Wichita State volleyball’s Dani Mostrom shines as second option for setting

Secondary setters are rarely discussed and rarely highlighted, which is a mistake in the mind of Wichita State volleyball coach Chris Lamb.

“People talk about volleyball being in system or out of system,” Lamb said. “That’s in system when the setter is near the net with the ball in her hands. Everything else is considered out of system. Why is it all or nothing? Why can’t be it ‘How in system can you be, out of system?’ ”

Libero Dani Mostrom handles most of WSU’s attempts to stay in system when setter Emily Hiebert is out of the play after a dig. It is a job Mostrom relishes, quickly switching from defense to play-making and keeping the location of the hitters organized in her head so she can deliver sets to the right places.

She realizes those situations can produce set-deciding swing points if she can rescue a tough start, take the advantage from the attacking team, and turn in into a kill.

“It’s one of my most favorite parts of the game,” she said. “I don’t do it often, but when I do I get a ton of joy out of seeing another hitter go up and swing up at a ball they don’t normally get. It’s a bad-ball situation, and if you get a kill on it, it’s fun.”

The Shockers (12-6, 3-1 Missouri Valley Conference) play at Northern Iowa (9-9, 3-2) at 7 p.m., Friday. On Saturday, they play at Drake (12-10, 3-2).

Mostrom, a junior, ranks second on the Shockers with 69 assists, including a career-high nine twice this season. When the Shockers can’t get Hiebert involved, Lamb is comfortable with Mostrom’s skills finding hitters.

“You can add up the rallies where people either do or don’t get a comfortable swing and Dani’s serve-receive is the best we’ve got and her secondary setting is elite,” Lamb said. “When she bumps it up there, I feel like, at a high rate, we ought to be able to get under it and hit it hard.”

Mostrom, from Springfield, Mo., set in high school and club play. Setting from her spot in the back row is different and she usually relies on long, slow sets to players on the pins. She performs daily drills that sharpen her technique, mostly working on bad-ball situations away from the net. The most common is called the tower drill and features Lamb setting up ladders with wooden squares to target for sets. Liberos are not allowed to extend their arms inside the 10-foot line to the net.

“Depending on where the dig goes, you have to really get a good eye and contact with the ball to where you can put it high enough to get on top of the tower and still in the right direction,” Mostrom said. “Working on serve-receive has helped me a lot, because I get a feel for where the ball contacts on my platform and how much I need to get power through my legs, through my arms to push it up as high as it needs to be.”

Worth noting — WSU enters the weekend in a three-way tie atop the MVC with Loyola and Missouri State. Missouri State plays at Drake on Friday and at UNI on Saturday. Loyola plays host to Indiana State and Illinois State … Friday’s match is on ESPN3 … UNI has won four straight matches over WSU. The Shockers own a 29-match win streak over Drake … UNI lost matches to Indiana State and Illinois State last and coach Bobbi Petersen made changes during Friday’s 3-2 loss to Indiana State. For the third set, she moved libero Amie Held to an attacker and used Kendyl Sorge at libero.

This story was originally published October 8, 2015 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Wichita State volleyball’s Dani Mostrom shines as second option for setting."