Gophers win at volleyball despite injuries

Cook paused then said, “You know what really impressed me: showing the character of Alex and our players as a whole?

“When I arrived at our facility this morning, Alex was there lifting weights with his upper body.”

If this were football, coach PJ Fleck would require 25 injured players to be out for the season to make up for the volleyball team’s bad luck.

Cook has a roster of 16 players. There will be 12 available Wednesday night, some of whom did not play. There’s also the rotation requirement, which sends players out of position and often to the bench.

The bottom line of the injury situation will be this: Cook’s starting lineup will have five freshmen at the moment: redshirt freshman Swenson at the setter position with freshmen McKenna Garr (libero), Kelly Kinney, Jordan Taylor and Carly Gilk up front.

Garr comes from Rush City, Minn., and Gilk from Champlin Park, and both were expected to get considerable development time before being given big responsibilities in the powerful Big Ten.