Shocker VB vs Tulane & Houston

[1972Shocker]

WICHITA STATE (13-11, 8-5 American)

Friday, Nov. 11 (7:00 p.m. CT) vs. Tulane (8-17, 3-11 American)
Wichita, Kansas (Charles Koch Arena)
Live Stats // Watch

Sunday, Nov. 13 (12:00 p.m. CT) vs. #23 Houston (23-2, 14-0 American)
Wichita, Kansas (Charles Koch Arena)
Live Stats // Watch

SCOUTING THE GREEN WAVE:

• The Green Wave check in with an 8-17 overall record, including 3-11 in American Athletic Conference action. Tulane has lost three straight entering play on Friday, including road defeats at Houston and Cincinnati last weekend.
• Despite the record, Tulane showcased their potential in the opening match of the conference slate when they pushed league leaders Houston to five sets at Fogelman Arena.
• Outside hitter Mackenzie Martin authored perhaps the single most impressive match of the entire 2022 slate among American squads, setting an individual conference best with 29 kills and 31.0 points in a five-set win against Lamar.
• Kayla Kaiser ranks third on the circuit with 0.37 aces per set. She notched six earlier this season against WSU.
• Head coach Jordana Price is in her first season in New Orleans after spending five years as associate head coach at Florida State. She replaced Jim Barnes, who now leads the program at Iowa.

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SCOUTING THE COUGARS:

• The Cougars sit atop the American Athletic Conference standings at 14-0, with a sterling overall mark of 23-2. Houston has won 15 consecutive matches entering play on Friday.
• After the Shockers battled Houston to five sets on October 21, the Cougars have not dropped a set. Houston has swept their last five opponents.
• Houston entered the AVCA Top 25 for the first time since 1994 earlier this season. The Cougars check in at #23, garnering 219 votes.
• The Cougars possess the conference's best serving unit, leading the league with 1.63 aces per set on the back of Abbie Jackson's 43 total aces. Jackson is also a talented hitter, checking in fourth in the AAC with 3.91 kills per set.
• Libero Kate Georgiades leads the league with 5.25 digs per set.
• 2019 AAC Coach of the Year David Rehr has the Cougars on track for their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2000 after narrowly missing out a season ago. Now in his fourth season at Houston, Rehr won a pair of NJCAA national championships at Blinn College.

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I see the Tulane match as pretty much a must win for the Shocks. The Shocks played very poorly against Tulane in New Orleans and paid the price losing in 5 sets including a 4-15 collapse in the final set. The Shockers actually played very well against Houston before losing in 5 sets but I don't think you can rely on the Shockers being able to upset the Cougars. They, however, need to show against Tulane and take care of business.

The Shocks have 4 matches remaining after this weekend with only SMU ahead of them in the standings. So if they want to lock in a spot in the NIVC they need to take care of business against the 4 remaining matches against teams trailing them in the standings (Tulane, Tulsa, Cincinnati and Memphis),

[flyingMoose]

Wednesday Match

UCF 3-0 USF
13, 18, 8

[SubGod22]

Wednesday Match

UCF 3-0 USF
13, 18, 8

That's straight up domination

[SubGod22]

First responders get in free tonight (with ID)

[flyingMoose]

Friday Matches

Houston 3-0 Tulsa
20, 11, 19

East Carolina 0-3 SMU
14, 19, 23

Temple 3-1 Memphis
-19, -18, 22-, -14

Cincinnati 3-1 USF
-22, 18-, -20, -19

[Critter's Pa]

Shockers played good the first set. Katie's service run took the team from 14-11 to 19-11, which included a pair of solo blocks and a kill by MorganW. A trio of Brylee kills and a Kayce/Natalie block ended the set at 25-14. The ball sure bounced in the favor of the Shockers.

The second set was a continuation of the end of the first set. The Shockers ran to score up to 23-14, and then #25 Kayla Kaiser came in with her top-spin jump serve which she got 3 aces (of her 6) in a row. A MorganW kill closed out the set at 25-22.

The third set was back and forth until Tulane pulled away on a 14-4 run in the middle of the set. Kaiser also got back to back aces during that run.

The Shockers stayed on top most of the way through the forth set, but Tulane crept back to tie the game up 23-23. A Tulane error and a kill by Natalie ended the game.

Lara Uyar had 5 Aces for the game, 2 in the second and third set, and one in the forth. Natalie had a pair of aces in the forth set. Katie came in to serve for Sophia most of the match, and whe Sophia did serve it was a normal float serve. I hope her injury isn't nagging at her.

Annalie was back in uniform and did play. Lily was still on the sidelines in street clothes.

Tulane's setter, Kate Van Houten, suffered an injury when she served in the first set. She came back from the locker room on crutches with an ice bag wrapped around her knee. By the end of the Match, her leg was totally wrapped up. I hope she is okay, and didn't suffer a major injury, but it looked bad.

Hitting leaders:
Brylee- 16-6-39 for .256
Natalie- 12-1-26 for .423
Sophia- 9-2-26 for .269
MorganW- 9-3-35 for .171

Kayce had 2 kills and 2 errors on 11 attempts, several of those attempts were full swings at the ball. She had 43 assists.

MorganW(22), Lara(15), Brylee(12), and Kayce(11) all had double digit digs. The team finished with 8 blocks, three of them were solo blocks.

