Sophomore libero Mia Mazon serves the ball in a match against Pepperdine in a home game at Wells Fargo Arena on Saturday Sept. 20, 2014. (Photo by Mario Mendez)In a collision with junior middle blocker Whitney Follette during practice last week, senior setter Shannan McCready suffered a concussion and was forced to be held out of the weekend matches.
This is McCready's second injury of the season. She missed the first nine matches of the season and has only played seven so far.
She’s not known for serving a consistent dominant role on the squad, but her experience was expected to be helpful this year. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, McCready was expected to take extra defensive duties after former libero Stephanie Preach graduated last year.
She’s played well in her limited minutes, and Sunday’s match against No. 1 Stanford showed how much ASU misses her presence on the court.
It was not a blowout. ASU won the first set before being decimated in the second, but it put in good efforts in sets three and four, despite losing them both.
ASU’s defeat was in part due to subpar back row defense. Sophomore libero Mia Mazon received more minutes and played a position that typically goes to McCready. Stanford took advantage of her inexperience in the role and executed tip attacks.
The Cardinal attackers would jump up and softly touch the ball over the outstretched fingers of the ASU front row. After the match, sophomore setter Bianca Arellano said they jumped too early in anticipation. Stanford recognized this and discovered ASU’s weakness.
Head coach Jason Watson said stopping this attack is often McCready’s role.
Senior setter Shannan McCready serves the ball against Colorado State University on Friday, Sept. 19, 2014, at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. Colorado State beat the Sun Devils 3-2. (Photo by Ben Moffat)“I thought Mia did as good as she could, but she doesn’t play that position,” Watson said after the match. “That’s a position that Shannan normally comes in and does that role for us and does it extremely well … We’ll see where that leaves us.”
The inability to counter tip attacks resulted in many Stanford points, though if corrected, ASU would have stood a chance against the top team in the country.
Even if Stanford hadn't discovered this weakness, there’s a high probability the team would have scoped out a different area to attack if McCready was in the lineup or Mazon was able to react quicker and get in better positioning on the court.
ASU took set three to a 21-22 score before Stanford got a pair of points and destroyed the Sun Devil’s momentum. If ASU had stopped one or two tips in the set as a whole, the momentum swings would have favored the Cardinal less often.
Nonetheless, ASU played well against the No. 1 team in the nation and the best school in a fierce Pac-12 conference. Watson said that the best-case scenario is McCready returning to practice Thursday. With a concussion, there’s no guarantee she’ll be able to play in a match.
If ASU is to stand up to No. 3 Washington on Friday, it’ll have to find a new defensive scheme to protect the small zone on the far right-hand side on the middle of the court between the front and back rows where the ball lands just far enough from the player’s fingertips that it falls to the ground.
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @Logan_Newsman
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