My  God.  Hello  everyone, and  welcome  back  to  the  weekly  rundown presented  by  The  Minnesota  Daily. As  always,  make  sure  to  pick  up  our  newspaper. You  can  find  it  at  pretty  much  any  building  on  campus. All  of  our  papers  and  articles  are  also available  on  our  website,  Mendailyt  Com. This  week  we  will  be  transitioning  away  from  football and  are  going  to  focus  on  another  sport,  volleyball. And  to  do  that  with  me,  I  have our  volleyball  beat  reporter  Nolan  O'hara. How's  it  going? Noen,  I'm  doing  well.  Glad  to  be  here. All  right.  Well,  we  can  just  jump  right  in. And  one  thing  we  do  want  to  note  is  we  are  recording  on Thursday  afternoon  and  the  teams will  do  have  a  game  tonight. They  play  Clemson,  so  some  of  our  stats, some  of  the  things  we  talk  about won't  be  featuring  how  the  team  did, obviously  because  the  game  has  not  started  yet. So  make  sure  to  keep  that  in  mind  when  you're  listening. So  the  first  thing  we  want  to  chat  about is  for  the  people  that  haven't  been  paying  attention, just  kind  of  what  this  valuable  team  is  about, what  the  differences  are  from  last  year, and  what  we  can  kind  of  expect  going  forward. So  I  think  to  do  that,  we  need  to  look  a little  bit  in  review  in  how  they  did  last  year. So  last  year  they  finished 27.4  and  they  lost  in  the  regional  semifinals  to  Oregon. It  sounds  like  a  good  season,  but  they  definitely had  aspirations  to  go  further. They  were  the  number  two  seed  in  the  tournament, and  the  final  four  was  in  Minnesota. So  there  was  a  lot  of  hype  hoping  that  they  would  have a  chance  to  play  in  their  home  state, in  front  of  the  home  fans  in  that  big  of  an  environment. So  has  the  team  addressed much  of  how  the  season  ended  last  year? Have  they  talked  about  it  or  is  it  really  just  kind  of head  down  moving  forward? We're  not  going  to  think  about  that. Yeah.  It  really  hasn't  come  up  too  much. They've  mostly  just  been,  you  know, that  was  last  season,  this  is  2019. We're  trying  to  focus  on  what  we can  do  this  year  and  how  we  can improve  this  year  and  just  taking  every  game  at  a  time. Well,  this  year  they've  started  4.2  They  opened  up the  season  with  a  30  set  win versus  University  of  North  Carolina, but  then  they  went  through  a  little  bit  of  a  rough  patch. They  lost  six  sets  in  a  row, three  to  Florida  State, and  then  three  to  Texas. And  then  followed  that  up,  they've  won  three  in  a  row, heading  into  tonight  against  Clemson. And  so  they  beat  Oregon  30,  Florida,  three  to  zero. And  then  beat  the  number  one  team  at  the  time, Stanford,  three  to  one. So  they've  looked  to rebound  a  little  bit  from  that  shaky  beginning. But  was  there  anything  that  they noted  that  maybe  attributed  to  that? A  little  bit  of  a  shaky  beginning. The  serving  was  a  little  shaky. Early  on,  there  were  some  errors. And  after  the  first  two  games, they  had  the  Big  ten  ACC  challenge. And  Mccutcheon  stressed,  you  know, passing  and  serving  need  to  be  improved  upon. But  it's  been  really  improved in  the  last  couple  of  games  serving  it hasn't  been  an  issue  since  like that  second  game  of  the  year,  the  Texas  game. Texas  was  just  a  really  good  team  and  they battled  and  all  those  sets  went  really  long. Texas  just  got  the  better  of  them  that  night. But  so  it  wasn't  really anything  that  was  holding  them  back. It  was  just  playing  really  good  teams. They  scheduled  a  lot  of  tough  competition early  to  prepare  for  the  Big  Ten  season. Yeah,  Texas  is  a  good  team. I  think  at  this  point  I  looked  at  the  NCA  rankings. They're  number  third  in  the  NCAA  right  now. Stanford's  num  two,  they lost  to  Minnesota,  