11-12

12-12

13-12 WKU timeout

Kostelecky with a great block on Matthews

14-12

14-13

Again we have a lead and we let it go. wtf.

14-14 block#17

14-15 Rice challenge

Both set 3 and set 5 Rice had set/match point.

Arrrgh. That stumble on match point. Sigh.

14-16 Matthews with 30 kills, 13 blocks. One man recking crew.

Great match though. Rice left everything on the court.

And we have to come back here for the conference tournament.

Courtley (career-high 22 kills), Bichelmeyer (career-high 19 kills) and Maruska (14 kills, 15 digs) all played their hearts out. Graham played well (51 assists, 2 blocks, 14 digs), but might have been outplayed by WKU's setter. Adekunle picked a bad time to have a really poor game. IMO, from matches I've seen, if she gets blocked a couple times early, she totally loses her aggressiveness.

Quote:VolleyballMag.com
@VBMagazine
BIG MATCH FINAL: Tops win a crazy finish to clinch @ConferenceUSA! Lauren Matthews caps an incredible performance on her Senior Night (30K/12B!!) withback-to-back kills as #21 @WKUVolleyball (26-2, 14-0 C-USA) wins an all-time thriller vs #21 Rice (22-3, 12-1) #GoTops #NCAAVB

VolleyballMag.com
@VBMagazine
In the final two rallies of the match, every single set went to Matthews. The entire Rice team knew that's where WKU was going offensively. It simply did not matter

A rematch in the #CUSAVB title match next Sunday seems inevitable

Lack of height hurting us with blocks.

(11-10-2022 10:44 PM)Texasowl Wrote:  Lack of height hurting us with blocks.

WKU is just a very good blocking team. However, I was really impressed that only Adekunle was intimidated by it and altered her game. Courtley, Bechelmeyer and Maruska soldiered on and kept aggressively hammering. We got big matches from all three of them. And our backline defense was phenominal-- Gabby early, then McCardell, Harris, Maruska and Graham were making save after save against Matthews and Briggs. In the end, Matthews just couldn't be stopped. I believe we ended up with 7 more kills and 10 more digs than WKU, but their 18-9 edge in blocks and our 12 service errors (mostly in the first half of the match) proved to be the difference. Oh, and the home court and crowd advantage. In the end that might have allowed WKU to stem our 4-0 run and 14-12 lead. I doubt we would have lost that at home.

After last night’s results Rice remained at #17 in RPI. WKU moved up to #25.

No Rice players on the all-academic team.
https://conferenceusa.com/news/2022/11/1...unced.aspx

(11-11-2022 01:56 PM)dragon2owl Wrote:  No Rice players on the all-academic team.
https://conferenceusa.com/news/2022/11/1...unced.aspx

Really disappointing. This may be a first, and not a good kind.

Not sure about volleyball, but there have been some recent teams in other sports that I recall we were shut out in. One recent one was the 2022 baseball all-academic team for the conference.

https://conferenceusa.com/news/2022/5/23...unced.aspx