Shocks @ Bradley (Friday) and @ Loyola (Saturday)

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks (16-7, 9-3) move into the final 1/3rd of the Valley season taking on a bit of water as the travel to Bradley (7-17, 2-11) and Loyola (12-14, 7-6) for a pair of 7:00 pm games on Friday and Saturday.

The Lady Shocks simply can not afford to slip up against either of these teams if they want to preserve their chances of winning the Valley and securing an NCAA at-large bid.

Obviously goal #1 is to just win the matches. However, goal #2 has to be to play significantly better than they have been playing over the past 3 matches.

Glad we get Bradley first. However, atypically Missouri State also gets Bradley first playing them on Saturday and playing Loyola on Sunday. Normal Valley schedule would have NSU playing Loyola Friday night. So any scheduling advantage WSU may have received from a normal schedule is out the wind. In fact, this scheduling probably favors MSU.

Loyola, who likes like they may well secure the 6th and final spot on the Valley post-season tournament this year, has been kind of up and down. They have a swept the SIU season series in two 4 set matches. They took UNI to 5 sets at home. However, in their last math they struggled a bit at 1-12 Evansville winning in 5 sets.

Loyola has some very good players lead by a pair of 6-1 outside hitters in Sr. Morgan Reardon (3.5 kills per set) and So. Gabi Maciagowski (3.28 kills per set).

The Bradley game is on ESPN3 but the Loyola game is not.

Shocker Match Notes

Wichita Eagle Pre-Match Article focusing on Gabi Mostrom

[JayJ79]

With that win, WSU has clinched a spot in the MVC tourney (not that there was really any doubt about that, but it is a mathematical certainty now)

[1972Shocker]

Shocks sweep Bradley 18, 14 and 20.

Lambo did conduct an interesting experiment tonight. He played Emily as an attacker when she was on the front row with Jody coming off the back row to set. When Jody rotated to the front row and Emily to the back row they reversed roles. Essentially a 6-2 with a bit of an unusual twist.

Emily had 26 assists, a 5-1-18 = .222 attack line, 1 ace, 3 block assists and 7 digs.
Jody had 25 assists, a 6-2-15 = .267 attack line and 10 digs. However, Jody did have 5 setting errors.

Mikaela broke out her attacking woes with a 15-2-33 = .394 line. Abbie was a very good 14-1-23 = .565 and Katy 6-1-15 = .333

Tabitha was 6-3-19 = .158 but Lambo noted that she was having some issues with her contacts causing her some vision problems. Seemed kind of irritated with his training staff. Didn't catch that full story.

Dani had 20 digs, Gabi 11 and Hannah 9.

3 aces against 3 service errors is much improved over the past several matches as was an attack error rate of 10/123 = 8.1%.

It will be interesting if he stays with this somewhat unusual 6-2 approach.

[flyingMoose]

Deleted by OP. We crossed. That and you had information, and I was just peeling stats out of the box score.

[flyingMoose]

Other Friday Matches

Southern Illinois 3-2 ILLINOIS STATE
(14), 24, 15, (12), 8

INDIANA STATE 3-0 Evansville

[boyshocker]

My kid said last year that she thought they would run the 6-2 with Jody, nice to see. Thought it looked pretty good for the first time. Not sure how long they practiced it and not sure I saw the 5 setting errors. Great to see Mikeala back, she seemed to like the new lineup. Littles keep doing well ...keep it up ladies! It was Bradley though, Loyola will be a nice step up. Not sure what to think of Tabitha, been in a slump she can't seem to shake.

[flyingMoose]

... the 6-2 with Jody ... Thought it looked pretty good for the first time. Not sure how long they practiced it ...

In several recent pre-/post-match shows, Lambo spoke of things they were working on in the gym that were not quite ready for matches. Perhaps this was it - or at least one of them.

[1972Shocker]

My kid said last year that she thought they would run the 6-2 with Jody, nice to see. Thought it looked pretty good for the first time. Not sure how long they practiced it and not sure I saw the 5 setting errors. Great to see Mikeala back, she seemed to like the new lineup. Littles keep doing well ...keep it up ladies! It was Bradley though, Loyola will be a nice step up. Not sure what to think of Tabitha, been in a slump she can't seem to shake.

In last week's thread I wandered if Lambo had ever considered using Emily as an attacker when on the front row in a 6-2.

http://shockernet.net/forum/showthread.php?22162-Jam-The-Gym-(UNI)-amp-Halloween-Night-(Drake)&p=673363&viewfull=1#post673363

I guess I got my answer. I did not see using Jody as the 2nd setter however. That was really an interesting twist.

Glad to see them debut this against the one of the league's weaker teams to see how it played in live action and not against one of the better Valley teams.

[1972Shocker]

Thought Abbie may have had her best match of the season in regards to running the slide to the right side. She is starting to look more comfortable doing that.

It will be real interesting to see if Lambo sticks with this version of the 6-2 tonight against Loyola.

[flyingMoose]

Did Jody use a range of sets? Including quicks and back sets? Maybe even back-row sets? I assume so, but ...

[1972Shocker]

Did Jody use a range of sets? Including quicks and back sets? Maybe even back-row sets? I assume so, but ...

I really didn't watch that intently to be able to answer that very well. My sense is that the Shocks did not use many, if any, back sets. Seemed like if Jody struggled with anything it was the quick sets but for her first time in this role I did not thing she was too bad. Getting the timing down on the quicks can't be the easiest thing for a setter to do.

Emily did not have an outstanding attack line but she had several very nice right side attacks. Enough to think that with time she could be pretty effective in that role

I think we will see this again, although not sure we will see it much tonight but we may. Hard to predict that.

[flyingMoose]

I think we will see this again, although not sure we will see it much tonight but we may. Hard to predict that.

Sounds like this may be a work-in-progress, and Bradley was a good where-are-we match. Indiana State at home next weekend, and Evansville to close out the season on the road may be the only other possibilities.

[flyingMoose]

Anybody getting audio for this match? Mike's pre-game should be on by now (653pm).

[flyingMoose]

From the early play-by-play, we are playing the same 6-2 as last night with Emily and Jody as setters. Hmm, maybe not - Emily's point was possibly an attack as the setter.

Now a kill by Abbie from Jody - that is likely Jody as a setter.

[1972Shocker]

Anybody getting audio for this match? Mike's pre-game should be on by now (653pm).

Nope. Doesn't appear to be any Loyola audio stream either. So looks like live stats is if for tonight.