Shirley  knocked  them  down. And  then  when  they  beat  Oregon, Oregon  was  on  the  tenth  rank  team. So,  and  now  Florida  States  also  in  the  top  25. They  weren't  when  they  lost  them,  but  they  are  now. So  they're  definitely  scheduling  hard  opponents. And  I  know  he  emphasized  that  as  something  they want  to  do  to  kind  of  prep  them for  a  grueling  big  ten  schedule. Because  big  ten  teams  are  really good  and  that's  a  really  good  conference. And  so  he  wants  to  get  them  kind  of  ready to  see  that  and  get  them  back  into  game  action. And  that  win  against  Oregon  number  ten  Oregon, a  little  bit  of  a  revenge  game for  them  because  they  did  lose  to  them. That's  the  team  that  knocked  them out  of  the  NCA  tournament. Did  they  talk  about  having  any  feelings  about the  Oregon  game  from  last  year  when they  headed  into  that  game  this  year? You  know,  I  asked  both  Regan  Pittman and  Stephanie  Sanity  about  it, and  they  both,  you  know, we're  focused  on  this  season,  that  was  last  year, we're  on  this  year,  and that  didn't  have  a  factor  to  do  with  it. They're  just  trying  to  win  this  year. But,  you  know,  deep  down,  I'm  sure  there  was, there  was  some  extra  motivation playing  that  team  that  knocked  them  out  last  year. And  sure,  and  Sady  and  Regan  Pittman are  two  of  the  returning  pieces. They're  returning  five  of  six  starters. The  only  one  that  they're  missing  happens  to  be the  Big  ten  player  of  the  year  from a  year  ago  set  Samantha  Seliger, Swenson,  and  I  know  Setter  in particular  can  sometimes  when there's  a  different  person  there, a  lot  of  the  offense  runs  through  them. So  it  can  be  a  little  bit  more  difficult  to  replace  them. What  have  they  have  they  talked  any  bit  about  missing Seliger  Swenson  or  how they've  adapted  to  the  new  setter,  Kylie  Miller. They  haven't  said  anything  about  missing  Seliger  Swenson. They  said  Kylie  Miller's  doing  a  really  good  job  for this  team  and  she  has  been  the  last  two  weeks  in  a  row, she's  been  the  big  ten  setter  of  the  week. She's  been  playing  really  well  and  has  really contributed  to  this  team  and  making  it, you  know,  almost,  you  know, when  you  lose  a  player  like  that, it's  not  like  that  you  won't  notice  a  difference  split. She's  been  playing  really  well  and  it  hasn't seemed  to  affect  their  play  thus  far. Yeah.  And  you  talked  to  Kylie  Miller  last  week. She's  a  transfer  from  UCLA for  those  that  aren't  familiar, and  I  think  she's  really helped  just  kind  of  step  right  in. And  but  besides  her,  it's  the  same  faces. It's  sanity.  It's  Alexis  Hart. It's  CC  Mcgraw,  it's  Regan  Pitman, it's  a  Donna  Rawlins,  so there's  a  lot  of  familiarity  there. And  Miller  did  come  in in  the  spring,  so  she's  had  a  lot  of  time. Yeah.  So  she  had  some  time  to  adjust  and get  to  know  the  team  and  practice  with  the  team, you  know,  before  this  first  year  here. So  that  probably  did  help  too. In  that  transition,  what have  been  the  big  areas  that the  team  has  done  well  in  to  get  those  big  wins, Because  they  have  three  top  ten  victories  now. They  beat  Oregon,  they beat  Florida,  and  they  beat  Stanford. All  who  were  in  the  top  ten  at  the  time. What  is  working  well  for  the  team  right  now, defensively,  they've  been  playing  really  well. Regan  Pittman  has  been  involved  a  lot  in  the  net, getting  lots  of  blocks, really,  really  excellent  in  that  regard. And  on  the  attack  too,  Samody had  double  doubles  in  the  last  two  games. She's  been  great  both  defensively  and  offensively. And  they've  just  been  playing  really  good  volleyball. Yeah,  Samoity  was  named the  National  Player  of  the  Week  for the  past  week  for  her  performances against  Oregon  and  Stanford. So  that's  a  high  honor that's  indicative  of  how  well  she's  playing. She's  been  kind  of  a  rock  for this  team  throughout  her  entire  tenure  here. And  she  leads  the  team  with 94  kills.  