Shocks vs Hawaii (Really Late Nite With Mike Kennedy)

[SpanglerFan316]

My point on bad passes is that they can cause poor sets and hitting errors. There were 14 Hawaii hitting errors in games 3 and 4. I don't know how many of those off of serves as opposed to rallies, but serving hard can give you points by not allowing the opponent to get quick kills and forcing hitting errors, or causing attacks to be dug because they were not in position to put away a hard kill.

As to the probability of success using a hard serve strategy, going into the match WSU had 40 aces to 27 service errors. There was every reason for the coaching staff to think that serving well was within our capacity.

In any case, I think we will have to agree to disagree on that, but hopefully we will serve well enough in the future that this isn't an issue again.

Every error by Hawaii in games 3 & 4 was an attack error!!
"Attack Error" Definition: An unsuccessful attack where the ball either lands out of bounds, goes into the net, is blocked or the attacker makes an infraction of the rules.

http://volleyball.about.com/cs/attacking/g/attackerror.htm

Compare this with
Reception Error Definition: A reception error occurs when a player should have been able to pass a serve but makes an error resulting in an ace.

http://volleyball.about.com/library/clubhouse/blglossary.htm

I think we can agree that our serving errors need to decrease. I think we will continue to beat weaker teams and have trouble against stronger teams. I can see us going 18-0 in the MVC again, winning the Valley tourney and winning, at most, one game in the NCAA tourney. This team has the potential to do better than this.

[SpanglerFan316]

Santa Clara beat Hawaii 30-28 in their first game.

http://volleytalk.proboards88.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1189315790

Hawaii wins game 2, 30-20.
If Santa Clara wins the next two games, is WSU the Hawaii tourney champ?

[The Mad Hatter]

My point on bad passes is that they can cause poor sets and hitting errors. There were 14 Hawaii hitting errors in games 3 and 4. I don't know how many of those off of serves as opposed to rallies, but serving hard can give you points by not allowing the opponent to get quick kills and forcing hitting errors, or causing attacks to be dug because they were not in position to put away a hard kill.

As to the probability of success using a hard serve strategy, going into the match WSU had 40 aces to 27 service errors. There was every reason for the coaching staff to think that serving well was within our capacity.

In any case, I think we will have to agree to disagree on that, but hopefully we will serve well enough in the future that this isn't an issue again.

Every error by Hawaii in games 3 & 4 was an attack error!!
"Attack Error" Definition: An unsuccessful attack where the ball either lands out of bounds, goes into the net, is blocked or the attacker makes an infraction of the rules.

http://volleyball.about.com/cs/attacking/g/attackerror.htm

Compare this with
Reception Error Definition: A reception error occurs when a player should have been able to pass a serve but makes an error resulting in an ace.

http://volleyball.about.com/library/clubhouse/blglossary.htm

I think we can agree that our serving errors need to decrease. I think we will continue to beat weaker teams and have trouble against stronger teams. I can see us going 18-0 in the MVC again, winning the Valley tourney and winning, at most, one game in the NCAA tourney. This team has the potential to do better than this.

Let me try to explain myself again. If you have a tough serve to handle, it leads to a pass that takes the setter away from where they want to set, which makes it harder for the hitter to get a clean hit. A serve does not have to result in an ace or in a reception error to affect the hitting percentage and hitting errors of the opponent. The harder it is to get good passes and sets, the more likely that there will be hitting errors and a low hitting percentage.

[WuDrWu]

UH won in 4 tough games.

Shocks finish 2nd in the tourney and put Emily Stockman and Kelly Broussard on the All-Tourney team.


Great job ladies!



:wsu_posters: :goshocks: :posterwu: :posterwsu:

[dregn]

Let's remember that our biggest problem in games 3 and 4 wasn't serving the ball, but our inability to side out. Lamb tried a lot of combination of players as he knew that Hawaii had made adjustments to stop our offense. You can't make an adjustment to your own service game when you can't even get the ball to serve.

[rrshock]

So that means our only losses on the year are to ranked teams then? Is KSU ranked yet?

[Snapshot9]

I believe KSU was ranked 22nd.

[dregn]

KSU was not ranked when we lost to them, but since then they have become ranked. Cal Poly might be dropping out this week, but all their loses have come against ranked teams.

After looking over some of the play by play we had 4 service errors the 1st game, 6 in the 2nd, 5 in the 3rd, 2 in the 4th and 2 in the 5th. I'd say overall the errors were pretty consistantly spread out over the 5 sets. The 5 in the third was definately the highest percentage as we served less in that set. In the third set 3 of those service errors came after we were already down 24-17 when we definately needed some serves in.

It's still impossible to tell from the play by play by play wether Hawaii's side outs came off of rallies where we got a chance to attack or if it came straight off the serves. You can see the points where it was because of WSU committing an error on the offensive side which there were some of.

I think the main difference in the last 3 games were Hawaii's adjustments on defense which can't be countered by changing our service approach. To counter it we'd have to change our offense, which to his credit Lamb did by trying different players who have different styles. No matter what we threw at them on offense in those sets they seemed to have an answer for defensively.

