Shocks at Tulsa

[1972Shocker]

Heartbreaker. We just rely on Tabitha so much....feel bad for her with 4 errors down the stretch. She needs help. Still, a great effort from the ladies.

Lambo has put a lot on Tabitha's plate this year. Perhaps more than her overall skill set was ready for. However, out of the 9 outside hitters and middles that have played this year Tabitha is 7th in hitting % at .123 (only ahead of Regan and Chase), 8th in kill % at .298 (only slightly ahead of Regan) and 6th in kill error % at .175 (ahead of Alex, Regan and Chase). Among players with at least 1 service ace Tabitha is 4th at 0.14 per set but she is 9th (last) in service error to service ace ratio at 2.63. Megan has the hightest rate of aces at 0.30 per set and has a 1.53 error to ace ratio. Giorgia and Emma have about the same rate of aces as Tabitha (both at 0.13 per set) but their errors to aces ratios are 1.14 and 0.83, respectively. Emma is the only player with more service aces (6) than service errors (5). Kali has 13 aces and 13 errors.

I am quite certain I am not capable of diagnosing what ails Tabitha. Most likely it is not just one isolated issue and just as likely not all on Tabitha. We knew coming in that replacing Emily, Abby and Mikaela was going to be pretty much impossible this year. I don't think I realized how much we might miss Hanna and Gabi. Lambo probably would like to play a little on the back row in the 5-1 but apparently the options he has are no better than leaving Alex and Tabitha on the back row. Sounds like Lambo may have been counting on Jenna Mak to be that player but injury eliminated that option. I am kind of disappointed that Kara Bown and perhaps Meghan Grimes haven't proven capable of adding value on the back row outside of Kara's serving.

But the bottom line is that you have to dance with the girls you have available. Yes, it would be very helpful if they all could play just a little better but as much or more than Tabitha needing help what this team could really use is for Tabitha to elevate her game. I still think that can happen yet altough Lambo will have to figure out how to make that happen if he can. Maybe relying a little bit less on Tabitha and taking a couple of things of her plate might result in addition by subtraction for Tabitha. Question is do we have the pieces to be able to do that?

Really hard to say. Hopefully, she will breakout soon and finish off her season year with a bang.

I was kind of disappointed that they had to pull Brooke Smith's redshirt for the 2nd consecuitve yer but with Grace Burken's back problems putting her on the shelf for the Tulsa match I don't think Lambo really had any choice. Glad he did not pull the redshirt off Chinelo and I hope he doesn't. But I think Lambo has very high hopes for Chinelo.

We'll see how this next weekend goes. This will make it 6 out of the first 7 weeks of the season on the road for this young team and I wonder if that might not be wearing on them a bit. Glad we only had the one match this weekend with the way this Tulsa match went.

[boyshocker]

Moose, I agree with you about Tabitha. I did a poor job of explaining myself in the nicest possible way. I think that two years ago we had teams trying to stop Jody L./ Abby and last year it was Miceala / Abby. This left Tabitha alone or with a one on one, she hit mid .200 those years. Also seems they have tried to make her a six-rotation player while she has been here but not eveyone is cut out to play it, the physical and mental toll of the position can wear you out.