Shocks Host Drake (Fri) and UNI (Sat)

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks (19-7, 10-2) hope to maintain their Vallley lead which is currently only a half game over SIU as they take on Drake (14-16, 5-8) tonight and 3rd place UNI (15-11, 9-4) on Saturday night. Both matches start at 7:00.

Clearly, the UNI is one of 3 key matches and very tough matches that remain on the Schedule. Next Friday, they travel to Chicago to play 4th place Loyola and then they come back home the following Friday (11/20) to face 2nd place SIU.

Saturday vs UNI is a Wichita Eagle family night. 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs, 4 bags of popcorn & 4 drinks for $32.

The Shocks are coming off a tough stretch where they played 7 of their past 9 matches on the road going 8-1 losing only at SIU last Monday.

I did not think that they played their best against SIU but some credit for that goes to SIU. I'm glad we have Drake 1st up this weekend so that the Shocks can hopefully get back in better sync before taking on a UNI team who is 6-1 since losing to the Shocks in Cedar Falls with their only loss to SIU in Carbondale.

Shocker Match Notes

Paul Suellentrop Pre-Match Report

[JayJ79]

all the MVC matches this weekend (with ESPN3 links when applicable):

Friday, Nov. 6, 2015
6 pm - Loyola at Indiana State (E3)
7 pm - UNI at Missouri State (E3)
7 pm - Bradley at Illinois State
7 pm - Drake at Wichita State (E3)

Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015
6 pm - Bradley at Indiana State (E3)
7 pm - Evansville at SIU (E3)
7 pm - Drake at Missouri State (E3)
7 pm - Loyola at Illinois State
7 pm - UNI at Wichita State (E3)

I wonder why Illinois State never has their home matches on ESPN3 (they had a couple of their matches on when they hosted an early season non-conference tourney, and their match against Indiana State is scheduled to be on, but none of their other home matches have been0

[1972Shocker]

I wonder why Illinois State never has their home matches on ESPN3 (they had a couple of their matches on when they hosted an early season non-conference tourney, and their match against Indiana State is scheduled to be on, but none of their other home matches have been.

I've been wondering about that myself. I really wanted to see the WSU match in Normal and was unable to.

[JayJ79]

all home teams win tonight.

WSU (11-2), SIU (10-3), and Illinois St (9-5) have clinched spots in the MVC tournament.
UNI (9-5), Loyola (8-5), and MSU (8-5) will likely make the tournament as well, but have not yet mathematically clinched a spot in the top 6.
Drake (5-9) and Indiana St (4-10) technically have slim hopes, but not much.
Evansville (2-11) and Bradley (1-12) are out of contention.

Seeding, however, is still up in the air, with the 3rd through 6th spots all within half a match. with WSU and SIU holding a bit of a cushion for the top two spots.

[1972Shocker]

Shocks running the 6-2 before intermission: 25-22, 22-25 (47-47)
Shocks running the 5-1 after intermission: 25-15, 25-17 (50-32)

That's two consecutve matches the Shocks struggled with the 6-2. The contrast between the 6-2 and the 5-1 tonight was like night and day.

It will be interesting to see what Lambo goes with against UNI on Saturday but based on tonight's match I would think that he may want to go with the 5-1. I don't think we can beat UNI playing they way we did in the 6-2 tonight. MSU which had been experimenting with a 6-2 played a 5-1 tonight in their 3-1 win over UNI.

Anyone listen to Lambo's post match comments?

[flyingMoose]

Anyone listen to Lambo's post match comments?

Again, he was disappointed with the energy of some of the players. If I understood correctly, Dani was close to coming out of the match. (He left that up to Sean who appears to have major defense responsibilities on the coaching staff.) He did mention the high energy of Mikaela. He was pleased with six service aces versus two errors.

Lambo thought Drake has improved a lot from the start of the conference, using the middles more. UNI may have made the same transition, finding the way they can play. @JayJ79 may be able to help us with that. At any rate, we will find out soon enough.

[flyingMoose]

As @JayJ79: noted, the home teams won all the matches. Details follow.

Missouri State 3-1 Northern Iowa
14, 22, (19), 16

Indiana State 3-2 Loyola
23, (18), 19, (17), 15

Illinois State 3-1 Bradley
13, 22, (21), 19

Southern Illinois host Evansville, their travel partner, on Saturday.

[1972Shocker]

all home teams win tonight.

But none of the 4 home teams were able to put a sweep together which is a little unusual but perhaps just reflective of what a tough grind the Valley has been this year.

WSU, MSU and ILS all won 3-1 and INS pulled off the night's upset knocking of LUC in 5 sets winning the 5th set 17-15.

[flyingMoose]

I've been wondering about that myself. I really wanted to see the WSU match in Normal and was unable to.

Before the pre-game comments at Southern Illinois, an SIU admin of some sort dropped by and visited with Mike. Part of their conversation was about the ESPN3 telecasts, and it came over an "open mic" (that is, this was not a planned interview). There was a significant expense associated with putting the matches on the Internet (equipment, etc?). That expense varied with each school, and perhaps the Redbirds chose not to incur it.

[flyingMoose]

... what a tough grind the Valley has been this year.

In the post-game, another observation by Lambo was that volleyball was booming in the Midwest and every team had players. What used to be a two-team league, sometime three, rarely four, is now a tougher league top to bottom.

[JayJ79]

given the absolute mess that the state of Illinois is in budget-wise (or should I say, total lack of budget), that wouldn't surprise me

[flyingMoose]

Drake match article

[1972Shocker]

Shockers sweep UNI 15,16 and 20. Shocks went with the 5-1 again tonight and that proved to be an excellent decision. The 1st two sets may well have been the best this year's team has played. There weren't bad in Set 3 but they were dominating in Sets 1 and 2. Mikaela Raudsepp had a great match. Very possibly the best of her relatively young Shocker career.

When the Shocks had Abbie, Katie and Mikaela on the front line they were great. The passing and defense in the 1st two sets was outstanding as well.

This is probably the best I have felt about this team so far this year.

Anyone catch Lambo's post-match comments?

[flyingMoose]

Saturday Scores

Shockers 3-0 Northern Iowa
15, 16, 20
The Shocks used the same rotation (as far as I could tell) that they used in the last two sets against Drake.

Southern Illinois 3-0 Evansville
16, 19, 13

Missouri State 3-0 Drake
19, 18, 16

Illinois State 3-1 Loyola
(16), 14, 20, 15

Indiana State 3-0 Bradley
6, 19, 23

[flyingMoose]

Anyone catch Lambo's post-match comments?

This time I didn't bother - the "kids" were doing the Internet broadcast. The one other time I listened to post-game in that circumstance, I was disappointed - Lambo had to guide them through what they had seen.

On the match, we have to get Shimen going on the left (2-2-14-.000 tonight). Last night, Mash and Jenny also had a go at that spot in the "new" rotation, but they didn't do much better. But yes, there was enough there tonight to get pretty excited about the next few weeks.