2022 NIVC Tournament

[flyingMoose]

Saturday Matches

Round 2

Boston College 3-0 St John's

UTRGV 3-0 South Dakota State

Davidson 3-2 Wake Forest
17-15 in the fifth set

Pacific 3-1 Santa Clara


Round 1

Western Carolina 3-1 Liberty
Toledo 3-1 Clemson

[WuDrWu]

7 of the Elite 8 will be decided before we take the floor Sunday.

Saw a bit of Omaha v Pacific. Omaha had a terrible time putting the ball down vs the Tigers. Hard to believe they only had 34 kills in 4 sets and were still competitive. Pacific were really good defensively.

[flyingMoose]

Sunday Matches

Round 2

Western Carolina 3-0 Toledo


Round 1

Grand Canyon 3-1 Shockers
Drake 3-1 Weber State

[1972Shocker]

Weber State forged a 17-11 lead but after a timeout Drake clsed to 20-21. Weber Srate than won the next 4 points to take set 1 25-21.

Drake returns the favor with a 25-21 win in Set 2.

Either of these teams will be a handful for the Shocks if the Shocks are able to advance.

In set 3 Drake's 5-10 5th year OH, Mariana Rrodriguez took a hard attack to the head attempting to block Weber State attack that made it 10-7. Rodriguez averaged 4 k/s this year She left the floor and did not return possibly under concussion protocol. Weber State went on to take the set 25-17.

Rodriguez went to the locker room after the end of the 3rd set but has returned to the match early in the 4th set.

Drake 15-7 in the 5th to advance.

[1972Shocker]

WSU vss GCU

Set 1


Shockers down 11-15 at the media timeout. Not looking very good at all.

Now 11-17.

Morgan Weber not plsying? Has her right thigh wrapped.

Morgan enters at 11-19.

15-25.

None of the Shockers did anything good outside of the pep band.

Set 2

Shocks down 13-15 at the media timeout. GCU winning the serve and pass game and its not close.

Shocks get it tied up at 22-all. GCU timeout.

Shocks have set point at 24-23 but can't put it away.

At 25-all a GCU attack error gave the Shocks and then Brylee slammed home a GCU overpass as the Shocks tie it at 1-1 with a 27-25 win.

But the Shocks need to play better.

Set 3

Shocks down 12-15 at the media timeout.

Shocks save 2 set points at 22-24 to make itm24-all. Lily them bombs a serve way out and on the ensuing GCU serve MorgamW let it go and it fell in for a set ending ace AT 26-24.

I had to leave at that point but I see GCU put the match away with a 25-23 win in set 4.

GCU was the better team and deserved to win.

I think the Drake- GCU match will be a good one.

[Critter's Pa]

Morgan Weber not playing? Has her right thigh wrapped.
....
GCU winning the serve and pass game and its not close.
.....
At 25-all a GCU attack error gave the Shocks and then Brylee slammed home a GCU overpass as the Shocks tie it at 1-1 with a 27-25 win.
....

I had to leave at that point but I see GCU put the match away with a 25-23 win in set 4.

GCU was the better team and deserved to win.

I think the Drake- GCU match will be a good won.

MorganW was also wearing a mask during introductions, I figured she wouldn't be playing. Emerson wasn't effective, so Lamb put MorganW in the rotation. She had her leg wrapped the last game, and she seemed to be a step slower than usual.

To call the serve/pass game ugly would be an insult to ugly. Grand Canyon targeted Brylee whenever she was in the back row.

I think Brylee only had two kills in the second set, I think she may have gotten that may attempts. Natalie may have had only one attempt, that was an error, in the first set. She came on in the second set with, I think, five kills, but there were at least two times when the Kayce-Natalie connection resulted in a ball falling to the floor on the Shocker's side during the match. It wasn't Kayce's night, but I think had a lot to do with bad passing.

Much of the middle of set 4 the Shockers trailed 1-3 points. Whenever we would get close it seemed a Shocker service error was the next point.

I think I will go to the Drake- GCU match. One of Drake's leading scorers in the first two sets, #9 Haley Bush, was sitting on the bench after the second set. It looked like she might have hurt a knee. There was not an injury timeout on the floor, so I don't know when or what happened.

