Shockers v ECU

[flyingMoose]

With two more conference matches this weekend, the Shockers open on Friday with ECU at 7 pm. The Pirates are 3-3 in conference with wins over USF, Memphis, and Temple, their sisters at the bottom of the AAC. Losses are to UCF, SMU, and Cincinnati, all by sweeps. The Shocks are also 3-3 in the conference.

Web site article

[1972Shocker]

RH: Shockers Bring Three-Game Win Streak Home

Brylee Kelly Ajdusts Approach -- Confidence Grows

https://goshockers.com/news/2021/10/...reak-home.aspx

"Sooner or later, people start believing that they belong at this level," Lamb said. ""I'll never discount confidence."

Kelly's confidence comes from her work.

It also comes from a feeling the Shockers (9-6, 3-3 American Athletic Conference) are a cohesive unit that can continue playing well.

"I had so much fun playing this weekend," Kelly said. "It wasn't like stressful. We were confident, but relaxed. I felt like I knew we were going to win."

Litzau recorded a career-high 61 assists against SMU. After experimenting with a two-setter offense early in the season, Lamb handed the offense to Litzau in the 5-1. She attributes the fun weekend to a "do your job" mentality.

"Confidence individually and confidence in your teammates," Litzau said. "Trusting each other that they will do their job to make your job easier. If you trust that they're going to get the dig, they're going to make their serve, hit their shot, you focus on yourself and make sure you execute the things you need to."

[1972Shocker]

Shocks roll to a 25-12 in Set 1 and only a couple of late aces from ECU made that close. The Shocks as a team hit a fantastice 18-1-24 = .708. ECU hit 4-6-25 = -.080. Nuff said.

ECU has turned the table on the Shocks so far in the 2nd set and are leading 14-8 forcing a Lambo timeout. I thing that 1st set may have come a little too easy for the Shocks.

ECU extends their lead to 18-11 and Lambo calls his 2nd timeout.

The Shocks never respond and ECU cruises to a 25-16 win in Set 2 to even it up. Shocks need to adjust.

ECU jumps out to a 7-2 lead in Set 1. ECU extends the lead to 11-4. Lambo calls a timeout with his team totally discombobulated.

ECU extends their lead to 17-10. The Shocks are struggling with their passing. Lily Liekweg's passing is a problem. Way too many overpasses although she is not alone in that.Na

Shocks rallied a bit late but had dug took deep of a hole dropping Set 3 by a 20-25 score. Brough in Sophia but she was bad hitting 03-7 = -.429.

This has been an amazing reversal after the 1st set.

The Shocks find themselves in a familiar spot down 10-6 in Set 4 and Lambo calls a time-out.

After the time-out the Shocks claw back to tie it at 12-all and ECU takes a time out.

Down 15-16 the Shocks get 2 kills from Natalie and an ECU attack error to take a slim 18-16 lead. ECU uses its final timeout.

Back-to-back kills out-of the timeout extends the Shocker lead to 20-16.

Kailin enters the match for the first time and contributes 3 kills on 6 attacks with no errors as the Shock hang on for a 25-21 win in Set 4 to force a 5th set.

The Shocks can't afford to fall behind early in the short 5th set like they have in the 3 middle sets.

Shocks up 8-5 at the mediat time out. Kailin has given the Shocks a nice lift since coming in late in Set 4. She is 5-0-8 = .625

2 ECU service errors and an attack error help the Shocks maintain the lead at 11-8. ECU calls a timeout.

Kayce gets a kill coming out of the time out to make it 12-8.

ECU attack error by ECU's Kleinman makes it 13-8.

Kleinman gets a kill and then an ECU service ace makes it 13-10.

Brylee's kill makes it 14-10. A Kleinman attack error ends the match. Shocks survive 3-2.

Not sure I can totally understand this one. I give ECU a lot of credit. They could have folded their tents after that 1st set but they came out and played hard and played pretty well and had the Shockers back on their heels. But credit to the Shocks for digging those heels and figuring out a way to get the win.

