The Oklahoma Sooners travel to Corvallis, OR to play two matches this weekend against Oregon State and Boise State. The Sooners opened the season in good form last weekend in Indiana as they swept their weekend play 3-0 and won 9 of the 11 sets that they played. The Sooners rallied to win their straight sets after dropping the first set against Ball State in their final match. New Head Coach, Coach Mansfield has quickly put together a collection of returning players, transfers and new freshman for the Sooners in 2023.
The Sooners will play Oregon State today, Sept 1st at 5 PM CST. The match will be streamed on PAC-12 Insider. I do not know if that requires a subscription. I will find out about 4:55 PM. Live Stats are also available. The final match of the weekend will be on Saturday at 1 PM against Boise State. This match will only be on Live Stats.
When the Big 12 VB awards were released this week I was a little surprised to see that Alexis Shelton was left out of the awards. She totalled 26 Kills and 29 Points against Ball State and 62 points and 55 Kills for the 3 matches OU played. That placed her in 3rd overall in the Big 12 in Total Kills and Total Points and #1 in Kills per Set and #2 in Points per set. Shelton's 29 Digs were also worthy of a mention. Erin Livingston of BYU was awarded the Offensive P-O-T-W.
Here is the Sooner staff article about the Sooners weekend in Oregon.
https://soonersports.com/news/2023/8/31 ... vitational
Last year, Oregon State was 7-23 as they lost their last 11 matches. This year in 2023, they are 1-2 s they have lost to Montana State and Kennesaw State while defeating North Dakota in their last outing in 3 straight sets.
Last year Boise State was 15-14 but they finished the season 1-8. This year in 2023, thay are 2-0 as they played two matches against Idaho State last weekend and won both matches in 3 straight sets.
I think the Sooners have a good chance to have a successful weekend. I think that is defined as a 2-0 weekend probably. The Sooners have established a good rotational lineup with Chamberlain and Kemohah as the center spokes of the team as the Setter and the Libero. the front line of Burts and Pfiffner at MB and along with Shelton, Preston and Ellison at OH was effective last weekend. The back row players and servers in Corral-Blagojevich, Chloe Kaminski, Kemohah and at times Thompson and Fay. There is a bit if a short lineup when there is Ellison, Chamberlain and Pfiffner on the front row but if there is at least one OH in the back row, there are still 3 hitters for Chamberlain to feed the ball to for points.
With Corral-Blagojevich, Burts, Kemohah and Chamberlain the Sooners have four diverse good servers. If they can get Shelton, Preston, Kaminski and maybe Thompson or Ray to help fill the other 2 slots consistently, the Sooner could improve their serving game over 2022.
A key to watch this weekend is if Pfiffner plays after perhaps picking up a bad ankle in the last set against Ball State. That could press Kelsey Carrington into the lineup at MB. Carrignton is a bit longer than Pfiffner and can fill-in if needed, I believe.
Good luck to the Sooners this weekend. Win one match at a time and play well.
Boomer Sooner!
Sooner VB Team travels to Oregon for the Asics Inv'nal to Play!
-
OUBeliever56A
- Posts: 4753
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:44 am
- 2
- Location: Norman
- Has thanked: 628 times
- Been thanked: 2692 times
-
OUBeliever56A
- Posts: 4753
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:44 am
- 2
- Location: Norman
- Has thanked: 628 times
- Been thanked: 2692 times
Well, between the OU Women's Soccer Team, the OU Women's Golf Team and the OU Women's VB Team, the Sooners had a tough two days out west. The VB Team playing Oregon State at 5 PM, Norman time, never really got started in their match and continued the trend. Oregon State opened strong and never really let up during the 3 sets that were played. OU briefly put up a good fight in the 2nd set, but lost in 3 straight sets 19-25, 22-25 and 16-25. It was the first loss of the season for the Sooners.
The problem for the Sooners in the their match with Oregon State was errors, lots of errors. They had 19 kill errors (21.6% of the attempts), 2 setting errors, 7 serving errors, and 8 receiving errors. That is 36 points that the Beavers did not have to 'earn'. Oregon State had 23 errors. That put the Sooners at a 13 point deficit in the match.
On the positive side, OU had 34 Kills, 4 serving aces, 4.0 points on blocks and 29 digs in the match. Oregon State had 39 kills, 8 serving aces, 10.0 points on blocks and 26 digs.
