Michigan undeterred by mistakes in win against Michigan State

Mistakes can be costly. But learning from mistakes can help change the course of the game and not have the mistakes seem so costly. While mishaps were common during the Michigan volleyball team’s game against Michigan State on Friday night, it didn’t stop them from winning in straight sets.

Early on in the first set, both teams looked strong as they traded points off kills. But just after the Spartans tied the set at four, errors became predominant on both sides of the court. Attack errors especially hindered the Wolverines, as two consecutive attack errors from graduate outside hitter Kendyl Reaugh gave Michigan State the lead. After another attack error by sophomore opposite hitter Valentina Vaulet, Michigan took a necessary timeout to regroup.

“When we call time out, sometimes it was just a reset,” Wolverines coach Erin Virtue said. “Sometimes it was to strategize what Michigan State had coming at us.”

While Michigan did have a few service errors after the timeout, the reset proved to be effective as the Wolverines erased their previous deficit by minimizing errors and capitalizing on the sparse attack errors made by the Spartans. Michigan, seeming to have finally found its footing, forced Michigan State to take two timeouts and reset itself. However, unlike the Wolverines, the Spartans failed to clean up their blunders, giving Michigan the first set win.

Despite a strong end to the last set, errors continued to plague the Wolverines. After a three-point run to start the set, a service error by sophomore setter Morgan Burke broke that streak.

“There’s still some areas where we can sharpen up,” Virtue said. “I think we’re serving pretty aggressively. I wanted to see us serve in a little bit more against Michigan State.”

Despite the early service error, Michigan’s lead held, as the Spartans continued to make service and attack errors of their own. However, attack errors once again troubled the Wolverines. This, coupled with three consecutive kills by the Spartans, caused Michigan to take another timeout in hopes of resetting and strategizing as it did in the first set.

“A lot of our errors tonight were aggressive,” Virtue said. “I saw us trying to attack some things, either off hands or go for seams on the serve that we’ve been trying to, to get them off the net.”

The Wolverines’ aggression, while coming at the cost of more errors, aided them to another set win.

“We expected Michigan State to come out strong like they did in the third,” Virtue said. “As far as us, we had some tactics going to the third set that we were trying to implement, how we want to detect them, and how we wanted to block them.”

And those tactics, while they didn’t eliminate Michigan’s error trouble completely, aided in a relatively clean third set. They also assisted the Wolverines in capitalizing on Michigan State’s errors as the Spartans committed three consecutive attack errors after getting the first point. Despite Michigan’s errors, Michigan State made more, forcing it into a quieter set and giving the Wolverines the win.

On Friday, mistakes plagued both Michigan and the Spartans. However, by learning from its mistakes and forcing Michigan State to make more, mistakes ended up not being a deterrent to the Wolverines’ victory.

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