Auburn Volleyball

[WarTiger 3,907]

I love that we took care of extending his contract.  He is really building this program.  I wish the financial terms were disclosed. 

[slot canyon 1,335]

New Assistant VB assistant coach:

https://auburntigers.com/news/2023/7/5/jack-burton-joins-auburn-volleyball-staff-as-assistant-coach

[slot canyon 1,335]

Akasha Anderson picked preseason All SEC volleyball.  AU picked to finish "mid-pack" in SEC.

https://auburnwire.usatoday.com/2023/07/12/auburn-volleyball-akasha-anderson-named-to-all-sec-team/

Also, Vandy has reinstituted their VB program hiring the Kentucky associate HC:

https://www.secsports.com/article/35311008/vandy-announces-nelson-program-volleyball-coach

Edited July 15, 2023 by slot canyon

[VolleyMike 45]

3 hours ago, slot canyon said:

Akasha Anderson picked preseason All SEC volleyball.  AU picked to finish "mid-pack" in SEC.

https://auburnwire.usatoday.com/2023/07/12/auburn-volleyball-akasha-anderson-named-to-all-sec-team/

Also, Vandy has reinstituted their VB program hiring the Kentucky associate HC:

https://www.secsports.com/article/35311008/vandy-announces-nelson-program-volleyball-coach

I think we will do better than “mid-pack” this season.

[slot canyon 1,335]

9 hours ago, VolleyMike said:

I think we will do better than “mid-pack” this season.

I would like to think so also.  Team seems hungry.  Last year the schedule was released in late June but not posted to date.  Season begins late August.  The sport appears to be gaining momentum in terms of fan interest (just my impression).  The preseason All SEC team had Kentucky with 4, Arkansas, Georgia and LSU with 2 each and AU, FLA, Ol'Miss Tenn and TAM with 1 each.

[slot canyon 1,335]

2023 Volleyball Schedule:  https://www.al.com/auburn/2023/07/auburn-volleyball-unveils-schedule-for-2023.html

Also posted on AU VB website.  I was hoping they might have the tournament again at UAB but being held in Mobile this year with AU, UAB, Samford and South Alabama.  Might be a opportunity to eat some good seafood. 

[VolleyMike 45]

Great Orange/Blue scrimmage last night!  Love the new court!!!  There is so much depth on the roster now (clearly backed up by the tight set scores).  Coaching staff has a lot of options and it will be interesting to see how they choose to use the roster across sets and throughout the season.  I have no idea who the front runners are at literally any position.

Looking forward to today’s exhibition match against #20 Georgia Tech.  When they played in the Spring we were experimenting heavily with the lineup and they pretty much stuck with their starters. GT was playing to win, we were playing to learn and improve.  I would imagine we start this match with what the coaches believe is our best lineup and sub in where we aren’t having success. However, you never know! Since this is still an exhibition, Brent may just have specific lineups he wants to test out today regardless of the score. Whichever route they go, it will be good to see how we stack up.  I am sure GT will be playing to win. 

[slot canyon 1,335]

7 hours ago, VolleyMike said:

Great Orange/Blue scrimmage last night!  Love the new court!!!  There is so much depth on the roster now (clearly backed up by the tight set scores).  Coaching staff has a lot of options and it will be interesting to see how they choose to use the roster across sets and throughout the season.  I have no idea who the front runners are at literally any position.

Looking forward to today’s exhibition match against #20 Georgia Tech.  When they played in the Spring we were experimenting heavily with the lineup and they pretty much stuck with their starters. GT was playing to win, we were playing to learn and improve.  I would imagine we start this match with what the coaches believe is our best lineup and sub in where we aren’t having success. However, you never know! Since this is still an exhibition, Brent may just have specific lineups he wants to test out today regardless of the score. Whichever route they go, it will be good to see how we stack up.  I am sure GT will be playing to win. 

Your observations and comments are in line with what coach said in his "This Week in Auburn Volleyball" session.  

https://auburntigers.com/news/2023/8/15/this-week-in-auburn-volleyball.aspx

[slot canyon 1,335]

Georgia Tech and AU played 5 sets at Tech last night.  AU was defeated 4 - 1 winning only the final set 16 -14.  Tech won the first four by scores 25 - 18, 29 - 27, 25 - 14, and 25 - 14.  Stats up on Tech VB site.  Wish we had a more positive start but it was an exhibition game.

