Wichita State volleyball sweeps Evansville, finishes alone atop MVC

Senior Nights are usually a celebration, but Wichita State volleyball’s was extra-special Saturday night, wrapping up the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title with a quick 3-0 dispatching of Evansville at Koch Arena.

The only intangible that remained was settled about 15 minutes later, when news came of Missouri State’s sweep of Southern Illinois, giving the Shockers (24-8, 15-3) the outright title, their sixth MVC championship. WSU, which has won 13 of its last 15 matches, will get the top seed in the conference tournament and a first-round bye.

All three seniors – Katie Reilly, Mary Ashton Floyd and Jaclyn Roddy – got in and contributed. Reilly had eight kills in 15 attempts, second only to Abbie Lehman’s team high 11.

Floyd converted seven of nine kills in the third set – six of which came down the stretch and sparked a decisive 25-4 final-set clincher.

Sweeping the Purple Aces (8-24, 2-16) had added significance, as it came less than 24 hours after the Shockers were swept by SIU, creating a first-place tie.

Coach Chris Lamb said the improvement was evident Saturday night. The Shockers responded by committing just seven errors in the three sets out of 87 attempts.

“We’re just excited that we were attacking,” Lamb said. “It was ‘Let’s just keep the ball off the ground and inside the squares, and play volleyball. Make adjustments if we needed to, and that’s pretty much what we did (Saturday night).”

WSU was in charge from the outset, racing to a 10-4 lead in the first set. Evansville rallied to within 14-10 before the Shockers pulled away for a 25-15 victory. In the second game, the Purple Aces trailed 3-1 early, and they never could get any closer than 23-19 after that as WSU took the set 25-19.

In the final set the Shockers hit the accelerator and ran away. Dani Mostrom served five straight points, then Hanna Shelton matched her, and Jody Larson served nine straight.

Many of those points were decided by Floyd, who said she’d treasure her Senior Night.

“It was a lot of fun to get out there, not so much about me, but just to be with my team out there,” Floyd said. “I sat there in the gym (Friday) and just kind of looked out and kind of remembered all the great moments throughout the years. It’s just been really fun.

“I just wanted to go out as good as I could and get good swings.”

It was a good night all around, Lamb said.

“That was fun for everybody,” he said. “To wind down, having the final game at home, getting (the seniors) all in, you don’t always get that. It was exciting that we got all the things to go the way we wanted to after a very hard night to swallow.

“Just what the doctor ordered.”

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 9:57 PM with the headline "Wichita State volleyball sweeps Evansville, finishes alone atop MVC."