OU only attacked well in the 2nd set with a .316 Hitting% with 16 Kills and 3 errors in 28 attempts. For the match they had a .170 Hitting%. That makes it hard to win. For the match, Oregon State had a .373 Hitting%. Oregon State played well at the net offensively and defensively.
Oregon State played a 6-2 offensive set (2 setters used as the setters sub for each other to keep the setter on the back row). One of those setters was Amanda Burns, who played for Coach Mansfield at LMU. Burns led the way for OSU with 19 assists and 9.0 points with 3 serving aces and 6 Kills. Mychael Vernon led OSU in points with 20.0 as she had 15 Kills 5.0 points on blocks.
In one change that might have been due to an injury was that Kelsey Carrington got the start at one of the MB's for the Sooners instead of Pfiffner. Carrington played in the first two sets and Pfiffner played in the 3rd set. Shelton led the Sooners again with 13.5 points and had 28 opportunities on set plays. Shelton had the highest hitting% of all hitters with over 3 attempts at .214%. Shelton had 12 Kills, Ellison had 7, Burts had 6 and Preston had 4. OU's blocking game at the net was almost absent in the match with only 5 shared blocks and 1 solo block. With a strong hitting game at the net for OSU, Kemohah and Thompson led the way with 9 and 7 digs respectively.
During the match the Sooners tired to improve the defense on the back row with more non-hitters on the back row. That left the Sooners with just two hitters on the front row when Chamberlain was on the front row half of the time. Kemohah, Thompson, Corral-Blagojevich, and Kaminski played most of the time on the back row for the Sooners last night which minimized the chances for back-sets (sets to a back row player coming forward). Shelton and Preston did not play much on the back row.
Raylee Fay did pick up her first service ace in the match against OSU. Thompson also picked up 2 service aces and Kaminski had 1 ace also.
The Sooners have chalked up their first loss now and can attempt to forget it and correct some things.
The Sooners play Boise State today at 1 PM. Hopefully the Sooners can come out ready to play against the Broncos and pick up their 4th win against just one loss for the season.
Boomer Sooner!
The problem for the Sooners in the their match with Oregon State was errors, lots of errors. They had 19 kill errors (21.6% of the attempts), 2 setting errors, 7 serving errors, and 8 receiving errors. That is 36 points that the Beavers did not have to 'earn'. Oregon State had 23 errors. That put the Sooners at a 13 point deficit in the match.
On the positive side, OU had 34 Kills, 4 serving aces, 4.0 points on blocks and 29 digs in the match. Oregon State had 39 kills, 8 serving aces, 10.0 points on blocks and 26 digs.
OU only attacked well in the 2nd set with a .316 Hitting% with 16 Kills and 3 errors in 28 attempts. For the match they had a .170 Hitting%. That makes it hard to win. For the match, Oregon State had a .373 Hitting%. Oregon State played well at the net offensively and defensively.
Oregon State played a 6-2 offensive set (2 setters used as the setters sub for each other to keep the setter on the back row). One of those setters was Amanda Burns, who played for Coach Mansfield at LMU. Burns led the way for OSU with 19 assists and 9.0 points with 3 serving aces and 6 Kills. Mychael Vernon led OSU in points with 20.0 as she had 15 Kills 5.0 points on blocks.
In one change that might have been due to an injury was that Kelsey Carrington got the start at one of the MB's for the Sooners instead of Pfiffner. Carrington played in the first two sets and Pfiffner played in the 3rd set. Shelton led the Sooners again with 13.5 points and had 28 opportunities on set plays. Shelton had the highest hitting% of all hitters with over 3 attempts at .214%. Shelton had 12 Kills, Ellison had 7, Burts had 6 and Preston had 4. OU's blocking game at the net was almost absent in the match with only 5 shared blocks and 1 solo block. With a strong hitting game at the net for OSU, Kemohah and Thompson led the way with 9 and 7 digs respectively.
During the match the Sooners tired to improve the defense on the back row with more non-hitters on the back row. That left the Sooners with just two hitters on the front row when Chamberlain was on the front row half of the time. Kemohah, Thompson, Corral-Blagojevich, and Kaminski played most of the time on the back row for the Sooners last night which minimized the chances for back-sets (sets to a back row player coming forward). Shelton and Preston did not play much on the back row.
