(Photo: Courtney Pedroza/WCSN)
In the wake of losing the best player to ever put on an Arizona State uniform to injury, ASU is now tasked with figuring out how to put its best team on the court for the remaining 14 matches of the regular season.
Trying to make up for the loss of Macey Gardner is something that carries immense pressure given her historic levels of production. Against No. 5 Washington and Washington State, ASU struggled to find its rhythm with its star suddenly unavailable and got swept in both matches while hitting at a .068 clip.
“They all wanted to be better in order to fill this void that they saw, and with that, they tried to do too much,” ASU head coach Jason Watson said. “When you try to be good at everything, it turns out you’re really good at nothing, and so I felt like that was the case against Washington State.”
With that in mind, finding a remedy in the one day between matches is a tough request for Watson and his staff, and one that he is now able to tackle in this week of practice. The emotions of losing Gardner to injury are unavoidable, but neither is the remainder of the schedule.
If Sunday’s match against Washington State is any sort of indicator, the left-side responsibilities will fall on junior Cassidy Pickrell and freshman Lexi MacLean.
MacLean made her debut against the Cougars in the second set and responded with eight kills and 10 digs. Watson’s original plan for 6-foot-2, Texas-native was to redshirt her this season, but the original plan didn’t have Gardner out for the season either.
“I was really impressed by what she (MacLean) did out there,” Watson said. “It was fun to watch her. If there’s a bright spot in the entire weekend – and there weren’t any – that would be the one.”
While MacLean did tally six attacking errors, her physicality and power is impressive for a freshman who approached every match with the nearly certain knowledge her role would be to encourage her teammates in preparation for her hypothetical redshirt freshman season in 2016.
“For having no idea I was going to go in, I thought I did decent,” MacLean said. “I didn’t really have time to completely comprehend and be nervous honestly. I kind of had to just jump in there and kind of do me.”
And what MacLean does, according to her teammates, is bring enthusiasm to the floor on every play.
“She’s (MacLean) got her own energy going on,” Gardner said. “She’s enthusiastic but really calm at the same time. She loves having energy on the floor.”
While MacLean looks to get settled into the prospect of playing, the Sun Devils will likely rely on Pickrell to provide stability on the left side. She has played well in her first season in Tempe, racking up 146 kills and a team-high 15 aces.
Now, given the circumstances, Pickrell will likely be the go-to option on the left, but that’s not an unfamiliar spot for her. Prior to playing for ASU, she played two seasons at UC Irvine, and her 407 kills in 2014 earned her Big West First-Team honors. However, the pressure of filling in for Gardner was tangible across the team, including for Pickrell.
“This weekend, we all went through the, ‘OK, I have to be 10-times better because our best player is out,’” Pickrell said. “After talking to the coaches, they were like, ‘We don’t need you to be Macey Gardner. We need you to be the best you that you can be.’ I’ve talked to coaches. I’ve talked to teammates. And just hearing that over and over again helps me.”
In ASU’s five matches against ranked opponents, Pickrell is averaging 12.2 kills per match with her season-high of 16 coming against then-No. 6 Illinois and then-No. 14 Arizona.
Most notably, ask any of the players, and anyone can tell its a group that is willing and able to lean on each other while its admitted “rock” of the team is injured.
“This team is amazing,” Pickrell said. “The fact that we are able to take such a heavy amount of bad news from one weekend and then come into practice and play the way that we did and be as excited to be here and positive as we were today is amazing, and it speaks so highly of us.”
Watson has the week to tinker with his lineups to find the best formula for success, and whatever he and his staff comes up with will be tested to the highest degree of difficulty on Friday as ASU takes on No. 1 USC at the Galen Center.
Previous to Gardner’s injury, the match shaped up to be a showdown between two Pac-12 Player of the Year contenders in Gardner and USC’s senior outside hitter Samantha Bricio.
“We now can look around, and she’s (Gardner) not here,” Watson said. “We know for a certainty that she’s not coming back this season, and so now it’s the process of getting to work with who we do have, and let’s see if we can sustain the level of play we’re at.”
ASU’s depth is something the team raved about in the preseason and for good reason. This group is as talented and experienced as Watson has had in his tenure, but now it faces its toughest obstacle over these next 14 matches before the NCAA Tournament rolls around. The Sun Devils have every reason to make its fourth consecutive postseason bid, so the rest of the regular season will be defined by what the Sun Devils are able to do going forward.
“As we talked before practice (on Tuesday) as a group, we felt like the goal needed to be to be excited about what’s coming, and to not dwell – reminisce, perhaps – on what’s been or maybe what could have been,” Watson said. “There’s still a lot to play. There’s still a lot of things that we can do.”
You can reach Zac Pacleb on Twitter @ZacPacleb or via email at zacpacleb@gmail.com