[SpanglerFan316]

I thought I heard that Stephanie Tokarz had to have oxygen during the fourth or fifth game. Am I wrong about this? If we lost game 5 because we were really tired, then perhaps my suggestion in another thread might have been useful.
" I think Lamb needs to develop more players. Suppose Lamb took Lungren, Tokarz, Niggemeyer, Harsh and Stockman completely out of game three and told them to rest. The UH halftime adjustments would have been messed up and, assuming we lost game 3, our best players would have been rested for games 4 and 5. In addition, bringing "subs" in for game 3 might have "messed with" the minds of the UH players. This is just a thought."

http://www.shockernet.net/sn/viewtopic.php?t=8830

[1972Shocker]

Wasn't one of the adjustments Hawaii made was to serve us soft and short? Not sure what exactly that does to our offensive setup, but I remember one of our home MVC matches last year against on of the contenders (may have been Creighton) where they used that approach very effectively. In fact, we lost in 5 games to Creighton at home last year.

Later in the year we swept Creighton in Omaha 32-30, 30-26 and 30-20. Not sure if CU use the same serving appraoch in that Match or not.

:posterwu: :goshocks: :posterwsu:

[dregn]

It brings your passers up which causes players to bunch up the net which makes you thow the ball to the outsides. Tokarz and Niggemeyer were giving them trouble in the middle and they wanted to take that away.

Spangler: We do already play a lot more players then most teams already. It is an important ability that we have that allows others to get rest. Our top players got a lot of rest in the 3rd and 4th sets I thought. Lamb played 13 players. Two and three years ago in any close game we usually didn't see more then 8 players get in a match. You start your horses out there at the beginning though in my eyes because you want to get it over with when you can.

Also it seems like Tokarz might not be in top condition yet if she's struggling like that while only playing half the rotation. Hopefully by the end of the year the conditioning will be there were our best players can play as long as they are needed.

[1972Shocker]

I was perusing the game reports in the Hawaii newspaper and one thing that I was not aware of was that Kelly Broussard tied a Tournament record with her 34 digs agaisnt Hawaii.

I think Kelly is just an outstanding Libero and she off to a great start this season.

Melissa Granville was the high profile recruit at Libero, but she simply has not been able to dislodge the position away from Kelly. Not that Mel doesn't do a good job in her own right.

:posterwu: :goshocks: :posterwsu:

[83 Flyer]

Hey Sports Fans! Apologies for not joining all of you sooner, but I've been on the road lately. However, I have been following the progress of the ladies duirng the last few tourney's and offer the following:

Might I recommend that we confirm any rumor with at least a credible primary source before we post anything about a players condition. I thought SpanglerFan316 and dregn's posting on Stephanie needing O2 and not in top condition during the HI match was definitely whacked! I didn't hear anything from Mike K. during the match and decided to do some sleuthing on my own and found out (with two primary sources) that no one needed any O2, but they did need some serving lessons! I know we can do better folks!

Lambo and the coaching staff did a great job re-tooling the girls and having them ready for the Denver and Hawaii Tourney's. In Denver, our blocking was awesome; more BA's mean we're finally team blocking - that's important. Set's for the MB's were tight and Abby, Stephanie, and Katie were definitely synched. Of course, it all starts with great passing and serve-recieve from the little's (Melissa and Kelly) and overall defensive play was a huge . BTW '72, the MB's weren't just solid, they were tough! Tokarz alone combined for 37K's, 13B's, with a combined hitting percentage of .518 and Katie's contributions were substantial! They turned their confidence around in one week!

Santa Clara was more of the same. Emily and Sarah were delivering the goods and Abby was mixing it up between the MB's and the pins. You can tell that the girls exuded confidence in their ability to put the game away! Which wasn't the case against Hawaii. One would think that being up 2-0 against a perennial power like HI no less would provide all the mental confidence to put the game away. But the SE did them in. HI cracked the code on their offensive threat and the girls starting losing their mental edge and their focus. It's a tough lesson, but one that will help the girls during the MVC season and NCAA's.

Food for thought. There is little doubt that Lambo, Shannon, and Jeff will have the girls tactically, physically, and mentally ready for this weekend (especially UNI)! But who is going to be the leader on the floor when the chip's are down and provide the team that spark when faced with a situation similar to Cal Poly, K-State, and HI? Who is the leader with the emotional intelligence and play-making ability to take them to the next level?

Cheers!



[/list]

[1972Shocker]

BTW '72, the MB's weren't just solid, they were tough! Tokarz alone combined for 37K's, 13B's, with a combined hitting percentage of .518 and Katie's contributions were substantial! They turned their confidence around in one week![/list]

I would tend to agree with you. It was a great improvement over the first weekend of the season. However, I was holding back a little bit in my enthusiasm over their play since I did not actually see the matches and did not have a real good feel for the quality of competition in Denver. My sense is that Denver was a quality opponent, DePaul a weak opponent and not sure about Auburn. Perhaps middle of the MVC quality.

However, it appears that they were pretty solid in their play agains Santa Clara and Hawaii, which is very good competition indeed. Eastern Washington's record is not very good, but they have played a murderous schedule and historically they have been a solid program.

:posterwu: :goshocks: :posterwsu:

[83 Flyer]

I have one more thought before retiring for the evening....

No doubt - Kelly is off to a great year, but let's not forget about Melissa's 50+ digs in NC and fantastic numbers from last year. There's a reason why she was highly recruited....she has other skills besides digging. Have you seen her back row sets during the first home tourney? Smooth!

I predict that Melissa will be the other setter if and when Lambo is ready to run a 6-2. Any takers?

Cheers!