She's  second  in  the  team. And  dig,  she  has  66  of  those, only  CC  Mcgraw  is  better, was  73  and  she's  a  libero. So  she's  going  to  get  a  lot  of  digs. So  that's  impressive  from  her. And  Adanna  Rollins  as  well, has  been  really  good  in  her  sophomore  season  stepping  up. And  she's  second  in  the  team  in  kills. And  like  you  said,  Pitman  has  28  blocks  already. So  she's  doing  really  well. One  of  the  new  faces  that  is getting  a  lot  of  playing  time  is  Rachel. Kill  Kelly.  She's  a  freshman. She's  a  local  kid  playing  from  Shakopee. I  know  you  did  a  feature  on  her  recently. What  did  you  learn  from  her  about how  she's  adjusting  to  the  team  and how  the  team  views  she  started  this  season,  I  did. She's  been  adjusting  well.  She's  played really  well  so  far  into  the  year. And,  you  know,  she  just  tries  to  keep  the  mindset, just  take  it  one  play  at  a  time,  one  game  at  a  time. And  that's  been  kind  of  her  mindset  throughout  the  year. Trying  to  focus  on  that.  And  serving and  defensively  have  been  two  really  big  strength. She's  had  to  contribute  to  this  team, especially  earlier  on  when they  were  struggling  with  serving. It's  nice  to  have  someone  who  can  come  in  right away  freshman  year  and  show  a  strength  in  that  area. And  so  this  weekend  when  they  play Clemson  and  when  they  play  Oral  Roberts, which  is  coming  on  Saturday, both  home  matches,  that'll  be the  end  of  their  nonconference  schedule. So  they'll  be  done  with  kind of  what  they  deem  as  the  preseason, although  they  still  count  towards  the  record. But  they're  done  with  the  preseason  and  they move  on  to  Big  Ten  play. What  are  they  focused  on  as  they  head  into  Big  Ten  play? How  have  they  kind  of  assessed  how  they've  done  in non  conference  interviewing  heading  into  big  ten  play? Well,  like  you  said,  Mccutcheon  treats this  non  conference  schedule  like  a  preseason, so  he's  basically  just been  focused  on  coaching  this  team  up, getting  them  prepared,  and  that's  why  he scheduled  such  difficult  opponents  before  too. So  they'll  just  be  focused  on  these  next  two  games. They're  always  one  game  at  a  time, not  looking  too  far  ahead. But  I  know  once  that  big  ten  season  starts,  it'll  be, that'll  really  be  a  time  where Mccutcheon  stressing,  you  know, trying  to  get  this  team  ready  and  winning  games and  winning  the  big  ten  isn't going  to  be  important  to  this  team. Yeah,  I  know,  that's  always  a  big  goal of  theirs  and  they're  going  to  have  a  tough  road. Nebraska  is  seven,  and already  this  year  they're  the  number  one  team. They  overtook  Stanford, so  they're  number  one  in  the  polls  right  now. And  then  in  the  top  ten  there's  Penn  State,  number  four. Minnesota  is  number  seven, but  then  right  behind  them  at  number  nine  is  Wisconsin. And  there's  gonna  be  some  tough  teams. Illinois  19th  produce  21st. So  the  big  ten  is  not  going  to  be  easy  to  win. It's  going  to  be  a  lot  like  what they've  had  so  far,  which  have  been  battles. They  haven't  had  a  five  set  game  yet, but  they've  had  multiple  games  that  have  gone deep  into  the  '20s  to  try  to  decide  it. They've  been  really  competitive. So  it's  going  to  be  a  tough  stretch  and  I  know Mccutcheon  is  really  focused on  getting  them  ready  for  Big  ten  plax. That's  kind  of  where  they  hang  their  hat. That's  where  their  pride  comes  from. Absolutely.  