Lady Shocks @ Indiana State (Fri, 10/14) & Illinois State (Sun, 10/16)

[1972Shocker]

Kind of a crazy 2nd Set. Illinois State jumped out to a 5-1 lead. The Shocks closed to 2 points at 7-9. Illinois State then ran out to a huge 23-14 lead with the set appearing to be all but over.

The Shocks then went on an unbelievable 9-point run to tie the set at 23 all and forcing Illinois State to call a time out.

Illinois State scored out of the time out but the Shocks then won the next 3 points concluding on an Abbie Lehman kill to steal the 2nd set 26-24 which has to be one of the Shocker's best come from behind set wins ever.

It's one thing to rally from 9 points down but a very rare thing when the opponent (a quality opponent at that) has a 23-14 lead. Shocks score 12 of the final 13 points. In the pre-game show Lambo hoped we would see some long service runs. Got his wish.

Dani served 8 of the 9 point run (ILS served to open that run) and sister Gabi served the final two points of the set. So it was a Mostrum Miracle I guess.

Wow!

[1972Shocker]

Set 3 was the kind of set you would expect between these two teams.

Illinois State worked its way out to an 11-8 lead. The Shocks scored the next 4 points to take a 12-11 lead. After that the lead went back and forth with neither team leading by more than 2 points with Illinois State taking a 23-22 lead.

3 consecutive kills by Tabitha Brown finished off the set at 25-23 and a somewhat unexpected 3-0 sweep by the Shocks as they move to 8-1 at the midway point of Valley race.

Shocks lead SIU and MSU by 1-game at the half-way point. Illinois State falls back with losses to MSU and to the Shocks this weekend.

Next two Friday's will be big matches for the Shocks as the host MSU and UNI. The Shocks are done with their weekday games and only have the match with MSU next weekend so they should be able to get some good work in on the practice floor.

[1972Shocker]

In his post game comment Lambo said he didn't think either team was very aggressive with their out of system swings. He said he has some drills to work that but has not been using those because they are pretty physically taxing but he said they may have to add that back to the practice mix.

He did not mention the big comeback in the 2nd set but maybe he will talk more about this match tomorrow night on his radio show.

I was not in a place where I could watch the match today. Just listened to Mike's call of the game which I did enjoy. Looking forward to watching the replay tonight.

[ShockerFever]

That 2nd set was so Illinois State. Love it!

Nice brooming ladies.

[1972Shocker]

Jaelyn Keene was leading the Valley and was 2nd in the nation in hitting percentage at 0.461 coming into the match. Jaelyn, a 6-2 Jr Middle Blocker and a two-time All-Valley performer, was held to 0.190 by the Shocks on 8-4-21 line.

As a team the Shocks outhit the Redbirds 0.237 to 0.149.

The Shocks continue with their solid serving with 4 aces to 5 errors although Illinois State was just a hair better at 4 aces to 4 errors.

A lot of digs for a 3-set match as the Shocks had 72 digs to the Redbird's 70. Lambo attributed some of that to what he thought was soft out-of-system play by both teams. The Shocks had 4 players with double digit digs lead by Jody with 20, Dani with 15, Emily with 11 and Mikaela with 10. Mikaela added 17 kills and Emily 37 assists for a pair of double-doubles.

Mikaela had 55 attacks which is somewhat unusual for a Shocker player to have that many but perhaps part of that was the Shockers being out of system more than they usually are. 276 total attacks in the match (WSU 135 + ILS 141). Shocks made 13 errors for a 9.6% error rate and ILS had 21 errors for a 14.9% error rate. The Shocks outblocked the Redbirds 8-6 led by the reliable Abbie Lehman who had 1 block solo and 7 block assists.

Other than Emily who was 4-0-6 = 0.667 no none on either side had great hitting numbers.

