How WSU’s volleyball seniors used past failure to spur on undefeated AAC title run

In its first season in the American Athletic Conference, the Wichita State volleyball team secured sole possession of the conference championship on Sunday at Southern Methodist by sweeping its seventh straight match.

The No. 21 Shockers are 18-0 in the AAC and can become just the third team in the Chris Lamb era to complete a conference slate undefeated with two matches remaining against a 9-20 Memphis team.

This season is special, not just because Wichita State is poised for the third-longest winning streak in program history, but because many of the seniors who make Wichita State the power it is today were freshmen on the 2013 team — the only WSU team to fail to make the NCAA Tournament in the last decade.

“This group of young ladies has been here for a long time and they’ve achieved a lot and I’m happy I got to be a part of it,” Lamb said before the weekend matches. “Now we’re watching some of Wichita State’s best-ever do their thing.”

Setter Emily Hiebert became Wichita State’s career leader in assists with 34 on Sunday against SMU to push her career total to 4,821, passing Mary Elizabeth Hooper with 4,820 from 2008-11.

Middle Abbie Lehman is a three-time All-American, well on her way to a fourth. She has 356 kills and is hitting .432 for the season with 134 blocks.

Outside Mikaela Raudsepp has been a veteran presence capable of pushing WSU’s offense to another level, as she did Sunday when she had a team-high 14 kills and hit .423.

All three are four-year starters for Wichita State and remember that feeling of missing the NCAA Tournament vividly.

“A lot of people would look at that and say that was a ‘wake-up call’ for us,” Raudsepp said. “But I don’t think we weren’t awake. I just think we were really inexperienced and that’s something you can’t train for.

“I would give anything for that year back.”

Lehman agreed, but she also pointed out that the failure is part of what drove them to ultimately become of the most successful senior classes in Wichita State history along with liberos Gabi Mostrom and Hanna Shelton and hitter Jenny Whitledge.

“It definitely pushed us to improve as a team,” Lehman said. “We wanted to make sure something like that never happened again.”

After playing so many sets together over the past four years, the seniors say they have noticed this season how that chemistry has translated to points on the court.

In AAC play, Wichita State has swept 14 of 18 matches and won 49 of 54 sets.

“Emily has been my setter for my entire career and Abbie has been next to me or two away from me for my whole career,” Raudsepp said. “You get so used to playing with people and you know what balls they can reach on blocking and what balls they can get to on defense. You get those extra points that a young team might not because we know each other so well out there.”

Maintaining such a long winning streak hasn’t been a mental struggle for the Shockers.

They are motivated to do everything they can to host the first two rounds in the NCAA Tournament. The new polls come out Monday, and WSU sits No. 16 in the RPI report and No. 21 in the coaches poll.

“This team gets more and more excited after every match, I think,” Lehman said. “We’re so pumped to still be undefeated and we’re on this long winning streak. I don’t think anyone is exhausted or feeling tired or anything. We’re more excited about all of this than anything.”

That’s an exciting prospect for Lamb, who thinks this Wichita State team has the potential to make it out of the first weekend like the 2012 team did in its run to the Sweet 16.

“We’ve got a lot of things covered, for sure,” Lamb said. “We are consistent, we’re balanced. We’ve been able to keep good players down defensively. We seem to hold our own in the serve and pass game night-in and night-out. There’s a lot of things to feel pretty good about with this team.”

This story was originally published November 19, 2017 at 3:32 PM with the headline "How WSU’s volleyball seniors used past failure to spur on undefeated AAC title run."