Shocks to Close Out Season vs Tulsa and @ ECU

[1972Shocker]

Shockers Host Tulsa, Travel to ECU to Cap Season

The Wichita State volleyball team (7-19 overall, 4-10 in AAC play) wraps up its 2019 season with a home match against Tulsa at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15, at Charles Koch Arena, before traveling to Greenville, N.C., for its season finale at ECU Sunday, Nov. 17, at 11 a.m. CT (noon ET)

Friday's match is Senior Night. Shocker seniors Kara Bown and Damadj Johnson will be honored prior to first serve...The first 1,500 fans through the doors will receive a FREE Shocker volleyball courtesy of Rotek Services...The match is also Youth Night, with youth 12 and under receiving FREE admission with a paid adult ticket.

About Tulsa
The Tulsa Golden Hurricane enter the weekend at 15-12 overall and 8-6 in The American after splitting a pair of home matches Nov. 8 and 10, defeating Memphis Nov. 8, 3-1, before falling to SMU Nov. 10, 3-1...Through 27 contests, Tulsa is paced by freshman outside hitter Dilara Gedikoglu (430 kills, 4.26 kills/set, 23 aces, 280 digs, 2.77 digs/set), senior setter Mariah Pardo (485 assists, 4.66 assists/set, 13 aces, 200 digs, 1.92 digs/set), senior libero/DS Taylor Horsfall (642 digs, 6.17 digs/set, 35 aces) and junior middle blocker Callie Cook (238 kills, 2.29 kills/set, 14 block solos, 101 block assists, 1.11 blocks/set)...Horsfall leads The American and ranks third in the nation in digs and digs per set...The Golden Hurricane were picked to finish fourth in the American Athletic Conference preseason poll...Tulsa is under the leadership of sixth season head coach Ryan Wills.

About ECU
The ECU Pirates are 19-9 overall and 6-8 in the AAC entering the final weekend of regular season play after splitting two road matches Nov. 8 and 10, losing at UCF, 3-0, prior to winning at USF, 3-1...Through 28 matches, ECU is led by junior right side hitter Bri Wood (354 kills, 3.31 kills/set, 45 assists, 12 aces, 322 digs, 3.01 digs/set, three block solos, 29 block assists), junior setter Shelby Martin (667 assists, 6.35 assists/set, 27 aces, 63 kills), redshirt junior DS/libero Brandee Markwith (486 digs, 4/54 digs/set, 108 assists, 17 aces) and senior middle blocker Toya Osuegbu (111 kills, .301 attack pct., 19 block solos, 74 block assists, 20 digs)...The Pirates were tabbed ninth in The American preseason poll...ECU is led by sixth season head coach Julie Torbett.

It would be nice if the Shocks could pull off a pair of wins to close out what has been a somewhat disappointing and frustrating season. However, that will not be easy. The Shocks have only won 1 of 10 home matches this year and have not played particularly well on Sunday. The Shockers did take Tulsa to 5 sets at the end of September in Tulsa. Sunday will be the only match between the Shocks and ECU this season.

flyingMoose can report the Pablo odds but my guess is the Shocks will be underdogs in both matches.

[flyingMoose]

Pablo: Tulsa 53% v Shockers and Shockers 52% at ECU

Basically, two toss-ups.

After this weekend or maybe after the conference tournament, I will post the Pablo results from the conference season. Small sample, but pretty accurate. Except for one match: it was 50-50 and the match did not end in a tie.

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks upset Tulsa 3-1 winning 25-23, 25-14, 24-26 and 25-19.

Best performance I have seen from the Shocks this season.

Always nice to win on senior night.

[SuSHOCK]

A couple things I noticed from the team tonight...

1. Sophia is really improving. Though her biggest adversary thus far is her timing to the sets. As thiS improves Sophia will become dominant. I think Sophia will be an all conference player next season. She has the most upside of any player on the floor IMHO!

2. Emma played her best vball of the season. I honestly expected her to play like this all season. And I think if she had the record would have been much, much better. Buuuuuuttttt......the setting was just not there earlier in the season.

3. Kayci's location was much much better. Especially with the middles. This opened up the pins. Dmadji, and Emma's performance improvement was directly tied to the location of the sets.