[1972Shocker]

Valley standings at the mid-point of the regular season:

STANDINGS

Wichita State	8-1	15-5
Missouri State	7-2	16-7
Southern Illinois	7-2	16-7
UNI	6-3	15-7
Illinois State	5-4	12-9
Loyola	4-4	9-12
Drake	3-5	12-10
Indiana State	2-6	8-12
Bradley	1-7	6-13
Evansville	0-9	4-18

[JayPak]

Shocks are doing great considering there is so much parity among the MVC top 5. What a comeback in the 2nd vs ISU-red! I don't know the statistical probablity of such a comeback, but in all of college volleyball in the first half of the season not one team came back to win when having 12 or fewer points when the other team reached 20.
Shocks are looking good for an at-large NCAA bid, should they need one. And with the tournament in Frostbite Falls, they might.

[flyingMoose]

The winning percentage of the non-conference teams on the schedule is now 63%. Earlier this season, Lambo thought it would come in at 64-65%, higher than his goal of the low 60s%.

The current RPI should be available in the early afternoon on Monday.

For the stat-heads (maybe that is singular) among us, the relevant Volleytalk threads will also be updated sometime on Monday.

[1972Shocker]

Illinois State post-match newspaper reports:

Wichita Eagle

Pantagraph

[flyingMoose]

Anyone able to listen to the show tonight? Unfortunately, not me.

[flyingMoose]

RPIs from 17 October with last week's RPI in parentheses:

32 (40) Shockers
52 (50) Southern Illinois
57 (64) Northern Iowa
63 (74) Missouri State

[1972Shocker]

The winning percentage of the non-conference teams on the schedule is now 63%. Earlier this season, Lambo thought it would come in at 64-65%, higher than his goal of the low 60s%.

The current RPI should be available in the early afternoon on Monday.

For the stat-heads (maybe that is singular) among us, the relevant Volleytalk threads will also be updated sometime on Monday.

Here are the overall and conference records by opponent:

Iowa State 10-8, 2-4
Creighton 14-6, 8-0
Cincinnati 12-7, 7-1
IUPUI 8-14, 4-3
Marquette 17-4, 7-2
Colorado State 13-5, 7-0
Texas 14-2, 6-0
Samford 12-10, 3-4
Texas Tech 10-12, 0-7
Texas State 13-9, 6-1
UT San Antonio 14-4, 5-1

Overall 137-81 (0.628), 51-23 (0.689)

If these teams continue to win conference games at a .689 pace the Shocks should end of with a non-conference opponent winning percentage of around 0.645

Iowa State needs to pick it up a bit and Texas Tech has been a big loser since playing the Shocks. Texas Tech was 10-2 going into the match with the Shocks but they had gotten fat eating to many cupcakes. Since that time Texas Tech is 0-10 having one only 1 set (vs TCU) in that time. Texas Tech very well (probably) could go winless in the Big 12. I suppose the only saving grace is they are in the Big 12 and most of those losses will be to highly ranked teams.

IUPUI and Samford are also weak spots as their SOS will go down in conference play.

Cincy has made a nice rebound after a so-so start to the season.

Creighton, Marquette, Colorado State, Texas, Texas State and UTSA all look very good. Shocks were 4-2 against that group which should look pretty good to the selection committee if the Shocks can keep rolling in Valley play (which is not a given).

[1972Shocker]

Emily Heibert is the Valley's Player of the Week and Abbie Lehman is the Valley's Defensive Player of the Week.

Congratulations Emily and Abbie. At times I think Emily is taken a bit for granted and perhaps flies a bit under the radar but she clearly is the main cog to this Shocker team.

This was Emily's first Valley Player of the Week honor. Hopefully, it won't be the last.

[boyshocker]

We have definitely dominated the all league honors the last two weeks!

[flyingMoose]

Overall 137-81 (0.628)

Others Overall are:

Southern Illinois 158-113 (0.583)

Northern Iowa 144-114 (0.558)

Missouri State 151-134 (0.530)


Lambo appears to have the non-con scheduling down to an art. Of course, you have to win some of those matches against teams that will have good records.