The Aggies season came to an end in the first round of the Big West Tournament as they lost a very close 5 set match to Cal Poly (25-19, 25-15, 19-25, 22-25, 13-15). The Aggies are a very young team and they should be even better next year. The future is bright for Aggie volleyball.
I'm glad you are a mainstay on the Aggie forum, Toke, there aren't that many of us here that actively post although I think we have quite a few who read the forum fairly regularly. I enjoy hearing the stories about your years at UCD. It's also nice to know we have at least one dedicated Aggie fan in Hawaii and I love it when you put on your Aggie gear and root the Ags on when they play on the island. You're a true Aggie fan!
It was the huge run in the first half that secured the win for the Ags. After that the game was pretty even. It was a much better game for the Aggies. They needed it and it's always nice to beat Sac!
Good balanced scoring for the Aggies:
Norris 21
Turner 18
Sabel 16
Baker 8
Svanholm 8
It looks like the Ags are going to put up a lot of 3's this year. They were 13-32 tonight. It also looks like teams want to play zone against the Aggies and make them shoot from the outside so they'll need to shoot a good percentage from beyond the arc.
Of concern, is the Aggies getting beat on the boards again despite their height advantage. Sac out rebounded them by 9 boards. The Ags are not blocking out well and have not been aggressive enough on the boards. I hope they can work on that before the next two games against Boise State and Washington State.
This is great! Larison deserves this 100%. He is perhaps the very best RB in all of the FCS.
It also makes being left out of the playoffs again look even more egregious. Larison had 256 yards when he was injured late in the 3rd quarter of the EWU game that we went on to lose and then we lost to in a close game to Montana without him. We won every game after he returned and he was practically unstoppable even though teams knew he was our go to guy. It's obvious that the committee did not take that into account when they decided to leave the Aggies out yet again.
Bakersfield 75 Sac State 71
Fullerton 74 Southern Mississippi 67
Illinois State 61 Long Beach 52 - big let down for The Beach after their upset win over Michigan.
I'm in total agreement with your take on the game. The simple fact is that the selection committee has literally screwed us two years in a row and it sucks big time! The only way we are going to get into the playoffs is to have a season record that is so good that it can't possibly be overlooked by the committee. I feel really sorry for the seniors who have played their last game. They deserved better...they earned it and were denied twice...
Great post, Toke. There's a lot of wisdom and truth in your post about competitive athletics at a lot of levels. Unfortunately, it's the American way where "bigger is always better and to the victor go the spoils."
We've all heard Hawkins talk about his philosophy that we all want to win and play for championships but, if winning is the only thing we're playing for and nothing else matters, then we're not playing sports for the right reasons and the valuable life lessons and skills that competitive sports can teach get lost. I totally get it and that's why I support him win or lose. His players are lucky to have as their coach too.