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First home matches of the season people. After a summer without WSU sports, I can't wait to see the Shocks in person. Hope to see a lot of you there!
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First home matches of the season people. After a summer without WSU sports, I can't wait to see the Shocks in person. Hope to see a lot of you there!"Cotton scared me - I left him alone." - B4MSU (Bear Nation poster) in reference to heckling players -
Shocks sweep an outmanned SFA LadyJacks team 16-18-13.
Perhaps a bit of an uneven performance by the Shocks overall with periods of very good play and a few patches of not so good play. Early in the season with a ton of newcomers.
As far as individual performances go I thought the newcomers stood out.
Camri Z looks to be the real deal with a very good attack line (13-2-25 = 0.440) and a nice looking service game (3 aces).
Sam Sanders came off the bench late in the 2nd set and promptly showed why Lambo has been so high on her (8-1-13 = 0.538).
Camri and Sam may have been helped by SFA perhaps keying on Sarah McGee in the middle.
I thought Jada Witham was also pretty solid when she was in hitting 4-1-6 = 0.500 plus 1 solo block and 4 block assists.
Elizabeth Field, Alyssa Heath and Emily Adney all showed flashes of being very good players. Emily did not have a very good hitting night but contributed 4 aces (with only 2 errors) with a particularly nice service run at the beginning of the 3rd set.
The Shocks have more than a few arrows in their quiver that will only get stronger as they age.
Sadly, it does not appear like Lindsey is going to be able to be much of a factor on the floor, however, I have no doubt that she will be a valuable member of the team in other ways.
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Shockers looked O K tonight. But what I liked best was when Amanda kicked that chair. If those chairs weren't there she would have made that save. Let me be the first to say those chairs need to go. There are enough seats in the arena without them.First a Baseball fan then a Volleyball fan and then I guess I follow the basketball team.Comment
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I don't think we looked very good at all last night.....which is even more encouraging in my eyes.
.223 is not a good percentage against a SFA. Can you imagine what it will be when the ladies start clicking?
Defensively we are further along than I expected us to be. This is a big, athletic, talented group.
If they continue to develop, they will be really good, sooner than later.
UNI dropped a tough match to a good Dayton team last night, further damaging the possibility of multiple conference NCAA births.Comment
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Part of the problem is that we were running an aggressive offensive with 3 middles in the rotation. Running double quicks can produce some great offense, but it is high risk/high reward and demands great passing to let the setter be in a position to set those quicks. When our passing was good, we looked ok, but we went through stretches of bad passing that forced us to push more attacks to the left than to the middle (although Camri certainly made that work decently).Originally posted by WuDrWu
Once you saw us go back to having more right side hitters in the rotation with Sam and Alysa, we had some nice moments on offense. We can play a more traditional lineup, with a more well rounded attack, if those young right side hitters can keep producing like they did last night.
We will need to be better to extend our streak of NCAA appearances, but there is no doubt that we have the capacity to be much, much better."Cotton scared me - I left him alone." - B4MSU (Bear Nation poster) in reference to heckling playersComment
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Last night's game
Lambo said after the game that they didn't execute what they practiced last week very well.Comment
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That was a tough 5-set loss to #20 Dayton by UNI. Not sure that will hurt too bad.Originally posted by WuDrWu
Creighton did sweep St. Louis and Missouri State did sweep Texas A&M. Not sure how good those wins will prove to be. Both STL and TAM were in the NCAA tournament last year. While STL is picked to finished 2nd behind Dayton in the A-10 they are off to a 1-3 start with losses to Milwaukee, IPFW and Creighton and a win over Tulsa so they look like they may not be as strong as expected. TAM is picked to finish 7th in the Big XII.
The loss that could come back to haunt the Shocks was the loss to Miami last weekend after the big win over OU. This weekend's matches against SFA and Portland aren't going to do anything for us.
Still a storng tournament next weekend, a win over SMU and splitting our matches with UNI and MSU during the regular season could position us pretty well assuming no major stumbles otherwise.
Perhaps it is too early to really worry much about this. Actually coming into this season my expectations did not include a trip to the NCAA's. I had geared myself up just to enjoy the process of watching a relatively young group grow and improve. After seeing them, I have perhaps seen my hopes elevated a little in that regard. Now next year I expect the team to be ready to rumble.
:goshocks:Comment
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UNI just beat #6 Minnesota at their place in 5.Comment
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:yahoo: :yahoo:Originally posted by bunck
Good win for UNI. Great for the valley.Comment
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If it's a great win for the Valley (and it is) it's even a better win for UNI.
The Panthers are no doubt going to very tough this year.'
Kudos to the Panters on this one. :good:Comment
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Wow! I did not attend tonight's match due to a function my wife committed to and I just heard the surprising outcome on the drive home.
What happenend?
:(Comment
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As Coach Lamb said in the post-game interview, "We have got to find somebody not named Camri that can score from the antennas." The middles were fine.Originally posted by 1972Shocker
At this point, the BYU tournament is very scary.Comment
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To many unforced errors. They Portland #9 dominated the Shox. Certain Shockers hitter would rather "tap" than "hit with authority". First time out to see the Shox this year, but I was not impressed - hopefully it was just a bad night or Portland is good team.Originally posted by 1972ShockerComment
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Not sure what happened to the team I watched in Norman last week.
I love our depth, but we are going to have to find some consistency in the lineup.
I am a little suprised at how average we appear (to me at least) to be at setter right now.
The mistakes like being in the wrong position, not adjusting to the people on the floor, struggling with plays etc...those make sense to me, especially with a young team and there were times last night we had 4 freshman on the floor.
Obviously, this team has a wide range of possibilities. I didn't see the downside until last night.
I didn't have the same positive impression of our middles that Lambo did. Yes they were better than our outsides but sheesh, that's really not saying much and Sarah is a 2 time Valley All Conference player....we SHOULD be pretty good in the middle.
I hate to say this.....but we don't seem to want it very bad right now. I would rate our program (on a 1-10 scale) 8-10 in almost any category you could choose.....toughness and competitiveness would get about a 4.Comment
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That's an interesting observation Doc and one that is difficult to counter at this point.Originally posted by WuDrWu
That could be impacted by a couple of things.
A team that lacks self-confidence will be less likely to exhibit a toughness and a swagger. Right now this team seems to be questioning themselves somewhat.
We have 9 redshirt freshman. A year away from the pressures of actual match competition may have dulled the competitive edge of these players somewhat. Still you expect your toughness and competitiveness to flow mostly form your upperclass players.
Not sure there is a lot Lambo can do to influence this. Hopefully, the Ladies will be able to dig down and rachet up the intensity to a higher level, if in fact that is what is needed.
In any case, we Lambo and his team seem to be in search mode for the time being. Hopefully, they will be able to find some answers as the season progresses.Comment
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