Wichita State volleyball defeats Bowling Green

OMAHA — Wichita State junior Ashlyn Driskill played in 10 of the team’s first 29 sets. The Shockers lost all 10, which explains why the experiment with Driskill hitting on the right side ended Friday.

Driskill returned to her familiar spot on the left and pounded out a career-high 20 kills to help WSU’s volleyball team defeat Bowling Green 3-2 (25-22, 25-23, 28-30, 35-33, 16-14) at Sokol Arena in the Bluejay Invitational. The match took 2 hours, 37 minutes to play and included a third set with 14 ties and nine leads changes and a fourth set with 17 ties and six lead changes.

Coach Chris Lamb moved Driskill to the right in August to protect her surgically repaired left knee from punishment while landing. She handled the duties well in practice. In WSU’s first two tournaments, she totaled eight kills and nine errors.

“Practice and games are completely different,” Driskill said. “I love the approaches from (the left), so it feels better. Much more comfortable.”

Lamb is comfortable with one of his most experienced attackers back in the offense.

“We gave it a few weeks and just decided it’s not in the cards,” Lamb said. “She wants to do what she does and we’re going to let it go. Ashlyn had a good week of practice — three days in a row where she was our best outside hitter. ”

WSU (5-3) won its fourth five-set match of the season after blowing a 2-0 lead and serving for the match twice in the third set and three times in the fourth. Bowling Green (2-5) rallied from a 14-11 deficit with three straight points in the final set before WSU’s Katie Reilly ended the match with two kills.

The Shockers endured plenty of frustration in turning a potentially easy night into a grind. In the third set, they rallied from a 19-16 deficit to lead 24-23 and 28-27. Neither time could they finish off the Falcons. In the fourth set, WSU trailed 20-16 and rallied to take leads of 23-22 and 24-23. WSU’s service errors at 31-all and 32-all gave Bowling Green leads. WSU’s defense allowed Bowling Green’s Nicole Slimko to get loose for 10 kills in the set.

None of that showed in the final moments of the fifth set, when Reilly and Driskill exited the huddle laughing and smiling.

“It had been five sets and I had been intense, telling people to clean it up, we need to win,” Reilly said. “But I knew we were going to win. Sometimes, you have to laugh. It’s a game. Just relax and play.”

Lamb played 12 players, six of whom are in their first season of college volleyball. After eight matches, all on the road, he is thrilled to be 5-3.

“We‘ve grinded for these wins,” he said. “You’ve got a young team out there and we fought for victories. You want to see that. These guys have been in the fire and they’ve learned how to not quit and go hard and let the coaches make adjustments.”

In the fifth set, WSU went up 7-4 on a kill by Mikaela Raudsepp and 9-5 on her tip over the blockers. WSU pushed its lead to 14-11 on an attack error by the Falcons, then gave up three straight points. After a Shocker timeout, Reilly scored twice.

“We definitely know how to fight,” Reilly said. “We’ve played five five-game matches and we’re 4-1. However, it does also show we get in those situations a lot. We should have had that game in three.”

Raudsepp, a freshman, contributed 17 kills, one short of her season high. Reilly added 13 and hit .462.

Slimko finished with 16 kills and 10 errors. Alyssa Maloney had 16 kills and hit .448 for the Falcons.

WSU plays Pepperdine at 10 a.m. Saturday and host Creighton at 7:30 p.m.

This story was originally published September 12, 2014 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Wichita State volleyball defeats Bowling Green."