[VolleyMike 45]

39 minutes ago, slot canyon said:

Georgia Tech and AU played 5 sets at Tech last night.  AU was defeated 4 - 1 winning only the final set 16 -14.  Tech won the first four by scores 25 - 18, 29 - 27, 25 - 14, and 25 - 14.  Stats up on Tech VB site.  Wish we had a more positive start but it was an exhibition game.

Definitely not a great showing. GT was ready to play and they looked really good. Set 2 was a great battle, but the rest of the match was pretty lopsided. I was surprised to see so much court time from our transfers. Might have just been the coaches wanting more looks at the new players in game like scenarios. I just hope we can find the elite team chemistry from last season, because it wasn’t there in Atlanta.

[slot canyon 1,335]

War Eagle Invitational https://auburntigers.com/news/2023/8/24/auburn-volleyball-kicks-off-2023-with-war-eagle-invitational.aspx

Games on TV, SEC+.  

[AuburnNTexas 7,150]

On 8/20/2023 at 8:03 AM, slot canyon said:

Georgia Tech and AU played 5 sets at Tech last night.  AU was defeated 4 - 1 winning only the final set 16 -14.  Tech won the first four by scores 25 - 18, 29 - 27, 25 - 14, and 25 - 14.  Stats up on Tech VB site.  Wish we had a more positive start but it was an exhibition game.

From what I understand GT has a veteran team so was using this match to tune-up starters where we have a large number of transfers and this was a way to play with lineups and build chemistry. I expect us to slowly progress and build team chemistry. I trust our coach.

[slot canyon 1,335]

AU vs Coppin State

Defeated Coppin State 3sets to 1.  Coppin State has enrolment just under 3000.  They do not have the player height of Auburn but have some impressive players and appear well coached; Williams and Stafford were especially impressive.  The most disappointing aspect of the match to me was the 23 service errors committed by Auburn compared to 6 by Coppin State.  Obviously, we did some good things, but this will need to be cleaned up.  Play 2 games today.

[slot canyon 1,335]

Early in season and there have been a number of combinations enter the matches  to give players an opportunity to show what they can do.  We have total roster of 18 players.  To date, 5 have not seen action ( 2 Fr. 1 So and 1 R-So, 1 Jr).  Of the 14 players who have played, there are seven who have played at least 7 sets ( 4 So, 1 Jr, 1 Sr, 1 Gr).  Currently, Anderson and Bell (So and Sr) lead in kills, Kemp and Swanson ( S0 and Gr) lead in blocks while Morton and Anderson (So and So) lead in digs.  No way to know how the season will play out but a lot of the current success appears to be due to the play of some players who may be part of the team for a couple of more years.  Good contribution from a number of transfers.  Games this weekend vs SMU and Florida State will give better pitcher of where we stand.  

[slot canyon 1,335]

Defeated SMU on 9/2/2023.  SMU had defeated FSU the previous day in a closely contested 3 set match.  

Auburn played 11 players from their 18 player roster.......and won 3 sets to 1.  The sets won by AU.  The sets won by AU were tightly contested with the largest margin of victory being 25 - 20. 

https://auburntigers.com/news/2023/9/2/volleyball-scheers-18-kills-powers-tigers-past-smu.aspx

 

[slot canyon 1,335]

Sunday 9/3/2023  Auburn Volleyball defeats Florida State in 4 sets......30-28, 25-21, 19-25, 25-23.  The last set of the match was very exciting, even following the stats on computer.  In the early stage of the 4th set, FSU went on a 6 point run and maintained a fairly comfortable 3+ point lead up to the score of 21 -18.  Auburn then put together a 6 point run to flip the script at 21 - 24.  FSU then made a 2 point run to make it 23 -24 but AU got the next score to close out the victor at FSU 23 AU 25. 

For FSU, Koenig had an amazing 20 kills.  For AU Anderson 15 kills followed by Scheer at 14 and Bell at 13.  Both teams had 8 serving errors for the match and 5 serving aces.  That was a character-building comeback in the final set.

[VolleyMike 45]

3 hours ago, slot canyon said:

Sunday 9/3/2023  Auburn Volleyball defeats Florida State in 4 sets......30-28, 25-21, 19-25, 25-23.  The last set of the match was very exciting, even following the stats on computer.  In the early stage of the 4th set, FSU went on a 6 point run and maintained a fairly comfortable 3+ point lead up to the score of 21 -18.  Auburn then put together a 6 point run to flip the script at 21 - 24.  FSU then made a 2 point run to make it 23 -24 but AU got the next score to close out the victor at FSU 23 AU 25. 

