Jess Janota and Lauren Brobst lead the Hawkeyes, aided by Loxley Keala and a pair of freshmen.
By Kyle Mann
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If you haven’t heard by now, the Iowa volleyball program logged one of its biggest victories in nearly 20 years over the weekend, a 3-1 defeat of Iowa State. After dropping a sloppy first set, 25-17, the Hawkeyes seemed to return to the floor as a new team, as every aspect of their game came together as perfectly as the Power Rangers forming the Megazord.
Beginning in the second set, the defense was as tight as it has been this year or last, and the offense was nothing short of dominant.
Hitters bring the heat
Junior Lauren Brobst entered the season as the team’s reigning MVP, and she was expected to lead the offense alongside sophomore Jess Janota. On Sept. 11, the duo performed as well as coach Bond Shymansky probably has written in his Dream Log.
Janota broke out in the second set, posting 6 kills on 12 attempts (.500), and Brobst somehow outdid her, logging 6 kills on eight attempts (.750), with neither making an error. They posed fatal threats to the Cyclones with each swing and really never got out of the groove they had found.
By the time all was said and done, Brobst had 17 kills at a .469 clip, while Janota had 20 kills, a .514 attack percentage, and made only one error. That’d be kind of like Jarrod Uthoff scoring 40 and Mike Gesell scoring 30, with (almost) both players making more shots than they miss.
“That’s one of those nights,” Shymansky said, “where I feel like I can just sit back and watch our team do what they were made to do.”
Brobst and Janota each had wonderful performances throughout last season, but perhaps neither played so well in such a pressure-filled situation and certainly not at the same time. With those two at the end of it, Shymansky’s offense has never looked better.
Loxley ‘Peyton Manning’ Keala
Brobst and Janota get the glory of the kill, but at the center of the Hawkeye offense is Missouri transfer Loxley Keala. Iowa’s new starting setter posted 55 assists against the Cyclones, giving her an over-50 clip for the fourth time in nine matches.
Keala is a fluid athlete and confident leader, but Shymansky says her most beneficial attribute is her awareness when distributing the ball.
“She’s a great quarterback,” Shymansky said. “She’s a Peyton Manning-like executor when it comes to not only just what she does with the ball but how she’s thinking about the game when she’s setting the ball.”
Keala will continue to be a vital cog in making the Hawkeye offense work, and even with her being named the Big Ten Setter of the Week on Monday, Shymansky expects her to improve even more.
Filling out with freshmen
With Brobst, Janota, and Keala proving to be staples for the Hawkeyes, the victory 18-years-in-the-making would not have been possible without coming-out parties for freshmen Reagan Davey and Libby Koukol.
Davey showed unique athleticism in posting 10 high-flying kills and also 7 digs on the night, while Koukol was crucial with her 18 digs to defend a very formidable Cyclone offense.
“It’s really only the second match [Davey] has played in in her career,” Shymansky said. “And she took over not only in the front row but in the back row. You can see her athleticism … she did a great job, and so did all of our freshmen. I have to remind myself to quit calling them freshmen. They’re just teammates, and they’re starters right now.”
The victory felt like an early culmination of Shymansky’s rebuilding in his short tenure at Iowa, but performances such as this should no longer come as a surprise.