And  one  of  those  wins, that's  surely  going  to  give  them confidence  going  into  big  ten  play. Was  that  number  one  or that  win  over  number  one,  Stanford. What  was  working  well  for  them  that  game? What  did  they  say  after  the  game  that was  able  to  kind  launch  them  to  a  victory, 31  victory  on  a  neutral  site. It  wasn't  at  home,  so they  didn't  have  the  home  fans  to  cheer  him  on. I  know  they  have  a  really, really  great  record  at  Turi, but  to  go  into  a  neutral  site and  beat  the  number  one  team, and  they  had  won  37  straight  matches. So  they  were  a  hot  team. They  had  won  the  NCA  championship  last  year, so  no  slouch  at  all. What  did  they  say  about  that  game? Mccutcheon  said  it  was  the team's  best  performance  defensively. He  said  both  blocking  and  digging, they  owed  Doug  Stanford  in  that  match. And,  you  know,  that's  not  an  easy  thing  to  do  playing. What  was  the  number  one  team  in  the  country  at  the  time? And  again,  Sam,  but  he  just  had  another  double  double  and was  unstoppable  and  they  got  a  lot  of  blocks  at  the  net. It  was just  a  really  great  defensive  performance  all  around. Performance  by  the  gophers. Well,  those  all  around performances  are  something  that  they're  going to  continue  to  need  to  have  as  they  head  into, not  only  this  weekend  but  going  forward. And  we  are  so  glad  that  you  were  able  to  join us  and  give  us  a  little  insight on  the  Gopher  volleyball  team. Make  sure  to  check  out  Nolan's work  all  throughout  the  season. He'll  have  recaps  coming  after  every  game. He'll  have  multiple  articles  per  week  to  keep  you  up  to date  on  everything  that's  going  on with  the  volleyball  team  and  Nolan, we  can't  thank  you  enough  for  having  you. Oh,  yeah.  Thanks  for  having  me. In  other  news,  the  Gopher  soccer  team grabbed  its  first  win  of  the  season last  Thursday  beating  number  14  ranked  NC  State  10. However,  they  couldn't  carry  their  momentum  into the  weekend  as  they  dropped a  home  match  to  South  Dakota  State. They  currently  stand  at  15.2 and  transition  into  big  ten  play, hoping  to  right  the  ship. The  cross  country  teams  are  anxiously awaiting  their  second  meet  of  the  year, as  they  host  the  Roy  Gri  Invitational. On  September  28,  the  women's  team cracked  the  top  25  in  the  latest  national  poll, slotting  in  at  23,  while  the  men's  team  was  not  ranked, but  they  did  receive  votes. The  men's  golf  team  competed  in  Arizona  at the  Maui  gym  and  placed  ninth. They  had  three  golfers  finish  in the  top  25  Senior  Thomas  Longbella, Junior,  Angus  Flanagan,  and  Freshman  Connor  Glynn. Long  Bella  was  the  high  finisher,  tying  for  15th, while  Flanagan  and  Glynn  both  finished  in  a  tie  for  24th. The  team's  nine  par  finishing  score  was the  lowest  team  score  to  par,  since  going  17. At  the  2016  Alistair  Mackenzie  Invitational, the  women  counterparts  competed  closer  to  home  In the  Anica  Intercollegiate  in  Lake  Elmo,  Minnesota. The  team  finished  12th  and  Junior  Kate  Lily tied  for  39th  at  eight  over  par. The  best  finished  by  a  gopher  at  this  event, since  they  joined  the  field  in  2017, the  team  faced  a  tough  field  as  they  went  against ten  of  the  top  20  team,  the  country. The  football  team  is  enjoying  its  by  week  after starting  the  season  three  and  in  non  conference  play, the  team  looks  to  get  healthy  and have  a  full  stable  of  running  Backs. As  Muhammad  Ibrahim  and Rodney  Smith  were  both  injured  last  week, the  team  is  getting  ready  to  jump  into big  ten  plate  and  make  a  splash as  they  start  that  journey on  the  road  at  Purdue  on  September  28  at  02:30 P.M.  We  will  be  back  again next  week  to  give  you the  weekly  rundown  on  all  things  go  for  sports. Don't  forget  to  share,  subscribe  and  review. We'll  see  everyone  next  week.