Shocker volleyball team falls flat in home-opening defeat

Wichita State’s volleyball team relies on freshmen and sophomores. It looked like a team not ready for conference play, when everything gets more serious and the opponent knows strengths and weaknesses from past seasons.

The Shockers don’t want to hear about inexperience, even after a 3-0 (21-25, 22-25, 19-25) loss to Illinois State on Friday in the Missouri Valley Conference opener at Koch Arena.

“We’re all Division I athletes,” WSU junior middle Katie Reilly said. “They might be inexperienced on the court, but this is not our first game. They’re not young anymore. That’s not our excuse.”

WSU (6-5, 0-1 MVC) played six freshmen and one senior. Illinois State (7-5, 1-0) played six seniors and a junior on its way to holding the Shockers to a season-low .066 attack percentage. The Redbirds swept WSU for the first time since 2001 and won at Koch Arena for the first time since 2006.

“I made a decision two weeks ago, I don’t know how old my players are anymore,” WSU coach Chris Lamb said. “I don’t care how old they are. This isn’t about old and young. This is our team. This team can win. Let lightning strike me down if I talk about young and old and this all year long.”

WSU’s offense sputtered all match due to an absence of production from the left and right attackers. Reilly, playing middle blocker, had 10 kills and hit .381. She got little help and the five players doing most of the swinging on the left and right combined for a 12 kills and 19 errors.

“We just couldn’t score,” Lamb said. “With such little firepower, you’re always sort of surprised that you’re even in it.”

Lamb tried several combinations, including moving freshman Mikaela Raudsepp from the right to the left and playing sophomore Katy Dudzinski for the first time since Sept. 6. Freshman Jenny Whitledge sat for the first two sets before playing in the third. Junior left Ashlyn Driskill, who averaged 15 kills a match in last weekend’s Bluejay Invitational, finished with six and five errors. Raudsepp, WSU’s scoring leader, had seven errors and three kills.

Lamb saw what he called funky contact, suggesting uncomfortable swings. Assistant coach Sean Carter blamed nerves.

“I watched balls come off of our hands that look nothing like what I see in practice,” Lamb said. “I didn’t see my team out there.”

The match turned in the second set when WSU led 14-10 after a service ace by Emily Hiebert. The Redbirds tied the match at 16-all before WSU scored the next two points. With WSU up 20-17 after a kill by Abbie Lehman, Driskill hit into the antenna and then smacked one long. Jaelyn Keene’s spike on an overpass allowed Illinois State to tie it 20-all. The Redbirds outscored WSU 5-2 to take a 2-0 lead into the locker room.

“Wichita was leading most of the second set,” Illinois State coach Melissa Myers said. “We were able to finish and we were able to go in 2-0, which is a very different situation than going in 1-1. That really helped us to have some confidence and some momentum.”

Lamb said he returned from the break expecting to go five sets. Instead, the Shockers fell apart early in the third set.

While Illinois State forced WSU’s offense out of system, its middles thrived. Keene, a freshman, recorded 11 kills and hit .500. Senior Emily Schneider added nine kills.

“We were able to stay in system and keep our middles going,” Myers said. “They have a very good setter, but I thought we got her on the move a little bit and so she wasn’t able to run her middles, probably, as effectively as she wanted to.”

The Redbirds jumped to a 9-1 lead in the third set. WSU rallied to tie it 13-all before Illinois State pulled away. That led to a lengthy postgame talk in the Shocker locker room. There are 17 games remaining in the MVC schedule, eight at Koch Arena, and Reilly doesn’t want a repeat of Friday’s defeat.

“We’re never going to lose here again, so you can put that in the paper,” Reilly said.

This story was originally published September 19, 2014 at 10:11 PM with the headline "Shocker volleyball team falls flat in home-opening defeat."