[1972Shocker]

There was no question that GCU was in system far more consistently than the Shockers and getting quality swings on the attack far more than the Shockers. The 62-45 advantage in kills for GCU pretty much bears that out. While GCU had 18 service errors to 11 for the Shocks I though they also served much tougher which contributed to the poor Shocker passing. OTOH, GCU's return receive was very sharp and their defense was pretty solid as well.

[flyingMoose]

Both of you mentioned it - we lost the match when we lost the serve/receive battle.

It took us forever to get anything going in the middle. And then some of those kills were off awkward sets.

The Lopes were first to 15 and first to 20 in all four sets.

[jimshocker]

That didn't turn out well. Did the WSU volleyball program gain anything from yesterday?

Really not sure what should be more concerning to WSU Athletics.

-The performance of the team in a HOME postseason match?

Or, probably more concerning long term for WSU Volleyball,

-The turn out of Wichita Volleyball fans was embarrassing. It looked bad in person at Koch. It looked even worse on the ESPN+ feed.


The team was a no shown which is becoming a more regular occurrence.

If the fans go away? Then what?

Now, we just wait to see what happens in the transfer portal. How many Shockers that hit the court last night, gaining "postseason experience" will be back to build on that next season?

[WuDrWu]

The fan transfer portal is open, just so you know.

[jimshocker]

The fan transfer portal is open, just so you know.

Attendance numbers from yesterday would indicate many fans have already taken advantage of the fan transfer portal.


KState is looking for a new coach.

WSU is about to be in a weaker conference again where 1 bid might be it.

What is the better job,
KState or WSU?

[WuDrWu]

Did not even notice that former Shocker Megan Taflinger was on GCU's team and was she the libero as their tallest player? (Now I know why I thought she looked so familiar but I couldn't place it)

I was completely impressed with their senior setter, Klaire Mitchell. As slight as she is (no way 5'7 and she was tiny) she was athletic as heck and got to everything and that drop to the knees set late in the 4th set was an absolute thing of beauty. She also set the right side slide about 157000 times perfectly and only missed once that I could remember. Her jump sets were gorgeous and as a team, she was a clear leader and kept them organized all match.

The one really frustrating thing (outside the 1st set which was absolutely miserable to watch in every way imaginable) was how we continued to pound away at the block and over passes time and time again. As if we were blind and just said "well, I better hit it as hard as I can and hope for the best". There were 5 or 6 points where they just guided over passes to the deck and at least as many over passes that we tried to bury and didn't get the point. More than the difference in the match.

Really felt like we passed the ball much better in the 2nd half of the season, but man yesterday was regression to the mean, if not the start. We just have to get better back there. This difference between our back lines was incredibly large.

[WstateU]

Attendance numbers from yesterday would indicate many fans have already taken advantage of the fan transfer portal.


KState is looking for a new coach.

WSU is about to be in a weaker conference again where 1 bid might be it.

What is the better job,
KState or WSU?

C’mon man! Why don’t you tell us…

https://static.kstatesports.com/custompages/buildingchampions/project-vb.html

[1972Shocker]

Did not even notice that former Shocker Megan Taflinger was on GCU's team and was she the libero as their tallest player?

I did not realizet that either until you pointed that out. She did a good job in that position.

Personally, I like a taller libero if you can find them. UNI always seemed to have a tall libero.

Katie Galligan, at 5-9 qualifies. Whether or not she has the goods remains to be seen. Kate Georgiades of Houston, the 2-time AAC LOY, is 5-9.

For those that missed Georgiades' play that topped the SC Top 10 list a few days ago:

https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/35166794

[1972Shocker]

Did not even notice that former Shocker Megan Taflinger was on GCU's team and was she the libero as their tallest player?

Hanna Eskes (#14) is a 6-3 middle for GSU who played all 4 sets. They had one other OH listed at 6-1 who only played a little bit in 1 set. Otherwise Megan and 3 other GCU players are all listed at 6 foot even. GCU had the feel a 6-foot and under basketball team where all the players were good all-around athletes, skilled ballhandlers, quick defenders and sound fundamentally in all phases of the game. It will be interesting to see how they do against Drake but I think they have a decent shot at beating Drake.