Shocks at UNI

[pogo]

I can't believe they won't be "motivated" to improve their play. ;-)

[1stThings1st]

This team has unlimited upside. 2 service errors in the last 5 points of a set against the 17th ranked team is just plain not smart. Untill this team fixes the service errors we will have more disappointments and not make the Valley tournamnet final.

[1972Shocker]

I have always disliked service errors myself but I do understand the need to serve a team like UNI tough and sometimes that can lead to more errors. I also understand you are going to lose the majority of your service points to a team like UNI. But I do dislike not giving yourself at least a chance, especially in critical late points.

Perhaps more troubling to me was UNI's 7 aces (and they only had 4 service errors). It is hard to know for sure from listening on the radio but it sounded like a number of those aces resulted more from lousy service reception by the Shocks than great serves by the Panthers. And those are points the Shocks will win the majority of the time.

Perhaps the biggest problem last night based on Lambo's post-game comments was the team's mindset and lack of confidence. I think that was exhibited by the lousy starts in every set as the Shocks fell behind by 4, 5 and 6 points respectively in the first 8 to 12 points of each set. Very difficult to deal with a strong opponent like UNI when you do that.

I think the serve and service reception problems are fixable. Dealing with the mindset and confidence issues will be tougher for Lambo.

However, with that said I do want to commend the Ladies for not throwing in the towel after digging themselves into the early holes (at least in Sets 1 and 3). Maybe that was because they took the pressure off by falling behind so far early. Hard to say. Statistically the match looked to be very close.

We have Illinois State and Indiana State next weekend before travelling to Missouri State the following weekend. That should give Lambo the opportunity he needs to work on some things and regain some confidence going into the MSU match which will be another good test.

If we take care if ILS and INS as we should and get past MSU in Springfield than all will be well with the world again (until the next time that it isn't).

:goshocks: