2018 NIVC

[flyingMoose]

at North Texas

Set One

Kora, Abby, Grace, Tabitha, Regan, Kara, and Giorgia are the starters.

[flyingMoose]

The NCAA volleyball scoreboard for the D-1 Tournament (surprisingly and mistakenly) has the Radford v Appalachian State match listed - an NIVC match. :)

And tonight, Radford's NIVC match is on the scoreboard again. Clearly, an alumna is running that show.

[1972Shocker]

And Tulane only has 1 senior among their top 9 players so they will be tough next year. The 2 setters in their 6-2 offense were a sophomore and a freshman.

[1972Shocker]

Very proud of the ladies for battling and winning tonight. That will be a tough environment tomorrow. The biggest difference from the 3-0 win by WSU in September and 3-1 win last week for UNT in Wichita is the talented sophomore from Sugarland Tx, Valerie Valerian. She was 9-4-33 .152 in September and 25-3-61 .361 in November. A completely different player. If we can't slow her down a little this will be a quick match.

Go Shocks!!!!!

Interestingly, Valerian was 18-7-56 = .196 against Tulsa yesterday. Also Tulsa's Emily Thorson only hit 11-5-48 = .125 in last night's match. So both teams did a good job controlling the other teams stud. I'm sure Lambo and staff took in the North Texas-Tulsa match. Whether the learned anything about slowing Valerian down or not is hard to say. Could be Tulsa is just better equipped to handle her personnel wise. North Texas freshman OH Rhett Robinson who hit 11-5-26 = .231 in last weeks win over the Shockers went 12-3-22 = .409 against Tulsa. Perhaps the beneficiary of Tulsa focusing on Valerian.

The stats in that North Texas - Tulsa match were very even. Hitting % .224 to .223, Service Aces 4-4, Service Errors 8-7, Blocks 9-11, Digs 69-70, Points Won 88-86. Tulsa had a big advantage in Set 1 with North Texas having the advantage to a lesser degree in the final 3 sets.

The hopeful sign for me was that both Tabitha and Megan had good performances in the same match. That hasn't happened much this year. Regan was okay last night but needs to reduce her hitting error rate. Against UCA Regan was at 40% kills which is good but she was at 30% errors which is not good. Still not getting much out of our middle attack and Abby struggled agaisnt UCA, perhaps bothered by her foot injury. Emma has a strong blocking game against UCA which was very helpful.

North Texas is a winnable match. Again it may boil down to how much the Ladies want it.

[1972Shocker]

They aren'y the only D-1 program that plays in a gym like that. Evansville is another one that I have been to. SIU's gym has a pretty low ceiling. i suspect it is much more prevalent than you might think.

[WuDrWu]

I think that picture is misleading. The ceiling is much lower than it appears here.

[flyingMoose]

The NCAA volleyball scoreboard for the D-1 Tournament (surprisingly and mistakenly) has the Radford v Appalachian State match listed - an NIVC match. :)

[flyingMoose]

I'm a little surprised the Intramural Program let them have the facility for the NIVC.

[flyingMoose]

Other NIVC

USF 2-3 at Georgia Tech
(19) (14) 21 17 9


Arkansas State 2-3 at Tulane
(23) 25 (22) 8 13

Down 10-13 in the fifth set, the Green Wave ran off five points in a row to take the match. Tulane are widely regarded as the second best team in the NIVC behind Iowa State.

[WuDrWu]

It reminded me a lot of various mid level club volleyball tournaments with digs into the ceiling time and time again. Earlier in the year there were a couple of huge digs by Gio that were destined for Kali's soft hands that hit up high and cost the Shocks against Cal Poly.

Very proud of the ladies for battling and winning tonight. That will be a tough environment tomorrow. The biggest difference from the 3-0 win by WSU in September and 3-1 win last week for UNT in Wichita is the talented sophomore from Sugarland Tx, Valerie Valerian. She was 9-4-33 .152 in September and 25-3-61 .361 in November. A completely different player. If we can't slow her down a little this will be a quick match.

Go Shocks!!!!!

[boyshocker]

Nice little home court advantage, hard to believe a DI program plays in a gym with such a low ceiling. Believe the Shocks have played there several times over the years.

[boyshocker]

[flyingMoose]

The Shocker chances of winning this pod have jumped - all the way to 36.8%.

[1972Shocker]

I had to cut away after Set 4. I was certainly concerned about going to a 5th set with the way things have gone this year. Glad to see the ladies pull it out.

2nd consecutive terrific performance for Tabitha who hit 22-3-39 = .487 while Megan after hitting 3-3-13 = .000 in the first 2 sets found something and hit 19-3-31 = .516 over the last 3 sets.

Emma had 6 block assists and a block solo.

North Texas defeated Tulsa in 4 sets (13), 17. 23 and 21 and they will host the Shockers tomorrow evening at 5:30.

[flyingMoose]

Tulsa 1-3 North Texas
(13) 17 23 21