Volleyball: Northern Colorado Classic (Sep 14-16)

[WuDrWu]

There's a Brylee Kelly sighting and WSU scores from the left (believe me, that hasn't happened very often today). A couple of blocks and Shocks lead 3-2 early.

Cannot even tell you how many tough digs the Mavs have come up with the last set plus.

5-3 Shocks.

Mavs have adjusted to our block and are living down the line quite a bit lately.

Sophia just misses long (not sure how anybody could have seen it one way or the other). 6-5 Shocks Frosty serving. Overpass and Shocks score.

Double contact 8-5 Shocks. Sophia obliterates a perfect pass set combo. 9-5. Good service run from Natalie. 9-6 Shocks.

Is that person saying "boring" on tips?

Teams trade points and it's 11-7.

Webby serves at 12-7. Another really tight set from the Mavs setter and they score off the block. 12-8. 12-9.

Shocks need to get into a rhythm here and finish this match out.

Brylee scores. Man, we miss that on the left SO much it's not even funny. Service error....ugh.

Long point (more great digging from the Mavs) goes to Omaha on a Brylee miss. Then she's blocked on a weak swing (tough). 13-12.

Izzy wins a KEY joust at the net or it could have been (probably should have been tied). Another service error though. 14-13.

Brylee misses wide and it's tied at 14.

Another over pass and Omaha buries it and Lambo takes a timeout. Shocks are down to .265 for the match after being over .500 after 2 sets.

Unreal.

Another error, this time from Sophia and it's 14-16. Omaha scores down the line again after digging a Frosty swing. 14-17 and the Mavs are again full of confidence. Another Mav block and the set is getting away from the Shocks. This is really unbelievable. 19-14 and Lambo takes his final timeout.

Shocks are in disarray and Omaha believes and barring something substantial, this is going 5.

[WuDrWu]

It's a 12-2 Omaha run to this point. That is beyond unacceptable for this team. Make it 13-2. So bad.

Frosty is blocked. This is unreal.

We can't make a decent pass, can't set, can't not get blocked. 22-14. Lambo subbing but I can't tell what's going on. Maybe a challenge.

Man this is tough to watch, to say the least.

It was 12-7 Shocks. It's 22-14 Omaha now. 16-24. Shocks get a couple of points with Sophia serving. 20-24. Too little too late I'm afraid.

[WuDrWu]

Back to set 1 and 2 play. Only a tight call against Stout for being in the net on an easy overpass kill prevented a 7-0 start.

That being said, more sloppy play from the Shocks and a 6-1 lead has tightened to 6-4. I would have taken a timeout. 6-5 now.

Embarrassing is a good word.

7-5. Shocks get a weird set, maybe from Stout (and it was dynamite whomever it was) and teams trade sides with the Shocks in the lead 8-5.

8-6 on a middle set we should have stuffed.

Shocks score 9-6.

Gabi serving. Omaha lets it go and it drops in timeout Mavs 10-6.

[WuDrWu]

Frosty buries the slide. 11-6.

Quick in the middle, 11-7.

Quick to Nat and it's 12-7.

Error and it's 13-7. Another and it's a handful of match points.

Sophia ends it.

The Mavs serve receive let them down in set 5. 15-7 Shocks 3-2 final.

[shoxlax]

Not an optimal Set 3 and 4 to put it mildly. Wins are a good thing.

[Critter's Pa]

Not a fan of this "new to the 2nd set corner view" but they just changed it.

I bet it is one of the maybe two angles that are used for challenges.

What a weird match. At least two different Shocker teams turned up. Set 1 and 2 team and set 3 and 4 team. Luckily set 1 teams showed up for set five, until set 3 team briefly tried to make an appearance, then set 1 team took over to finish 15-7.

Brylee did make it on the court as did Ba, but I didn't see Haley Wolfe or Allie Paulson playing like the stats indicate. Maybe they will change it later, or maybe I missed them. Kinda hard to tell who is who sometimes when you use the same camera that was used to film bigfoot in the 70s..

[1972Shocker]

I doubt Lambo would take the redshirt off of Haley and Allie.

[flyingMoose]

Other Friday match

Northern Colorado 3-1 Bradley
16, 13, (22), 19

[1972Shocker]

Hoping to see more consistency from the Shockers tonight against Northern Iowa. It would be interestint to see the plus/minus stats for each of the Shocks 6 rotations and who generally makes up each rotation. The rotations that have Sophia and Natalie in the front row would be my guess as the strongest. Perhaps that is obvious. Not sure if that is a metric Lambo tracks or not.

[Critter's Pa]

The rotations that have Sophia and Natalie in the front row would be my guess as the strongest. Perhaps that is obvious. Not sure if that is a metric Lambo tracks or not.