4. Our blocking was FANTASTIC. Props to all the girls because it wasn't just 1 or 2.

5. Our passing was still not good, BUT, our defense was nails! Kara was awesome tonight. Lots of highlight digs. Sina also played particularly well in the back row. And I cannot forget to point out the awesome dig Emma had where she laid out on a hard kill.

[ShockTalk]

The Shocks upset Tulsa 3-1 winning 25-23, 25-14, 24-26 and 25-19.

Best performance I have seen from the Shocks this season.

Always nice to win on senior night.

I'd agree! Played with a lot more confidence tonight. Just how many times this year has we gotten 4, 5, or 6 point runs? Well, I believe we had 3 or 4 just tonight. Tulsa coach was not a happy camper.

On yeah, 1972Shocker. At Lambo's pre-game talk, he quickly dispelled any notion that anyone might have had about him not being able to count.

[1972Shocker]

On yeah, 1972Shocker. At Lambo's pre-game talk, he quickly dispelled any notion that anyone might have had about him not being able to count.

Yes, he did. Those pre-match chalk talks got me through the season I think.. The good thing about tonight was that for one of the very few times this year the match was as entertaining as the chalk talk and the chalk talk was pretty good. RH: Shocker Middles, Right-Sides Grow Into Factors

The Shockers only hit .220 for the match but that was hurt by a poor attacking 3rd set that they lost, In the 3 sets they won they hit .264 incuding a siztscozling ..500 in set 2 (maybe their best offensive set of the year). For one of the very few times this year they outscored their opponent in earned points (kills + aces + blocks) outscoring Tulsa 67-58. The Shocks also won the unearned points allowing 8 fewer to Tulsa than Tulsa gave to the Shocks.

Emma Wright may have had her best match as a Shocker. She hit 9-1-13 = .615 and she was outstanding at the net with 1 block and 7 block assists and a least 3 of those block assists she one-handed on the left side of the double block. Emma also had 1 of the Shockers 4 services aces.

I also thought freshman Sophia Rohling had her best match of the year hitting 11-2-29 = .310 with a pair of block assists and a pair of digs.

it wasn't just the hitting stats for Emma and Sophia. the quality of swings were the best I have seen in terms of power. It looked like tonight may have been the 1st match Sophia has really cut it loos consistently.

Megan and Chinelo were solid as well.

I think the improvement by our serving by Kayce and McKayla was a factor in the improved quality of swings we had tonight.

It wasn't a perfect performance but it was a very hopeful performance. Let's see if they can repeat it against ECU on Sunday.

[1972Shocker]

Set 1 at ECU goes to the Shocks 25-17. I don't think the Shocks played nearly as well as they did against Tulsa but ECU is not nearly as good as Tulsa. In particular I thought the Shocks' passing left a lot to be deisired expecially Sina who struggled with her passing and ECU was clearly targeting Sina with their serving. However, the setters, especially Kayce, did a good job making the most of the poor passes.jum

Shocks jumped out to a 7-2 lead in Set 2 but quickly gave that lead away. The Shocks now lead 19-17 but so far, for the most part, this set is about who can play worse. Neither team has been impressive to say the most.

Shocks pull away from a 17-17 tie to take the 2nd set 25-20.

The Shocks are only hitting .192 and are getting outblocked 4-2. The Shocks have 5 aces to 1 for ECU with Mckayla leading the way with 3 aces. ECU is only hitting .155.

Shocks fall behind 5-9 early in Set 3 and Lambo finally pulls Sina who is struggling with serve receive and passing and who is being targeted by ECU servers. Shockers go on an 7-0 run to take a 12-9 lead.

The Shocks close out the set with a 25-20 win to complete the sweep.

I did not think the Shocks really played that well but ECU just was not very good. 25 of the Shockers' 75 points were unearned due to errors by ECU.

Probably would not have beat Tulsa on Friday had the Shocks played like they did today.

As I mentioned several weeks back the Shocks schedule would ease up in the 2nd half of AAC play and I think that combined with the Shocker youngsters showing some improvement allowed the Shocks to win 5 of their last 9 matches of the season.

[ShockTalk]

So glad the team could end the season going 2-0 this weekend winning 6 of 7 sets. It also helps to validate that the West is deeper division.

[1972Shocker]

So glad the team could end the season going 2-0 this weekend winning 6 of 7 sets. It also helps to validate that the West is deeper division.

No question about the west being the deeper and better division overall.

[Jossin21]

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