The Wolverines were on the ropes.
Midway through the second set, Michigan volleyball coach Mark Rosen called a timeout. His team trailed by a point after scoring only one of the previous seven. Eastern Michigan was rolling.
After losing two of its last three games, the No. 24 Michigan volleyball team (6-2) looked to right the ship on Friday against Navy (4-4), a feat it would accomplish after battling through three close sets.
From the outset, things didn’t look good for the Wolverines.
Deep into the third set, freshman defensive specialist Amber Beals lofted the ball in the air and smacked it to the opposing side of the court. The ball ricocheted off the defender’s arm, notching the fourth service ace of the day for the Wolverines.
After an underwhelming start to a season in which she figured to be the Michigan volleyball team’s top offensive weapon, Paige Jones put a dent in any notion of a sophomore slump on Friday night.
Call it inexperience or early-season jitters, but the No. 14 Michigan volleyball team’s first road trip of the year did not live up to the team’s ranking.
Its first match of the Dayton Invitational put the squad’s youth on full display.
Right out of the gates, Missouri’s aggressive offense and serving approach exposed the Wolverines’ biggest weaknesses: first contact and ball control. Consequently, the Tigers (4-0) breezed through the first two sets, winning them, 25-12 and 25-13. In the third set, Michigan (4-2) punched back, and at one point led, 18-14, before losing the final set, 25-23.
This year, the No. 14 Michigan volleyball team knows Skjodt’s production is gone. And with such a realization comes another: Nobody on the roster can replicate the numbers she posted.
So, the Wolverines (4-2) have chosen to adapt rather than force.
Their offensive makeover was on full display over the weekend at the Dayton Invitational, even as they lost two of three matches against unranked competition in the Flyers and Missouri. Throughout the non-conference tri-match, senior setter MacKenzi Welsh turned to three relatively new faces — senior outside hitter Sydney Wetterstrom and freshman middle blockers May Pertofsky and Jess Robinson — to shoulder the majority of the burden.
Twenty hours before the plane containing delegates representing 11 different Big Ten volleyball teams touched down on foreign soil, all the players met up for a brief practice in Chicago.
The 15th-ranked Wolverines (2-0) have opened their season this deep into the calendar only once since 2004. But despite the long preseason, they didn’t show any signs of being behind the curve in a 25-18, 25-23, 25-8 sweep of Oakland (1-1) in the first match of the annual Michigan Invitational before fending off an upset bid against Northern Arizona (1-1) in a 25-18, 19-25, 14-25, 25-17, 15-10 nightcap victory.
In their debuts, freshmen Jess Robinson and May Pertofsky were the driving offensive forces in the 15th-ranked Wolverines’ sweep of Oakland.
It took 21 years and 6,000 miles of travel, but Michigan volleyball coach Mark Rosen and Purdue assistant Kathy Jewell finally found themselves on the same side of the net again this summer.