That would be an interesting stat. I bet coach does keep track of that.

One of the more odd rotations I saw was from the CU game. It was after the Shocks switched to the 6-2. I believe it was: Back row- Lauren Wheeler, Natalie(serving), and Emerson. Front row-Brylee(I think), MorganS, and Sophia. Maybe I have Sophia and Emerson swapped or Brylee and Ba. I just remember thinking this is new... Lots of firepower. Not the best defensive lineup when arguably the best digger on the floor is also the setter. It was only a serve or two before Gabi rotated in for Natalie at the sideout.

Won't be able to watch the game tonight, but I will follow along with the stats. Which, if the last couple days is a trend, could be slightly inaccurate.

[flyingMoose]

... tonight against Northern Iowa.

Northern Colorado, of course. Easy mistake to make for sure.


Other Saturday match

Omaha 3-0 Bradley
18, 17, 18

[1972Shocker]

Shocks dominate Sets 1, 3, and 4 to take a 15, (19), 15 and 16 win to win the Northern Colorado Classic.

Thought this was the best the Shocks played this weekend and NoCo was probably the best opponent.

The announcers talked up Sophia and Morgan-S a lot and sad very little about Natalie but I thought Natalie was outstanding hitting 14-2-17 = .706 and was in on 5 blocks.

That's not to say Morgan-S and Sophia were not good. Morgan was 12-3-25 = .360 and was also in on 5 blocks. Sophia was 8-2-24 = 250.

Emerson Wilford wasn't bad at 9-4-25 = .200 and was in on 6 blocks including 1 solo.

Izzi Strand had a good night with her 2nd touch dumps as she was 6-0-8 = .750. Pretty good scoring balance by the Shocks.

Gabi Maas was superb on defense with 12 digs, including a number outstanding digs, and 21 service receptions.

For a change the Shocks fared much better from the service line with 6 aces and 5 services errors vs 5 aces and 8 errors for Northern Colorado. Morgan-W had a very good serving game and she was on the line a lot. I think the announcers said 27 service attempts for Morgan.

Not sure what happened in that 2nd set. A couple of poor stretches for the Shocks found them in 7-13 and then after closing to 12-15 another poor stretch made it 12-21 and the Shocks simply had dug too deep of a hole.

The Shocks outhit NoCo .331 to .135 and outblocked them 12-4. The Shocks had a very solid 43.8% kill percentage and very goodd 10.7% atack error rate. In sets 1, 3 adnd 4 the Shocks hit .398 to .115 for the Bears.

[Critter's Pa]

Was MorganW's service run at the end of set 1 as good as it looked in the stats? 13-13 tie broken by a MorganS kill. An Ace and 4 MorganS kills changed to score to 23-13. Gabi put it away with an ace after the sideout. That service run continued through the media timeout and 2 Northern Colorado timeouts.

MorganW had another lengthy service run in the 4th set that included 2 aces and 2 Emerson kills, and that run was started by a MorganS solo block.

[BAShocker]

Watched the match. Was fun to watch, except for game #2. Thought Brylie’s presence helped in game 3 and 4. Our Libero, Maas, was great. Served well, for the most part. Good to go 3-0.

[1972Shocker]

Foster, Shockers Bludgeon Northern Colorado

https://goshockers.com/news/2023/9/16/volleyball-foster-shockers-batter-northern-colorado.aspx

The .706 hitting percentage is the second-best mark of Foster's career and her best in a match longer than three sets.

Stout was at her best in the opening frame, hammering home six kills on nine swings as part of a wire-to-wire win in which WSU hit .440 as a team. With the score level at 13-13 midway through the set, Shockers unleashed a devastating 10-0 run in which Stout either killed or blocked seven of the 10 points.

The Shockers dug themselves a sizable hole in the second set they could not climb out of. Northern Colorado (5-6) got three kills from three different players plus three aces from Cece Huhn, sprinting to a quick 8-2 lead that swelled to as much as 21-12.

Foster completely took over the final two sets, scoring an incredible 10 times on 11 swings. In the third she went 5-for-5, keying a crucial 6-0 run that extended the Wichita State lead from 17-13 to 23-13 and put the set out of reach.

It was more of the same in the fourth set, as WSU never trailed and surged to a 12-5 lead out of the gate. Despite two timeouts and a failed challenge, Northern Colorado never got closer than five points the rest of the way, as the Shockers committed just a single hitting error and got multiple kills from five different sources. Weber delivered a pair of service aces to key in the initial burst for the Shockers, who finished with six team aces to only six service errors.

Wichita State stays on the road for the beginning of American Athletic Conference play, heading to Greenville, North Carolina to battle East Carolina on Wednesday, September 20. First serve from Minges Coliseum is set for 5:00 pm CT.