The UB Volleyball team was split into two today for the Blue and White Scrimmage. The blue team consisted of mostly returning players, while the white team consisted of mostly freshman, and to no one's surprise, the blue team won all four sets.

However, there were some surprises on the court. Freshman Megan Wernette had an extremely strong performance at middle blocker, finishing with 11 kills and 7 blocks. Wernette, who stands 6-3, and is the tallest player on the team, seemed in mid-season form and particularly in the first set, was a dominant force on the front line.

Another strong performance was turned in by sophomore middle blocker Cassie Shado, who finished with 17 kills on 22 attacks, with no errors. Shado finished last season strongly, and wound up on the MAC All-Freshman team. Akeila Lain, playing both right-side and middle blocker, finished with 11 kills and 6 blocks, while Amber Hatchett had 8 kills at middle blocker. If I had to predict the starting middle blockers based on this performance, I'd have to go with Shado and Wernette (and Lain playing right side). Hatchett played well, but not as well as the others. (And of course, coach Blair Brown Lipsitz won't use just this match to decide, she has the benefit of the full three weeks of practice to judge the players, I don't.)

People are expecting a big season from senior outside hitter Megan Lipski, but this just wasn't that strong of a performance from her. She really struggled in the first set, and it seemed like the big block of Lain and Wernette and 6-2 freshman Madison Clark really bothered her early. She played better as the match went on, but I was hoping for more. True, it's only one match.

Raven Jordan, a freshman outside hitter, matched Lipski's total of 11 kills, but the best outside hitter of the night was freshman Valisha Watkins with 15 kills.

A few weeks ago, some volleyball pundit opined:

Yet another option at right side is freshman setter Madison Clark, who has played right side hitter in the past. Why limit that 6-2 height to the setter position? I can certainly envision a hybrid two-setter offense where Clark plays all the way around; when she is in the front row, she is the right side hitter and Prinzbach/Lin/Fitzpatrick play setter in the back row; and when Clark is in the back row, she plays setter while either Lain or Wernette plays right side.

Well, whoever that was nailed it, because that was exactly what we saw in the first set. Clark played all the way around, setting in the back row and attacking in the front row. In the remaining sets, where the rotation rules were pretty well ignored, Clark played front row exclusively and put up some pretty good numbers for the match — 11 assists, 7 kills (attacking from both the middle and right side) and a bunch of blocks (no box score is publicly available).

Back row players typically don't make much of an impression unless they screw up big time, or make spectacular plays. And the good news is that Buffalo's back row players didn't make much of an impression, not screwing up big time. One place where a back row player was spectacular was the serving of sophomore libero Niki Bozinoski, who registered 9 aces. But as a group, Buffalo seemed to struggle with serve receive, and that's an area that needs attention (although that's probably true for a lot of teams early in the season). And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the very solid job done by senior setter Marissa Prinzbach, who set the entire match for the blue team. I'm still expecting to see more from junior setter Megan Lin, who had 24 assists in 4 sets, compared to 45 from Prinzbach (in 4 sets) and 11 from Clark (in just one set as setter).

Notes:

• Freshman Kelly Fitzpatrick is listed as a setter, but she didn't set at all in this match. She played defensive specialist and registered 3 digs. The other defensive specialist, Abby Beecher, had 16 digs.
  
• The white team libero was sophomore Tessa Ooyama, who did not play that position last year. Based on this, I expect Ooyama to get a lot more playing time at defensive specialist this year (although most likely Bozinoski will be the libero again this year).
  
• Hannah Varley, who was a freshman on last year's team and played sparingly, is not on the roster this year, but still is with the team in some capacity. She was at the scorer's table tonight, keeping the statistics, and you can see her in the team photos.
• During time outs and between periods, coach Blair Brown Lipsitz often had the team laughing, which probably is the right approach for an exhibition match.
• Buffalo plays at defending National Champion and pre-season #1 Penn State to open their season on Friday, August 28. The last time Buffalo played at Penn State, in 2009, the Nittany Lions (a team which included junior Blair Brown) swept the Bulls and hit .702 as a team, and their first attacking error was on match point.
• This author committed a major faux pas (that's French for saying something stupid). I was walking into the arena, and alongside me was a very tall man, probably in his late 20s, and an older couple. I asked the younger man if he was related to anyone on the team and he told me he was married to the coach. It was Max Lipsitz, a former Penn State All-American and also a member of the USA National Team. Then the older couple also said they were related to someone on the team, and introduced themselves as the Browns, and I said "but there's no one on the team with the last name of Brown". Duh!
• Mrs. Jaima Brown (the coach's mother) and I still had a nice chat and I said I felt Buffalo was going to get wiped out at Penn State. Mrs. Brown seemed relatively optimistic about the upcoming game against Penn State, and didn't agree with my assessment.