Shocks @ SIU (Friday, Nov 18th) and @ Evansville (Sat, Nov 19th)

[1972Shocker]

The 2nd place Lady Shocks (20-7, 13-3) close out the 2016 Valley regular season on the raod at 3rd place (tied with UNI) Southern Illinois (21-9, 12-4) on Friday at 7:00 pm and they take on last place Evansville (5-24, 1-15) on Saturday at 7:00 pm with seeding for the Valley Tournament to be determined this weekend.

The SIU match will be available on ESPN3 but there is apparently no video for the Evansville game.

Clearly the SIU match is the key match of the weekend for the Shocks. 1st place MSU (23-7, 14-2) takes on Evansville on Friday and SIU on Saturday. UNI (21-8, 12-4) plays at Illinois State (16-12, 9-7) and at Indiana State this weekend.

Illinois State and Loyola are locked into the 5th and 6th seeds although it is still to be determined which will be which.

The are a plethora of possibilities for where the top 4 will finish both in the regular season standings and in the tournament seedings.

SIU will apparently be without 2 key players this weekend in Senior Setter/Hitter Meg Viggars and Junior MB Alex Rosignal. Losing Viggars is particarly tough for SIU as she is very similar to Jody Larson of the Shockers in terms of her versatility and value to her team. It sounds like SIU, which runs a 6-2, will use Freshman setter Alayna Martin to replace Viggars setting rotations. Still SIU will be a formidable opponent especially on their home court.

If the Shocks can win against SIU there NCAA at-large chance look to be be very solid.

Shocker Match Notes

Daily Egyptian Article

[flyingMoose]

After Wednesday night matches (a number of P5 conferences have them), here are updated RPI Futures.

36. Wichita State

45. Northern Iowa

47. Missouri State

52. Southern Illinois

[JayJ79]

Illinois State and Loyola are locked into the 5th and 6th seeds although it is still to be determined which will be which.

Pretty sure ISU is locked into #5 and LU into #6.
If the Redbirds lost both matches and the Ramblers won their lone remaining match, both would end at 9-9, but ISU won both matches against LU.

[1972Shocker]

Wichita Eage article focusing on Dani Mostrom's development into top-of-the-line Libero.

Dani came to WSU as a setter but her passing skills were discovered more of less by accident during her redshirt year. Now she is likely to finish her career as only the 2nd player to lead the Shockers in digs for 4 years.

The other was Jan Melloy from 1997-2000. This would have been from the pre-rally scoring era. 30 point rally scoring sets started in 2001 for NCAA Volleyball. The Libero position was introduced in NCAA Volleyball in 2002. Sets were reduced to 25 points in 2008.

[1972Shocker]

Pretty sure ISU is locked into #5 and LU into #6.
If the Redbirds lost both matches and the Ramblers won their lone remaining match, both would end at 9-9, but ISU won both matches against LU.

Yep, you are correct.

[flyingMoose]

Shockers 3-0 Southern Illinois
15, 14, 18

[1972Shocker]

Shocks roll to a 15, 14 and 18 sweep of the Salukis in Carbondale. A win that could well secure an NCAA at-large berth if they can take care of business at last place Evansville tomorrow night.

I was only able to watch the last half of the 3rd set.

Lambo said they didn't pass the ball that well tonight and the offensive numbers were a bit below what he would like to see but the Shocks played much cleaner than SIU did. He said one thing the Shocks did do well in the 2 SIU matches this year was to defend Andrea Estrada well.

[flyingMoose]

Other Friday Matches

Missouri State 3-0 EVANSVILLE
19, 20, 17

Northern Iowa 3-1 ILLINOIS STATE
(21), 14, 14, 19

Drake 3-1 INDIANA STATE

[1972Shocker]

Based on the box score looks like the Shockers leaned primarily on a 5-1 approach tonight as Emily had 30 assists to only 4 for Jody.

Statistically a pretty pedestrian offensive attacking match for the Shocks but the Shocks had a big advantage in serving and blocking. The Shocks had 5 aces (3 by Emily) to only 1 service error compared to 3 aces and 8 errors for SIU for a +9 advantage and the Shocks out-blocked SIU 9 to 5 as well.

The Shocks outhit SIU .268 to .080

[flyingMoose]

... but the Shocks played much cleaner than SIU did.

The Shockers kill rate was 37% and the error rate was 10%. Corresponding numbers for the Salukis are 28.6% and 20.5%.

[flyingMoose]

Game article from the Daily Egyptian

[1972Shocker]

This was the first time SIU had been swept at home this year. However, it is very clear that this SIU team has been diminished significantly by injuries to key players. Senior S/OH Meg Viggars, Junior MB Alex Rosginol and Junior OH Abby Barrow were all on the shelf for the Salukis.

This would be similar to the Shocks being without Jody, Tabitha and a combination of Katy's offensive production and Emily's blocking. That would be extremely tough to overcome.

[WuDrWu]

This was the first time SIU had been swept at home this year. However, it is very clear that this SIU team has been diminished significantly by injuries to key players. Senior S/OH Meg Viggars, Junior MB Alex Rosginol and Junior OH Abby Barrow were all on the shelf for the Salukis.

This would be similar to the Shocks being without Jody, Tabitha and a combination of Katy's offensive production and Emily's blocking. That would be extremely tough to overcome.

Yep, the Salukis are a shell of their best team right now. I watched most but not all of the match. They made so many mistakes. Shoot, looking at the stats, it almost scares me that we played poorly. I know the ultimate goal is to get to the big dance, and we're probably there now, but you would like to be playing well when you get there.

Maybe we'll get better next week in Iowa.

[flyingMoose]

Jody has an injury to the inside of her left elbow caused by blocking and will not play (start?) tonight. Alex will take her spot.

[1972Shocker]

Jody injured her elbow last night against SIU and probably won't play on the back row tonight. The Shocks will be in a 5-1. Not sure I totally understood Lambo's comments. He said Alex Koon will be in the lineup in place of Jody. I interpreted what he was saying as Alex would play the back row because digging and passing bother Jody the most and then I am assuming Jody will still paly front row rotations. Again just not sure about that so we will see what happens.