The Shockers have got to play better against Houston. If they get up on Houston, they can't let them crawl back like Tulane did.

[ShockTalk]

So, Tulane's setter goes out of the match in the 1st set and doesn't play again, yet we won the 1st set easily, but didn't play much better than even with Tulane in the last 3 sets. Letting teams crawl back has become a trademark with this team. That said, don't think that will be a factor against Houston (if you get my drift).

[1972Shocker]

An impressive kill by the Tulane backup freshman setter and Kayla Kaiser's 6th ace of the match completed a 9-3 run by Tulane to got from down 14-20 to tie the 4th set at 23. At that point it appeared to be advantage Tulane with Kaiser on the service line. Brylee managed to get a good pass to Kayce on the ensuing Kaiser serve and Natialie got a great swing but Kaiser made an excellent dig to keep the point going, the Tulane and a nice in system swing but the attack went into the net. But a Tulane attack into the net gave the Shocks a match point and after an extended rally Kayce backset Natalie on a slide to the right and although the set was 6 or 7 feet off the net Natalie was able to get a good, hard cross court shot that caromed of the Tulane defender landing behind the Tulane bench. Good thing too as I am not confident at all that the Shockers would have fared well in a 5th set especially with what went down in New Orleans.

Credit to Tulane. They looked dead in the water when their setter went down in the first set but the serving of Kayla Kaiser halfway through the 2nd set seemed to re-energize their team. That said this Shocker team continues to be somewhat inconsistent with their level of play. Lately, they have gotten better starts after being a slow starting team most of the year but now they are having 3rd set lulls especially after winning the first 2 sets. Perhaps that's normal to perhaps relax a little and lose a little bit of intensity while the opposing team has their back to the wall and are fighting hard to stay alive.

However, the bottom line is that they got the win and made the plays when they absolutely had to. Tulane sure doesn't look like a 3-12 AAC team especially when they play the Shockers.

As Critter's Pa said the Shocks will need to playing better and more consistently against Houston to have any chance to pull the upset.

[1972Shocker]

So, Tulane's setter goes out of the match in the 1st set and doesn't play again, yet we won the 1st set easily, but didn't play much better than even with Tulane in the last 3 sets. Letting teams crawl back has become a trademark with this team. That said, don't think that will be a factor against Houston (if you get my drift).

The Shockers led Tulane 19-11 and seemingly had gone up 20-11 on the play the Tulane setter was injured. They ended up replaying that point as the lines person had waved the play dead as soon as Van Houten crumpled on her landing on her serve (and that was the correct action). The Shocks then jumped out to a 14-4 lead in the 2nd set. So at that point the Shocks had outscored Tulane 39-18 including 20-7 advantage post injury. From that point on Tulane outscored the Shocks 66-54. So yeah, I was very happy the Shocks managed to salvage the win in Set 4 especially with one of the best servers in the AAC on the service line. But yes, I agree, letting teams bounce back does seem to be a trademark of this team.

[1972Shocker]

Friday Matches

Temple 3-1 Memphis
-19, -18, 22-, -14

That one helps the Shocks. The Shocks are now 9-5 in AAC play followed by Memphis which now sits 2.5 games back of the Shocks at 7-8. To bad the match the Shock lost to Hurricane Ian was th USF match.

The Shocks have 5 matches remaining. I think the best they can do is finish 3-2 with losses to Houston and SMU, although wins over Tulsa, Cincinnati and Memphis are by no means a sure thing.

[1972Shocker]

There was an oddity from this match. I don't think anyone would mistake Lara Uyar's more or less average serves for those dive bombers that Tulane's Kayla Kaiser delivers. However, while Kayla had 6 services aces vs 2 service errors in the match Lara was right behind her with 5 service aces to 2 service errors by the diminutive DS/Libero.

Coming into this match Kayla has 36 aces (0.37/Set) ranking her #3 in the AAC. She also has 45 service errors which is not a bad ratio. Lara, on the other hand, had no service aces this season prior to the Tulane match and only 5 service errors. That one is kind of hard to explain but it came in a match where the Shockers needed them.

[flyingMoose]

... those dive bombers that Tulane's Kayla Kaiser delivers.

The Shocks were often diving forward to dig those serves just before they hit the floor. I am no VB guru for sure, but it seems like moving forward a few steps might have helped?

And yes, they will have to play better than that to stay in the gym with Houston.

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks were often diving forward to dig those serves just before they hit the floor. I am no VB guru for sure, but it seems like moving forward a few steps might have helped?

And yes, they will have to play better than that to stay in the gym with Houston.

Yeah, they really didn't seem to adjust to the action Kaiser's serves but they don't see a whole lot of serves like that. Sophia's jump serve has similar action but I think she hits it a little harder and flatter and they are generally fairly deep.

That must of been quite the concussion that Lily sustained for her to still be in consussion protocol.

Makes you wonder how rusty she will be when she does come back. I do think the additional playing time is helping both Lara and Katie and perhaps Lara's elbow is feeling better..

[WuDrWu]

I feel like Kayce has been markedly better in her setting of late, although much of that could/probably is due to a little better passing.

[1972Shocker]

I feel like Kayce has been markedly better in her setting of late, although much of that could/probably is due to a little better passing.

Kayce and Natalie seem to be very much in sync in the midlle. Not so much with MorganS and Big Mac.