Wichita State volleyball wakes up, rolls over Drake 3-1

Wichita State lost a set to Drake on Friday, a safe indication the Shockers didn’t operate at full go.

Coach Chris Lamb saw it. A quiet gathering of fans saw it. So did the players.

“We just need to make sure we take every game seriously,” setter Emily Hiebert said. “I don’t want to say we overlooked them, but we just need to make sure we’re playing our hardest every game.”

So Lamb voiced his displeasure, telling the Shockers they looked disinterested and wondering why middle Abbie Lehman didn’t dominate the Bulldogs as she did her teammates in practice. With that, and a switch to the 5-1 offense, WSU controlled the final two sets and defeated Drake 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 25-15, 25-17) on Friday at Koch Arena.

“I’m not going to sit around and not say something if I think our volleyball teams looks disinterested,” Lamb said. “I think they were pretty excitable over on the other side of the net to start that match. We seemed to be dragging through the mud.”

The Shockers (20-7, 11-2 Missouri Valley Conference) defeated Drake for the 31st straight time, allowing the Bulldogs to win six sets in those 31 matches. The win gave Lamb his 13th straight 20-win season and kept the Shockers in first place ahead of Southern Illinois, which plays Evansville on Saturday.

WSU hit .265 and .479 in the final two sets after hitting .216 and .179 in the first two. The Shockers said the switch came more from emotion than the change from the 6-2 to the 5-1.

“I was kind of challenged by Lambo,” Lehman said. “It’s not that I wasn’t focused to start, but I focused in even more and had more of a (aggressive) attitude.”

Lehman, who finished with 14 kills, recorded two in the third set and six in the fourth. WSU, after committing 11 attack errors in the first two sets, committed six in the final two. Lamb moved to the 5-1 to provide more passing and defense and it paid off by holding Drake (14-17, 5-9) to attack percentages of .079 and .171 in the final two sets.

“The 5-1 would give us more passing and defensive options and we hope we would have enough firepower with (the 5-1),” Lamb said. “It sort of became more evident to me that we needed to ball-handle better.”

Defensive specialist Hanna Shelton had eight digs in the final two sets for WSU and Jenny Whitledge added seven and three kills.

“In the third set, defensively we were still holding them at bay,” Drake coach Darrin McBroom said. “Offensively, we were at eight kills, eight errors. Our offense gave out first. Then by set 4, their offense was really rolling.”

Mikaela Raudsepp totaled 13 kills for WSU. Hiebert had 38 assists and 11 digs. Makena Schoene led Drake with 11 kills.

Reilly honored — WSU senior middle blocker Katie Reilly earned a spot on the CoSIDA Academic All-District second team.

Reilly, from Cypress, Texas, has a 3.93 GPA in exercise science.

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 10:25 PM with the headline "Wichita State volleyball wakes up, rolls over Drake 3-1."