We’re roughly halfway through the inaugural League One Volleyball season – after five weeks of regular season play and last weekend’s LOVB Classic – and the challenges facing the teams take a different slant as all six take aim at the LOVB Finals in mid-April in Louisville, Kentucky.
Wins and losses remain paramount, but there is more to consider than just jockeying for seeding. Every team has dealt with injuries and, accordingly, has adjusted training, playing times and rotations. Now, those same teams will be playing teams they've seen before. Scouting and analysis become even more significant pieces of pre-match strategies.
"This is the first year that we're doing this and it's such an honor. But at the end of the day, we're still pro athletes and we want to win and compete and train at a high level," Emily Thater, whose Omaha team had a tough go at the LOVB Classic with losses to Houston and Austin. "We're a little banged up. That's not a secret now and physically we're at a down point. So I think the question is how do we train for what we're doing a little better, a little more efficiently, and move forward and be ready for the rest of the season, especially Louisville."
That was a familiar refrain as LOVB heads into Week 7.
It starts Wednesday night when LOVB Houston plays at LOVB Austin in a 7 p.m. Central start that can be seen on LOVB Live, DAZN and YouTube.
Then on Thursday, Houston, which will be playing its fifth match in seven days, opens a doubleheader in Austin against LOVB Omaha at 4:30 p.m. In the Classic, Houston swept Madison, beat Omaha in four sets and then defeated Atlanta in the final in four sets. Opposite Jordan Thompson totaled 59 kills in the three matches. Teammate Amber Igiede, named player of the match in the finale, had 13 kills while hitting .500 and had an ace, three blocks and six digs.
The second match in the H-E-B Center on Thursday at Cedar Park pits Austin – also playing its fifth match in seven days – vs. LOVB Salt Lake at 7 p.m. Central. Both matches can also be seen on LOVB Live, DAZN and YouTube.
The week concludes Thursday when LOVB Madison goes to LOVB Atlanta for a 7:30 p.m. Eastern Friday start that can also be seen on LOVB Live, DAZN and YouTube.
After five weeks of regular season play (LOVB Classic matches do not figure into the regular season), here’s a look at the standings:
- LOVB Atlanta (6-1)
- LOVB Omaha (4-2)
- LOVB Houston (4-2)
- LOVB Salt Lake (3-5)
- LOVB Austin (2-4)
- LOVB Madison (1-6)
Houston and Austin will play for the third time. On January 9, the first match for both teams, Houston pulled off a reverse sweep and then Houston won in four sets on February 5. Houston will also be playing Omaha for the third time. Omaha swept their first meeting on January 10, but Houston made up for it with a four-set victory in Saturday's LOVB Classic semifinals.
"We hoped for a lot of things out of this Classic and the opportunity it presented for our team, to level up and keep upgrading, so it's disappointing," Omaha's Madi Kubik-Banks said. "We're just playing in a really tough league with a lot of talent and a lot of physicality. It's not easy to put a ball away or do the things you'd like to do easier."
Salt Lake defeated Austin on February 1 in a five-setter in which SL's Skylar Fields had one of the LOVB season's best matches, racking up 25 kills, six blocks and 11 digs.
Atlanta, which has won six regular season matches in a row, won its Classic semifinal match by topping Austin in four before falling to Houston. Atlanta is 2-0 against Madison after coming away with a five-set victory on January 25 and a sweep on February 8.
No team is hoping more for a change in direction than Madison. Having just one match this week is an opportunity, according to Annie Drews Schumacher.
"We are going to go to work," she said. "You learn a lot more from losing than winning, so we'll look at the films from this weekend and come up with some solutions."
"We've just got to be better volleyball players," coach Matt Fuerbringer said. "We start hitting better and our passing falls apart. We start passing better and we can't put a ball away in perfect situations. We get any amount of pressure on us and we forget how to play volleyball.
"We've just got to work harder and I've got to push them harder in practice."
