Shocks Host Illinois State (Fri @ 5:00) and Indiana State (Sat @ 7:00)

[1972Shocker]

SIU won the first two matches fairly easily, then UE managed to win the next two, but ran out of gas in the 5th.

Nice to see that kind of fight out of an Evansville team that has had a very difficult season.

[flyingMoose]

SIU won the first two matches fairly easily, then UE managed to win the next two, but ran out of gas in the 5th.

Uh, kinda - 23, 11, (23), (20), 8.

The Purple Aces actually led the first set until late and had a nice lead in the third set until the Salukis made it close late. SIU seems to be pretty up and down - they lost twice to Loyola and you would expect them to handle Evansville much more easily than this - even on the road. Pablo would have SIU winning this match over 90% of the time.

[1972Shocker]

Watched replay of the Shocker win over Illinois State today. I think the Shocker littles deserve a nice shout out. The littles took quite a bit of heat early in the season and, in fact, had basically played themselves out of the mix until just very recently. Apparently, they responded in the right fashion and battled back in pracitce to the point that Lambo is now mixing in a 2nd DS into the new 6-2 rotation.

I thought Dani, Gabi and Hannah all played very well against the Redbirds. Their digging and effort was very good and their passing, with a very few exceptions, was also very good. These young ladies deserve more than a little credit for the big nights Tabitha and Mikaela had has Emily and Jody were constantly getting good passes allowing them to feed Tabitha and Mikaela with quality sets. I love to watch the Shock when all the parts are in sync and working well. The thing is that they should get even better with the current 6-2 scheme the more they play it.

In any case, kudos to Dani, Gabi and Hannah.

[1972Shocker]

MSU, WSU, SIU, UNI and ILS have all clinched spots in the 6-team Valley Tournament to determine the League's NCAA AQ.

The worst ILS can finish is 9-9. The best Loyola and Drake can finish is 9-9. However, Loyola and Drake match up tonight in Des Moines which will give the loser their 10 loss and eliminate them from post season play.

So after the Loyola-Drake match is in the books the Valley tournament teams will be set. However, final seeding remains to be determined.

[JayJ79]

Uh, kinda - 23, 11, (23), (20), 8.

The Purple Aces actually led the first set until late and had a nice lead in the third set until the Salukis made it close late. SIU seems to be pretty up and down - they lost twice to Loyola and you would expect them to handle Evansville much more easily than this - even on the road. Pablo would have SIU winning this match over 90% of the time.

my bad. I only caught the end of the ESPN3 broadcast (after attending the UNI/Loyola match), and I thought I had heard the announcers say that SIU had won the first sets easily, but I guess it was just the 2nd set they were referring to.

The loss of Meg Viggars has definitely hurt the Salukis.

[ShockdaWorld]

It appears I am going to have an extra ticket to the match tonight if intone wants it.

[flyingMoose]

Shockers 3-0 Indiana State
20, 14, 9

After a sluggish first set when both the offense and defense seemed out of sync, the Shocks rolled through the second and third sets.

The Shocks hit .358 v .059. The offense was led by Tabitha with 17-2-30 for .500, and Jody with 12-2-22 for .500 - middle kind of percentages. The Shockers had another great blocking night, 13 v 3. The error percentage was 10 v 18.

The Shocks did some kind of variation on the theme with their Emily-Jody 6-2, but I am not technical enough to understand just what was taking place. Emily had 39 assists to 5 for Jody, and seemed to set in most of the rotations. However, sometimes Jody would set the first ball and then revert to Emily setting for the rest of the point - I think. Maybe there will be comments in the weekly show about this.

Missouri State's scores last night against the Sycamores were 18, 15 and 13.

[1972Shocker]

Shocks played only so-so in Set 1 but pretty much rolled over the Sycamores in Sets 2 and 3 with a 20, 14, 9 sweep on Senior Night as the Shocks hit the 20 win mark for the 14th consecutive season.

For the 2nd night in a row Tabitha was outstanding following up her 20 kill (in 4 sets) effort against Illinois State with a 17 kill effort tonight. She hit 0.500 for the match with 17 kills and only 2 errors in 30 attacks.

Senior Jody Larson had a big senior night hitting 12-1-22 = 0.500 plus 13 digs and Senior Libero Dani Mostrom lead the way with an excellent 25 dig effort. Senior MB Katy Dudzinski struggled a bit tonight but had a couple of nice kills late in the 3rd set to finish with positive feel.

Thought the passing was pretty good again tonight although Lambo thought we may have left a few digs out on the court tonight.

[flyingMoose]

Other Saturday Matches

MISSOURI STATE 3-1 Illinois State
(19), 16, 15, 19
The Redbirds were 13, (28), 15, 18 against the Shockers.

NORTHERN IOWA 3-0 Bradley

Loyola 3-1 DRAKE

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks did some kind of variation on the theme with their Emily-Jody 6-2, but I am not technical enough to understand just what was taking place. Emily had 39 assists to 5 for Jody, and seemed to set in most of the rotations. However, sometimes Jody would set the first ball and then revert to Emily setting for the rest of the point - I think. Maybe there will be comments in the weekly show about this.

That was interesting. It may be that this particular scheme allows the Shocks to seemlessly morph back and forth between a 5-1 style and a 6-2 style and anything in between depending on what the opponent is doing and what is working best for the Shocks.

[1972Shocker]

Loyola's win over Drake eliminates Drake from contention for a spot in the Valley Tournament. The 6 team will be MSU, WSU, SIU, UNI, ILS and LOY.

Next weekend will settle final regulars season standings and Tournament seeding.

Edit: Drake does have slim chance of tying Loyola for 6th place at 8-10 if Loyola loses at 2-15 Bradey and Drake beats both Indiana State and Illinois State on the road next weekend. However, Loyola now owns a season weep over Drake which would give them the tiebreaker.

[JayPak]

Shox and MO St looking good for the at-large, UNI with a chance. I though Shox littles were good when they beat Creighton.

[1972Shocker]

Nice post-match article focusing mostly on Tabitha's performance this weekend.

37 kills with only 5 errors on 73 swings for .438 hitting percentage is top-level efficiency for a left side hitter. Hard to believe Tabitha won't win Valey player of the week honors with that performance.

Lambo also commented on his hybrid 6-2. "We are just trying to keep things very easy," Lambo said. "You still saw 6-2, you just saw it lean on the 5-1 more. We jusst opted when to use it and when not, looked for matchups and kept them guessing."

So what he has with this lineup is one that can operate in either 5-1 mode or 6-2 mode and switch back and forth more or less seemlessly and on demand.

[flyingMoose]

RPIs from 14 November with last week's RPI in parentheses:

37 (36) Shockers
45 (46) Northern Iowa
47 (49) Missouri State
57 (58) Southern Illinois


The current winning percentages for the out-of-conference schedules:

64.1 Shockers
53.8 Missouri State
58.1 Northern Iowa
57.9 Southern Illinois

These numbers continue to keep Missouri State behind Northern Iowa in RPI. Fifty percent of the RPI is your opponent's record.

[1972Shocker]

As somewhat anticipated Tabitha Brown was selected as the Valley Player of the Week, the 1st of her career, for her performances against Illinois State and Indiana State.

Also, Dani Mostorm was selected as the Valley Defensive Player of the Week for the 4th time in her career.

http://www.goshockers.com/news/2016/11/14/volleyball-brown-and-mostrom-honored-by-the-valley.aspx