Raylee Fay did pick up her first service ace in the match against OSU. Thompson also picked up 2 service aces and Kaminski had 1 ace also.
The Sooners have chalked up their first loss now and can attempt to forget it and correct some things.
The Sooners play Boise State today at 1 PM. Hopefully the Sooners can come out ready to play against the Broncos and pick up their 4th win against just one loss for the season.
Boomer Sooner!
-
OUBeliever56A
- Posts: 4753
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:44 am
- 2
- Location: Norman
- Has thanked: 628 times
- Been thanked: 2692 times
Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Sooners loss to Oregon State.
https://soonersports.com/news/2023/9/1/ ... egon-state
Boomer Sooner!
https://soonersports.com/news/2023/9/1/ ... egon-state
Boomer Sooner!
-
OUBeliever56A
- Posts: 4753
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:44 am
- 2
- Location: Norman
- Has thanked: 628 times
- Been thanked: 2692 times
The Oklahoma Sooners Volleyball Team rebounded in Corvallis, OR to defeat the Boise State Broncos 3 sets to 1 set to pick up their 4th win in the season against a single loss. The Sooners won by the set scores of 29-27, 25-22, 21-25 and 25-21. The match was closely played throughout the play and showed some resiliency by the Sooners to stay focused and play with some pressure on their play. With only a view into the match via the Live Stats feed, it is difficult to tell much about the Sooners play.
Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the win for the Sooners.
https://soonersports.com/news/2023/9/2/ ... to-victory
There is no doubt that Taylor Preston had a very good day for the Sooners. She recorded 23 Kills in her career-high performance and scored 23.0 points in the match. All of PReston's points came off of Kills as she totalled 6 Kills in Set 1, 7 in Set 2, 6 in Set 3 and 4 in the final Set. She recorded a very good .500 Kill% as she was 23 for 46 in Kill attempts. Her hitting% was .391 with only 5 errors. Three other Sooners totalled double-digit kills and double-digit points. Alexis Shelton recorded 16 points with 14 Kills and 2 points on blocks in the match. Lydia Burts scored 14.5 points with 14 Kills and 0.5 points on blocks. Burts' 14.5 points was her best Sooners effort to date. Daleigh Ellison recorded 12.5 points on 11 Kills, 1 Service Ace and 0.5 points on blocks. Ellison's 12. 5 points was her best effort yet, in her 5 matches for the Sooners. Hannah Pfiffner added 9 points for the Sooners on 8 Kills and 1.0 point on blocks.
Payton Chamberlain recorded 49 assists on the day for her highest total in 2023. She also recorded 4.0 points on 3 Kills and 1 Service Ace. Callie Kemohah recorded 16 Digs in the match to lead the Sooners in that category. Sydney Thompson added 11 with Chamberlain picking up 10.
Some things I noticed from the stat sheet.
Team - 73 Kills in 146 attempts = .500 Kill% (2nd best % of 2023)
Team - 53 Kills-Errors in 146 attempts = .363 Hitting% (2nd best % in 2023)
Team - 10 Sooners attempted serves in the Match. Ellison attempted 3 serves for her first attempts of the season.
Team - Only 5.0 Block Points in the match. That follows only 4.0 Block Points on Friday against Oregon State. Both are unusually low after averaging 10.3 in each match in the opening weekend.
Other things that I noticed. Sydney Thompson is playing more and more it seems. I think her athleticism is the key here. If I read the stats correctly she even had 1 Kill attempt against BSU. I would guess that was on a back row set to her. (Her Kill error could have been on a 3rd hit on a out-of-system attempt for the Sooners.) Thompson also recorded the highest number of serve attempts in the match with 19. I noticed that according to the stats that Thompson was on the floor to start the last 3 sets of the match with Alexis Shelton entering the sets off of the bench when the rotation moved Shelton's spot to the front row.
Along with Thompson, four other Sooners attempted more than 11 serves. Chamberlain recorded 16, Corral-Blagojevich had 14, Kemohah had 13 and Burts had 11. The Sooner coaching staff is definitely looking for servers to improve the Oklahoma service game. In the match against Boise State, the Sooners recorded 15 service errors. that was an .848 Service%. That needs to improve a bit.
I noticed that Emma Henry played in the 3rd set for her first official play of her career for the Sooners.
