Well-balanced offense keeps Wichita State humming to climb American conference standings
The offense for the Wichita State volleyball team continues to hum, as the Shockers recorded back-to-back sweeps of conference opponents this past weekend inside Koch Arena.
After an uneven start to the season, WSU has won eight of its last nine matches and sits one game back in the loss column for the top of the American Athletic Conference standings with a 5-1 start.
A big reason why is the balanced nature of the team’s offense, which finished with a .329 hitting percentage in a straight-set win (25-11, 25-13, 25-18) over Temple and a .307 hitting percentage two days later in a sweep (25-21, 25-16, 25-21) over South Florida.
Despite not having a single player in the top-10 conference leaderboard for kills per set, the Shockers currently own the second-most-efficient offense in the American.
“When you’re preparing for our team now, you’re looking at an offense that is very well-balanced and capable of scoring while being balanced,” WSU coach Chris Lamb said on his radio show on Monday. “A lot of coaches would purposely minimize sets for certain athletes, and while I understand keeping the balls in the hands of the girls that can score, it is nice to have an offense where all six rotations we can go anywhere we want and play at the same level.”
A number of different WSU hitters have taken turns leading the team in kills. And this past weekend it was the turn for Kansas native Sophia Rohling, a returning all-conference opposite hitter.
She logged 15 kills on just 23 swings, one off her season-best outings, in the three-set win over Temple, then once again led WSU with nine kills against USF to hit .442 for the weekend.
Rohling (2.71) leads a Shocker offense that currently has five hitters averaging better than two kills per set, a list that also includes junior middle Natalie Foster (2.64), junior outside Ba Koehler (2.26), junior middle Morgan Stout (2.25) and sophomore outside Emerson Wilford (2.07). It’s not a stretch to think senior Brylee Kelly, the preseason AAC Co-Player of the Year, will soon join them at 1.90 kills per set.
WSU hasn’t had five players finish a full season with more than two kills per set since 2013. Running such a well-balanced offense is a credit to the play of senior setter Izzi Strand and improved passing, Lamb said.
“When you have to work for kills and when it’s not a good pass and your setter isn’t at the net with the ball, that usually shows up in the box score,” Lamb said. “(Strand’s assist numbers) indicate how it’s going, and it’s going really, really well. That’s good for her and good for our team. A lot of things have to go right to get those numbers up and I couldn’t be happier right now.”
Lamb said he has recently implemented a new training drill that has emphasized the importance of side-outs, which has translated to recent wins.
“We’ve taken a new drill and tailor-made the scoring system for our team. And now we’ve got it synced right, and it’s been magic ever since,” Lamb said. “Once we figured out how to rig the drills to even it out, you find out who’s fighting to win, and this (past) weekend brought out a side-out mentality in our team. That is a correlating stat to winning and I like our focus on that right now. Who wouldn’t want that?”
Wichita State is primed to continue its hot streak with a road doubleheader coming up on the schedule at Tulane, which has a 4-14 record and is winless in six tries in conference play. The Shockers play in New Orleans at 6 p.m. Friday and 12:30 p.m. Saturday, with both matches streaming only on ESPN+.
This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
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