For FSU, Koenig had an amazing 20 kills.  For AU Anderson 15 kills followed by Scheer at 14 and Bell at 13.  Both teams had 8 serving errors for the match and 5 serving aces.  That was a character-building comeback in the final set.

Big win for the program for sure. That will help in November when we are securing our tournament bid. I see no reason we aren’t 11-0 heading into Florida and SEC play.

 

[slot canyon 1,335]

VB vs Florida State

https://auburntigers.com/news/2023/9/3/volleyball-refuse-to-lose-tigers-knock-off-florida-state-in-four-sets.aspx

[I_M4_AU 7,853]

 

 

[slot canyon 1,335]

Lost to Middle Tennessee in 4 sets.  We had 16 service errors in the 4 sets.  Anderson did not play due to illness.  

https://auburntigers.com/sports/womens-volleyball/archives  

[tigerman1186 537]

THere's go our #25 ranking...coach wanted to go undefeated until SEC matches....

[slot canyon 1,335]

Last night AU defeated Charleston Southern (5-5) 3 sets to 1.  AU lost opening set 23-25.  In that set, we had a 7 point lead during the mid-point of the set only to allow Southern to claw back in and win the set.  AU basically dominated the last 3 sets.  It should be mentioned that AU is without two key players as Anderson and Bella Bell have been out with illness/injury.  

[VolleyMike 45]

The entire team seemed really out of sorts against MTSU. Serving was off, passing was off, setting wasn’t quite as crisp (likely due to passing issues), and hitting just wasn’t terminating as normal (again, somewhat attributed to deficits leading up to the hit). That being said, MTSU had extremely good passers and defense in general. They were playing “rotational defense” which is hard to pull off well, but if you do, it is very hard for off speed, tips, and hits to find the floor. If we played them 10 times, I think we probably win 8 or 9 of those. It just wasn’t our day and I don’t really think it would have been much different had Andersen been on the court.

The really positive thing I saw was the impact of our bench. Quite honestly, I did not see much of a drop off at all. They brought a ton of energy to the court and both Zimmerman and Harmon had phenomenal matches across all phases of the game against CSU and Mercer.  In addition, Scheer continued to put in her usual extremely solid performance, Kemp was a blocking machine, and Barrett distributed the ball really well and even hit Zimmerman out of the back row several times which was very effective. The back row play of Slaughter, Lanham, and Morton has consistently been rising all year and I no longer assume any ball is going to hit the ground on our side of the net. They are just too good. 

I hope we continue to see Crouch use/rotate his bench as the season progresses because the chemistry level on the court was very high last weekend and giving more players time on the court will keep the intensity and engagement levels high in practice. 

Looking forward to the matches this weekend!  Some early RPI projections have Alabama Southern ahead of Auburn, so todays match is a big one. 

[slot canyon 1,335]

Rather tense, exciting game vs a good South Alabama team last night.  Watched on ESPN+.  AU won first set 27 - 25.  South Alabama won the next two sets 23- 25 and 19 - 25.  the 4th set was a doozy.  AU was down by 7 points on 2 occasions, early in the game.  Faught back to win 25 - 23.  Took control of the final set and won 15 - 8.  Anderson with 26 kills.  South Alabama, to me, appeared to have a lot of quickness, much like MTSU.  Sara Morton was in street cloths  and Sydney Handel got some playing time and contributed 10 digs.

https://auburntigers.com/news/2023/9/14/volleyball-no-24-tigers-outlast-jaguars-in-a-five-set-thriller.aspx

Edited September 15, 2023 by slot canyon

[slot canyon 1,335]

Next game vs Florida on Friday @ 6:30 SECN+.  They have defeated 3 top 10 teams this season and this past weekend lost to  #1 Wisconsin 2-3.  In that game, Stucky, their excellent setter appeared to sustain a serious knee injury and is likely to be out for an extended period.  Last year they defeated AU 25-23, 25-18 and 25-15.  Game should provide a good measure as to where we stand vs one of the nation's top teams.  I watched most of the match when they played Wisconsin and really impressed with their serving.