beginning of Big 12 play.

OK, time for an update

1. Soccer. KU women lost to ISU in the final few minutes, 1/0. Very frustrating. Defense actually played great but again, KU could not find the net. They then played a Friends University and won 5/1, finally finding the net on some great offense against a lower division school. The cool part was one of the freshmen, Jillian Gregorski, getting a hat trick, the first for KU after a very long time. KU was up 2/0 after only 3 minutes of play. I hope this gives the offense some confidence.

2. VB. KU easily beat a good Lipscomb team 3/0. I mentioned earlier that I thought our left outside hitters might not be able to match Ragan Cooper from last year, but both Elnady and Bien are proving me wrong. This is in part because Coach Bechard has tweaked his offense by utilizing his middles and right side hitting more than last year. This has meant a more versatile offense so the opponents have to cover all three options. Against Lipscomb, Elnady had 8 service aces in the three-set match. I think this matches a KU record. This is the best defense I have seen from a KU team in a long time. This Th-Saturday, in the Jayhawk Classic, the hawks (ranked #10) welcome #6 Purdue, #9 Creighton and a very good Tulsa team. Should be an amazing 3 straight days of VB. All KU games are on ESPN+.

Mostly looking up (except for the FB team)

1. Women’s soccer. I was about to begin to give up on the team and then we began to believe in the coach and each other. A 1/0 road win at Cincinnati was followed by a 2/3 loss at WVU. Ok, could have been worse but there were signs that the young offense was getting it. Last evening that showed when they beat UCF 4/0. The replay is on ESPN+ and the first two goals were on the weird side. I’ll let you figure why they were weird. The team is now 5-3-3. Pretty good for such a young team learning a new more aggressive system. On the road this weekend at Colorado.

2. VB. The VB in Lawrence last weekend was amazing. We beat highly ranked Purdue 3/1 (the whole Big10 is outstanding this year). We then beat Tulsa 3/0 but proceeded to lose to a really, really good well coached Creighton team, 0/3. No shame losing to a team like that. This week we beat UCF 3/0 but the last two sets could have gone either way. UCF was huge, with a number of players in the 6’3” to 6’7” range. However, UCF serving was suspect and at the end, KU had great dig defense. We play as so-so Houston team later today but then hit the road for three games. We are currently ranked #9 and a few of our players are ranked nationally in various statistical categories. The team is currently 10-1.

Rock Chalk

Thank you very much for these updates!

Time for an update

1. Women’s soccer. The soccer team has been up and down but definitely getting better. This week we tied BYU 2-2, which had a superior record to ours. And beat a very good Utah team 2-0. The Utah game, was the last here in Lawrence with three road games to finish up the regular season. To get into the Big 12 post season tournament, we have to finish in the top 12. We are currently 6-5-4 overall and 3-4-1 in conference and in 12th place but we have lots of company. Win the last three games and we could move up to 8th. The last three games are all winnable. Fun fact, we have created havoc around the net by being super aggressive, scoring a number of own goals. Teams, especially goalkeepers, must hate playing us.

2. VB. This was a very good week in VB. We won two road games and relatively easily beat WVU and Cincinnati. We are ranked 8th Nationally at 14-1 having lost only to an excellent Creighton team. We play the Wildcats at home on Th and then a road game at UCF on Saturday. The big surprise over the last 3 matches have been two changes to the lineup. Rhian Swanson from McPherson has taken over from Elnady as one outside hitter. Swanson is 5” taller. Elnady is now playing defense and killing it with her serving and back row attacking. Teams are really struggling trying to figure out how to defend us. The big surprise is freshman Reese Ptacek taking over from Zoey Burgess. Wow! She had 13 kills and 4 blocks against Cincinnati in three sets. We lose our experienced middle next year but with Ptacek and Burgess, we are set for a number of years. Replacing Turner at setter with be a major challenge.

Rock Chalk

OOOPPS, we are now 9th in Big 12 soccer standings.