Volleyball Hosts Tulsa (Oct 20 and Oct 21)

[flyingMoose]

Other Saturday Matches


West Division

UTSA 3-1 Tulane
20, 14, (15), 19

SMU 3-2 Rice
(23), 24. (22), 22, 10

East Division

Charlotte 1-3 Temple
23, (16), 20, 21

UAB 1-3 FAU
(24), 21, 22, 21

[1972Shocker]

Shocks up 2-0. 25-17, 25-14.

Emerson with probably her 2 best sets of her Shocker career to date.

Gabi has been superb as well.

Brylee is suited up but has been on the sidelines wearing a black windbreaker???

[1972Shocker]

Shocks finish off the sweep 25-17 in the 3rd set.

Played well despite a big hole in the lineup in Brylee's absence. Emers on was great but Ba was not good They tried MorganW in the front row in pkace of Ba but she is just not built for that role.

[flyingMoose]

... Emerson was great ...

13-1-31 for .387 with two solo blocks and some nice serving

... but Ba was not good ...

I think of her as still playing JC ball. Hit it hard and you will overpower the block or the DS. But her performance tonight may have overpowered my thinking about her game in general.


And Emerson may have been facing the weaker defensive rotation and Ba the stronger one. Those are things that are definitely beyond me.

[Critter's Pa]

Shockers made pretty quick work of tonight's sweep and did a nice job of sweeping the Tulsa series.

The first set started with two ties and the only Tulsa lead at 2-1 on one of their 4 aces. After an Emerson kill, Gabi stepped up to to the line and ran off 7 straight serves, that included back to back aces, to put Tulsa in a 3-8 hole when they got the serve back. They never recovered. WSU was 14 3 33 for .333, Tulsa was 10 7 39 for .077. The Shockers had zero service errors, just like the first set on Friday, and 2 aces. Tulsa had 2 service errors to go with their 4 aces. Sophia lead this set with 5 kills on 10 swings with no errors. It was looking like Sophia was going to put on another clinic. Emerson had 4 kills and 1 error on 9 attempts. Ba had 2 kills and Frosty, Swifty, and Izzi added one kill each on 3 swings each.

Set 2 had Tulsa's only lead at 1-0, and after a Frosty kill to tie it at 1-1, it was Webby's turn go on a service run (5) that gave the Shockers a lead that they would never relinquish. WSU was 17 3 46 for .304, Tulsa was 10 5 47 for .106 in set 2. It was Emerson's turn to shine with 7 kills on 16 attempts with no errors. Swifty added 5 kills on 9 swings with no errors. Frosty had 3 kills on 4 attempts with, you guessed it, no errors. Sophia and Izzi both added 1 kill each. Neither team got an ace, both had 1 service error.

Set 3 started off ugly. A service error stopped the 3-0 run Tulsa had to start the third set. Webby served 5 straight, with back-to-back aces, to get WSU in the lead at 5-4 when Tulsa finally sided out. The Shockers never trailed after this. If you had 7 kills in the 3rd set for Frosty, congratulations, you are a winner. (with 1 error on 9 swings). Swifty got 3 kills on 4 attempts, no errors. Izzi got 3 kills, Emerson and Sophia got 2 kills each. Shocker were 17 7 37 for .270 and Tulsa was 10 1 34 for .265. Another service error free set for the Shockers.

WSU finished the match 48 13 116 for .302. Tulsa ended with 30 13 120 for .142. Tulsa got one more block than WSU 8-7. Shockers got one more ace than Tulsa 5-4. Tulsa had 6 service errors to WSU's 1. Shocker had 64 digs to Tulsa's 47. Gabi had 19 digs, Webby-16, Izzi-10, Annalie-7, Emerson-5.

Emerson- 13 1 31 .387. 2 solo blocks, 1 block assist.
Frosty- 11 1 16 .625. Only 1 block assist.
Swifty- 9 1 16 .500. 3 Block assists.
Sophia- 8 5 24 .125. 1 solo block, 2 block assists.
Izzi- 5 0 13 .385. 36 assists. 1 ace.
Ba- 2 4 11 -.182. 2 block assists.

There were some pretty good percentages/numbers for the Shockers over the weekend. Don't know if any are player of the week type numbers.
Frosty .474 (20 2 38)
Swifty .400 (15 3 30)
Emerson .250 (22 6 64)
Sophia .242 (26 9 62)
Izzi 11.7 assists per set (82)
Gabi 5.7 digs per set (40)
Webby 4.2 digs per set (30)

Now how much will these wins drop the RPI?

I am disappointed that Rice didn't split with SMU. I still think that SMU will be tripped up an interdivisional foe like Rice was.

[1972Shocker]

Watching a replay on ESPN+. One of Mike Kennedy's 3 keys to the match would be to cover for Brylee who was out with and undisclosed injury. Emerson certainly did a a good job covering thor Brylee which certainly my have been a key to the match since Ba and Webby were not effective on the front row tonight. Emerson was not only very effective on the front row but she had 2 very nice back row attacks resutling in kills.

