In honor of the late Yogi Berra, UB Volleyball's 3–1 win tonight against Toledo can be summed up in three words:

Serve Receive

Buffalo has struggled with this skill throughout the year, and struggled again in set 1 against Toledo, but they came to a fork in the road, they took it, and were able to fix some of their serve receive problems in sets two, three and four, giving them a 3–1 victory. Buffalo is now 2–12 on the year, but 1–1 in the MAC.

Freshman outside hitter Valisha Watkins doesn't play back row, and she doesn't receive serves much. There is one rotation where Buffalo has only two back row players to receive serve, and Toledo targeted Watkins on their serves during that rotation, and the results weren't pretty, with poor passes time after time. Toledo also targeted senior right side hitter Akeila Lain, who also doesn't usually return serve, and Lain struggled at serve receive as well. Even so, Buffalo took a 13–8 lead on a six point run, five of which were served by junior setter Megan Lin. But then Toledo returned to serving at Watkins and Lain, and took over the lead and won 25–20. The serve receive woes resulted in Buffalo hitting 0.000 in the first set, and it was the probable reason why senior outside hitter Megan Lipski, the team's leading scorer, was held scoreless in the first set.

Buffalo changed their approach in set two when Toledo served either Lain or Watkins. Instead of having Lain or Watkins play the ball, they either stepped aside and let the back row player take the serve, or if the serve was short, the back row player stepped in front to play the ball. And if the serve was so short that the back row player couldn't get it, Lain was able to settle down and make some very nice passes. And with that, one of Toledo's biggest weapons disappeared.

As a result, Buffalo's offense picked up in the second set (they hit 0.103), and continued to improve in sets 3 (they hit 0.268) and set four (0.267). Buffalo used a very balanced attack, as all five front line attackers wound up with double digit kills.

Buffalo's back row defense has also been problem at times this year, appearing to be tentative at times. In the loss to Akron on Thursday, it seemed it seemed that the Akron attacks easily found the floor and Buffalo's defenders were either indecisive or slow to go after the ball. Against Toledo, the back row seemed much more aggressive at going after balls, and as a result we saw, for the first time this year, many long rallies where Toledo just couldn't get the ball to drop. In fact, we saw a number of occasions where two Bulls tried to play the ball, and that's probably a better situation than earlier in the year when no one played a ball.

Front row defense also shined tonight. Buffalo had 14 blocks, tying their high this year for a 4 set match (after they had only six blocks in 4 sets against Akron). Sophomore middle blocker Cassie Shado contributed 7 blocks, freshman middle blocker Megan Wernette had 6, and even senior setter Marissa Prinzbach got into the act with 4 blocks, including a solo block on match point.

Furthermore, over the course of the entire season, you can see definite improvement in some of the younger players. Wernette, who played tentatively in her first career start against Canisius two weeks ago, tonight was a terror on the front line. She led the team with 12 kills (her career high) and hit 0.478 with only one error, and scored in all phases of the offense: quick hits, slides and cleaning up Toledo's overpasses. Similarly, sophomore libero Tessa Ooyama showed much more aggressiveness going after balls, something she didn't show earlier in the season, and finished with her career high of 23 digs. Freshman defensive specialist Abby Beecher continues to improve, and she registered her career high with 9 digs, and also her first career kill. Sophomore defensive specialist Niki Bozinoski continued her solid play with 7 digs. Lipski, who has never been a slouch on defense, wound up with 14 digs.

And last but not least, I must again praise the steady and dependable setting of Marissa Prinzbach, who finished with 47 assists, 7 digs and the aforementioned four blocks. As I have said in the past, when she gets a good pass, she is dead-nuts accurate, but she also excels when the pass is perhaps a bit too close to the net. Throughout her two years at Buffalo, she has consistently been able to handle these passes that are too close to the net, coming within a bazillionth of an inch of the net, but never actually touching the net, and still makes a solid pass. This is a rare skill, and one which Toledo setter Alex Hines didn't do nearly as well.

Notes:

• Senior middle blocker Amber Hatchett didn't play again, and I get the impression it while be a while before she plays again (and she may be out for the season, I don't really know).
• With Megan Lin serving, Buffalo outscored Toledo 14–6. This included five consecutive points in the first set, and she served the final five points of the match.
• The two coaches set a season high in sartorial splendor. Volleyball is a sport where the coaches don't usually dress up, but tonight both coaches were dressed exceptionally well. Toledo coach Greg Smith wore a dress shirt, dress pants and a very sharp tie, while Buffalo coach Blair Brown Lipsitz wore a black jacket, a UB blue blouse and a black skirt (which among the 9 UB games I have seen this year, is the first time she wore a skirt). You know what they say, every volleyball fan is crazy about sharp dressed coaches.