Brylee had another good match hitting 21-5-42 = .381 but ECU's Sydney Kleinman more or less matched her hitting 21-6-57 = .263.

Natalie was solid again hitting 13-4-26 = .346. MorganS also pretty solid at 6-1-14 = .357.

MorganW didn't have much luck hitting 5-5-23 = .000 but Kailin came off the bench late in Set 4 and hit 5-0-9 = .556 in roughly 1 full set of work.

Kayce hit 6-3-12 = .250 which is a season high in kills for her. She had 54 assists and 11 digs.

Poor Sophia. She had a good showing against SMU in limited action but did nothing with her limited opportunity in this match at 0-3-7 = -.429.

Sophie wasn't great but at 9-5-28 = .143 she was a better option than Sophia.

Anything but pretty. But it is a win. Maybe a bit of a character builder.

[flyingMoose]

Other Friday matches

Cincinnati 3-1 Tulsa
23, (23), 13, 19

SMU 3-1 Houston!!
22, 18, (16), 14

Memphis 1-3 Tulane
(21), 22, 17, 16

USF 2-3 Temple
(21), (22), 22, 15, 13

[1972Shocker]

Nice bounce back by SMU. Makes the Tulsa and Shocker wins over SMU look pretty good. Doesn't help explaing the Shockers match against ECU tonight.

Sunday vs Cincy will be a great opportunity but also a big challenge for the Shocks. They will have to play better Sunday from start to finish than they did tonight against ECU.

Were the Shocks already thinking about playing Cincy after their first set tonight?????

[flyingMoose]

Other Friday matches

SMU 3-1 Houston!!
22, 18, (16), 14

Houston had to play in some incredibly difficult circumstances.

uhcougars.com/news/2021/10/15/houston-athletics-mourns-passing-of-molly-howard-gerwig.aspx

[WuDrWu]

That is indescribably sad....prayers out to all those affected in the Houston family and beyond.

[1972Shocker]

RH: Shockers Rally to Win Fourth Straight

https://shockernet.net/forum/wichita...cu#post1312353

Dominant in the first set, the Shockers faded in the next two and errors gave control of the match back to East Carolina. They righted themselves to grab the next two and defeat the Pirates 3-2 (25-12, 16-25, 20-25, 25-21, 15-10) at Koch Arena.

"We just did a better job of not freaking out," setter Kayce Litzau said. "We were talking more. We were communicating more. And then we were also just doing a better job at not making errors, not giving them an easy way out.

"What I was really proud of is, we kind of grabbed back our focus," Kelly said. "We lost the focus in sets two and three. We were making errors we normally wouldn't."

"We made a ton of errors in two and three," Wichita State coach Chris Lamb said.

---

I guess the story line is that they lost focus and got sloppy.

For the match the Shocks had 26 errors on 161 attacks for a 16.1% error rate. ECU had 20 errors on 154 attacks for a 13.0% error rate.

However, in sets 2 and 3 the Shocks had 17 errors on 86 attacks for a 19.8% error rate while ECU had 5 error on 72 attacks for a 6.9% error rate. In those 2 sets ECU had 4 blocks to none for the Shocks and for the match ECU outblocked the Shocks 7-1. 1 block in a 5 set match is very weak sauce.

ECU's kill percentage for the match was 30.5% but was 37.5% in sets 2 and 3. The Shocks had a kill percentage of 40.4% for the match 26.7%. Those match numbers are somehwat skewed by the first set where the Shocks were great and ECU was bad.

I don't believe the Shocks are as good as they showed in Set 1 and probably not as bad as they showed in Sets 2 and 3. They certainly need to play consistently clean volleyball against Cincy to have any chance of an upset and hopefully they will have better success at blocking the ball against the Bearcats.

[WuDrWu]

I can't begin to explain last night's match. Thank goodness for Kailin Newsome who saved our bacon late. Not a fan of the service errors. ECU had some big freshmen.

After 20 points, I figured we'd be home in an hour or less. After 3 sets I wouldn't given us a 1-4 chance of winning. At 10-6 I wouldn't have given a 1-50 chance the way we were playing.

Very strange match to say the least.