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6B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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SPORTS
WEDNESDAY. OCTOBER 27, 2004
Kansan File Photo
Senior middle blocker Ashley Michaels gets ready to serve during a match this season. The Jayhawks have been erratic lately, with a high numbers of both errors and aces.
Serving key to victory
By BILL CROSS
bcross@kansan.com
KANSAN SPORTWRITER
After 19 matches last season, the Kansas volleyball team had a solid but unexceptional 12-7 record and had the opportunity to improve on its mediocre conference record in a home match against Iowa State. This year, the team finds itself in the same situation.
"They're one of the better passing teams in the league," he said of the Cyclones. "To compete with them, you have to serve and receive serves well."
He said serving would be key when his team faced Iowa State at 7 tonight in the Horejsi Family Athletics Center.
The 2003 Jayhawks swept the Cyclones, beginning a winning streak that catapulted Kansas to its first-ever NCAA tournament.
To do the same thing this year, the Jayhawks will have to improve their serving, coach Ray Bechard said.
In the last two games, Kansas' serving has been erratic. The team set a season high with 20 service errors against Missouri on Oct.16.
"That's a lot of serves to miss," senior middle blocker Ashley Michaels, in near disbelief after the match, said.
The Jayhawks followed that performance with 12 missed serves in a three-game victory against Oklahoma a week ago.
These errors have been par tially balanced by an increase in service aces, serves that are not returned by the opposing team.
Kansas has 10 aces over its last eight sets.
"We've been working on the tempo of the serve and the placement of the serve," Bechard said.
He said the spin and location of a serve could wreak havoc on an opponent's game plan.
"We could get 100 percent of our serves in, but it'd be a nice and easy pass for the opponent to play," he said. "A heavy top spin or a floater can be disruptive to the other team's offense."
He said the team served to specific areas of the court to disrupt patterns run by opposing hitters.
Adjustments by individual players are partially responsible for the team's sometimes terrible, sometimes fantastic serving.
Junior setter Andi Rozum, who has served flat-footed for most of the season, unleashed her jump serve on Kansas State during the Oct. 6 match.
"You live or die by Rozum's jump serve," Bechard said.
Freshman opposite hitter Emily Brown has landed four aces over the last three matches after moving back from the line.
"The trajectory is different," she said. "It feels like I have a lot more room."
"She does a jump float," Brown said. "From the reception perspective, those are very intimidating because you don't know if it has top spin or if it will come right at you."
Senior setter Ashley Bechard has taken Brown's place in the rotation.
When Iowa State and Kansas met at Iowa State two weeks ago, the Jayahaws won despite below-par serving, Bechard said. The team had five aces and 12 errors.
"We try to get a 60 percent ratio of aces to errors," he said. "Obviously, we need to be a little better in that department."
— Edited by Paige Worthy
Bengals outplay Broncos
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DENVER — That was no mirage, it was the supposedly unbeatable Champ Bailey getting beaten — again and again and again.
And that wasn't the Patriots or the Eagles or the Colts, it was the lowly Cincinnati Bengals who embarrassed the Broncos and left much of Denver wondering how its team could look that bad on the big Monday night stage.
It may have been Cincinnati's first Monday appearance in 15 years, but it was also Denver's only appearance of this season, meaning there was little reason for the Broncos to come out flat.
Neither the coach nor the Broncos were available for interviews Tuesday, but after the game, the consensus was that they simply didn't come ready to play.
"They were more ready than we were," said coach Mike Shanahan, who apologized to his players for not getting them ready. "I have to do a better job preparing these guys."
Bailey, of course, got most of the attention, whether he deserved it or not.
The Broncos got him in the
offseason to be left alone to handle the opponent's best receiver, and up to this point he had done fine. Against Chad Johnson of the Bengals, he allowed no fewer than five catches in single coverage, including a pair of 50-yarders — one for the opening touchdown that set the mood for the evening.
"I was thinking, 'Let's go,'" Bailey said of his reaction when he realized the Bengals were going to go right at him. "I'm not afraid of any challenge. That's just the way I roll."
He took the worst of it, and maybe the most insulting result of it all was that the best Broncos cornerbacks Monday night were Deltha O'Neal and Tory James. Problem was, they're both former Broncos cornerbacks who now play for the Bengals, and each of whom had interceptions on Jake Plummer.
"I think they were ready for a big game," Piumner said. "I think we got outplayed."
In addition to the general ineptitude, the rest of the league got to watch tackle George Foster end Bengals defensive lineman Tony Williams' season with a brutal cut block that, while not illegal, certainly looked dirty.
"I don't think it was a cheap shot," Foster said, ignoring the fact that a number of TV replays that showed the grusome injury made the block appear out of line.
Denver may have lost tailback-turned-kickoff returner Quentin Griffin for the season. Griffin twisted his knee on a kickoff return. Tests on the knee weren't disclosed Tuesday, but talk in the locker room Monday night was that it looked like an anterior cruciate injury, which often spells long-term rehabilitation.
Reuben Droughns, the player who knocked Griffin out of the starting lineup, ran for 110 yards for his third straight 100-yard game. This time, though, it did nothing to open up the offense.
Receiver Rod Smith, often the hardest-working player on the team, said he was frustrated with himself because he made a mental mistake that cost the Broncos on a key play.
"I never make that mistake," he said on a postgame radio interview, "and I'm going to be mad at myself all the way home on the plane. But once the wheels touch down in Denver, we've got to forget about it and move on."
Former Yankees punished
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON — Two former New York Yankees who got into a brawl with a Fenway Park groundskeeper during the 2003 American League Championship series agreed yesterday to serve six months of probation and perform 50 hours of community service.
Pitcher Jeff Nelson and outfielder Karim Garcia accepted the deal just before the case was scheduled to go to trial
ers to be evaluated for possible anger management counseling.
If they meet the requirements and stay out of trouble, the assault and battery charges will be dismissed.
"While sufficient evidence exists to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, the conduct of Nelson and Garcia does not merit criminal convictions," the district attorney's office said in a statement.
Charges were dropped last week against Paul Williams, 25, of Derry, N.H., a part-time
groundskeeper who got into the fight with the players.
The fight broke out after Williams cheered for the Red Sox while in the Yankee bullpen during the third game of the ALCS last October.
The groundskeeper sued the players for more than $33,000. He said the fight left him with a crooked nose, broken teeth, a neck injury and cleat marks on his body.
Nelson and Garcia would have faced up to 21/2 years in prison if convicted.
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