I think Tulsa made some adjustments with their blocking schemes after the 2nd set which contributed to their good start to open set 3. However, it did not take the Shocks long to re-focuss their offense to Frosty and Swifty and away from the pins.

Thought the Shocks did a very good job keeping Kayley Cassaday in check as she hit 12-4-46 = .174. Anyone have Emrerson outplaying Cassady on their bingo card? 13-1-31 = .387 for Emerson plus 2 very nice block solos.

[Critter's Pa]

... and some nice serving

She has a different serving style. It looks like she does some footwork that causes her one of her shoes to squeak on her approach. It's almost like a left handed person decides just after they take their first step they are going to hit it with their right hand.

A lot of good servers do odd things when they are serving. Tulsa had a couple of players that took a significant amount of the 8(?) second limit before they served. I wonder if they do this to see if they can get an out-of-rotation call by players moving too early. Kinda like a QB/Center hiking the ball when the defense is offsides to get a free play, or in the case of volleyball, a free point.

Annalie was doing some crosscourt serving. She stands way back. It works.

[flyingMoose]

Now how much will these wins drop the RPI?

Per figstats, the RPIs following the Saturday matches are-

22 SMU
50 Shockers
59 Rice

KPI has not been updated for Saturday's matches.

I am disappointed that Rice didn't split with SMU. I still think that SMU will be tripped up an interdivisional foe like Rice was.

SMU plays East Carolina on the road. I think that is the only chance they will lose a set the rest of the way. I think there is no chance they will lose a match.

Even if the Shockers manage to sweep Rice in Houston and finish with one conference loss, they will lose the tie-breaker with SMU, 4-3 in sets.

[1972Shocker]

Even if the Shockers manage to sweep Rice in Houston and finish with one conference loss, they will lose the tie-breaker with SMU, 4-3 in sets.

.
Yep, the Shocks definitely needed a split in the SMU-Rice matches.

What do the Shocks chances of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament look like? Do they have to win out or can they get their with 1 loss to Rice?

[1972Shocker]

Tulsa ranked eighth nationally in digs per set (17.15) coming into the Shocker matches but the Shocks back row showed up with even bigger shovels.

The Shocks out-shoveled Tulsa 145 (20.7 per set) to 106 (15.1 per set) this weekend. Gabi and Webby were especially good with 40 and 30 digs respectively with Izzi chipping in 21 and Emerson 19 and Annalie and Katie combining for 23.

The Shocks seemed to have settled into a focus on accuracy with their serving and it seems to be paying off. In the two Tulsa matches they had a total of 8 aces in 7 sets but they also had only 3 service errors. Tulsa also had 8 aces but they had 12 service errors. So a +6 advantage for the Shocks.

In Satruday's match the Shocks had 5 aces to 1 service error. The only error was when Izzi, serving from the right side tied to go down the right sideline and clipped the antenna. Izzi offset that later with a similar serve that clipped to top of the net and fell in. Gabi had back-to-back aces in Set 2 as part of a 6-point run with Gabi serving that put the Shocks up 8-2. Webby had back-to-back aces early in the 3rd set give the Shocks a 5-3 lead they never relinquished.

Katie Galligan is closing in on 100 serves for the season and she still has only 1 service error despite the Shocks scoring at a high rate when she is serving.

Question: I guess I haven't paid much attention to it before but is Mike Kennedy calling the ESPN+ matches off-site? Perhaps from home.

[1972Shocker]

Emerson was Mike Kennedy's player of the match, and deservedly so, but I think Gabi probably deserved equal billing.

[1972Shocker]

New Shocker VB lexicon for Natalie (Frosty) Foster in transition. I like it.

[1972Shocker]

SMU plays East Carolina on the road. I think that is the only chance they will lose a set the rest of the way. I think there is no chance they will lose a match.

That would seem to be the most likely scenario. Also, as far a ECU goes, in addition to hosting SMU, they still have to play at Rice and at 2nd place in the East USF.

[WuDrWu]

Not that anyone needs my opinion, but I agree that SMU is about a 99% to win the league at this point.

It's difficult to see us running the table. If we lose once, they have to lose twice, and like flyingMoose & 1972Shocker I don't even think they are losing once. Even if they lose to ECU (the only reasonable possibility & even that's a stretch) we'd still lose a tiebreaker at 2 losses, regardless if it's 2 or 3 teams.

I want to say that 24-5 in the American is good enough for an at large, and I realize I'm just looking at us and not comparing to other teams. Nine more wins I would speculate gets us to at least 45 on the RPI. 24-5, tied for 1st in our league, mid 40s RPI and a 16 match heater ought to get you in. I won't hold my breath.


I am hopeful that Brylee's absence last night is due to load management. We certainly need her vs FAU and Rice so keeping her reps down and her overall health excellent is a big priority I'm sure. Emerson benefitting from extra reps is a bonus in my book, for the rest of this season and beyond.

It really sucks we were so banged up early. Even then, we just shouldn't have lost to either ND or TT.

[flyingMoose]

Per figstats and faktorsports, the RPIs/KPIs following the Saturday matches are-

22/23 SMU
50/41 Shockers
59/57 Rice