The UB Volleyball team easily handled the Binghamton Bearcats in an exhibition match at Alumni Arena today. Although officially the match will be recorded as a 3–0 win for the Bulls, the teams actually played five sets, with the Bulls winning the first four.

Rather than the usual play-by-play and statistical summary, we're going to discuss who played well — and that includes just about everyone who got on the court. But we'll concentrate on who played the best, starting with the newcomers.

Sophomore transfer Monika Simkova, the only left-hander on the squad, played both outside hitter and right side, and was very effective there, with a number of cross-court kills that split the defense. Simkova also served extremely well, going on a long serving run at the end of the second set which included 2 aces, and she had three aces for the match.

Freshman middle blocker Abby Leigh also served very effectively, and picked up a number of blocks and kills. She also played right side in two of the sets. Freshman defensive specialist/libero Jenna Sonnenberg played solid back row defense, picked up a kill on an overpass, and you can add her to the list of players who served extremely well during the match.

Among the returning players, senior outside hitter Rachel Sanks was on fire in sets one and two. She had good approaches on most of her attacks, strong velocity on her swing and good accuracy as well. Senior outside hitter/right side Polina Prokudina also attacked well, displaying her usual powerful swing.

Other than the influx of new players, did the new coaching staff, led by first year coach Scott Smith, do anything different compared to the previous years under coach Blair Brown Lipsitz? Well ... yeah ... there's quite a list of things.

The Bulls had virtually no back row attack today. This was a major change from previous years, when Andrea Mitrovic attacking out of the back row was a staple of the offense (and Prokudina also regularly attacked out of the back row two years ago). Today, freshman outside hitter Morgan Verheyen took a few back row swings, and Simkova took one, but I don't think the Bulls scored a single point from back row attacks.

The two person serve receive is a defensive formation that UB hadn't used much in the past. When Sonnenberg and sophomore defensive specialist/libero Paige Beck were together in the back row, the two of them often covered the serve without help from a third person (the three person serve receive being the norm for most of college volleyball). Even when another defensive specialist (senior Hannah Watson or freshman Melissa Masotto) was in the back right position, only Sonnenberg and Beck were responsible for serve receive. This is quite a vote of confidence from the coaching staff to let just those two cover the entire court in serve receive in many situations.

In the past four years, the coaching staff did not signal the UB players where to serve the ball; however today assistant coach Kaysie Shebeneck signaled where the Bulls should send each serve. Strangely, in that fifth set, Shebeneck didn't do this, so I'm going to assume her fingers were tired — yeah let's go with that.

Shebeneck called a large number of short serves that were very effective. Under Lipsitz, the Bulls rarely used the short serve.

Notes:

• Freshman setter Emma Puzausky played the final four sets, and generally did a good job of keeping the offense scoring. Senior setter Scout McLerran also looked sharp in the first set.
• Senior middle blocker Kristina Nieves only played two sets, but still looked sharp blocking, picking up four blocks in a span of five plays in the second set.
• The Bulls probably had 12 aces during the match, a very impressive number, but even when they didn't get an ace, their serves caused Binghamton a lot of problems all match long.
  
• Junior setter Tia Gleason and freshman middle blocker Olivia DeBortoli did not play. Gleason was in street clothes, while DeBortoli was in uniform but never removed her warmup shirt. DeBortoli was an All-New York State player her senior year in high school at Shenendehowa.
  
• Lipsitz is now a volunteer assistant coach, and was in attendance. She told me that she would be at a lot of the matches.