The Sooners will travel to play 2 matches in the land of the golden domers in Notre Dame next weekend. The Sooners play on Friday against Illinois at 5 PM and they play Note Dame on Saturday at 1 PM.
Illinois has played 3 matches this season and is 2-1. They have defeated Northern Illinois and Valparaiso and they lost to Wichita State 3 sets to 2 sets after the Illini won the 1st Set 25-6. They play Illinois State on Sunday and UI-Chicago on Tuesday. Illinois is lead by Terry Raina, a 6'3" OH who has scored 68 points with 58 kills.
Notre Dame is 2-2 on the season. They have defeated Wichita State (3-2), lost to Texas Tech (1-3), swept Villanova (3-0) and lost to Santa Clara (2-3). They will play Illinois on Thursday before they play OU on Sunday next weekend. The Irish is led by Sydney Palazzolo, a 6'3" OH who has 51 Kills and 59.5 points.
Boomer Sooner!
Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the win for the Sooners.
https://soonersports.com/news/2023/9/2/ ... to-victory
There is no doubt that Taylor Preston had a very good day for the Sooners. She recorded 23 Kills in her career-high performance and scored 23.0 points in the match. All of PReston's points came off of Kills as she totalled 6 Kills in Set 1, 7 in Set 2, 6 in Set 3 and 4 in the final Set. She recorded a very good .500 Kill% as she was 23 for 46 in Kill attempts. Her hitting% was .391 with only 5 errors. Three other Sooners totalled double-digit kills and double-digit points. Alexis Shelton recorded 16 points with 14 Kills and 2 points on blocks in the match. Lydia Burts scored 14.5 points with 14 Kills and 0.5 points on blocks. Burts' 14.5 points was her best Sooners effort to date. Daleigh Ellison recorded 12.5 points on 11 Kills, 1 Service Ace and 0.5 points on blocks. Ellison's 12. 5 points was her best effort yet, in her 5 matches for the Sooners. Hannah Pfiffner added 9 points for the Sooners on 8 Kills and 1.0 point on blocks.
Payton Chamberlain recorded 49 assists on the day for her highest total in 2023. She also recorded 4.0 points on 3 Kills and 1 Service Ace. Callie Kemohah recorded 16 Digs in the match to lead the Sooners in that category. Sydney Thompson added 11 with Chamberlain picking up 10.
Some things I noticed from the stat sheet.
Team - 73 Kills in 146 attempts = .500 Kill% (2nd best % of 2023)
Team - 53 Kills-Errors in 146 attempts = .363 Hitting% (2nd best % in 2023)
Team - 10 Sooners attempted serves in the Match. Ellison attempted 3 serves for her first attempts of the season.
Team - Only 5.0 Block Points in the match. That follows only 4.0 Block Points on Friday against Oregon State. Both are unusually low after averaging 10.3 in each match in the opening weekend.
Other things that I noticed. Sydney Thompson is playing more and more it seems. I think her athleticism is the key here. If I read the stats correctly she even had 1 Kill attempt against BSU. I would guess that was on a back row set to her. (Her Kill error could have been on a 3rd hit on a out-of-system attempt for the Sooners.) Thompson also recorded the highest number of serve attempts in the match with 19. I noticed that according to the stats that Thompson was on the floor to start the last 3 sets of the match with Alexis Shelton entering the sets off of the bench when the rotation moved Shelton's spot to the front row.
Along with Thompson, four other Sooners attempted more than 11 serves. Chamberlain recorded 16, Corral-Blagojevich had 14, Kemohah had 13 and Burts had 11. The Sooner coaching staff is definitely looking for servers to improve the Oklahoma service game. In the match against Boise State, the Sooners recorded 15 service errors. that was an .848 Service%. That needs to improve a bit.
I noticed that Emma Henry played in the 3rd set for her first official play of her career for the Sooners.
The Sooners will travel to play 2 matches in the land of the golden domers in Notre Dame next weekend. The Sooners play on Friday against Illinois at 5 PM and they play Note Dame on Saturday at 1 PM.
Illinois has played 3 matches this season and is 2-1. They have defeated Northern Illinois and Valparaiso and they lost to Wichita State 3 sets to 2 sets after the Illini won the 1st Set 25-6. They play Illinois State on Sunday and UI-Chicago on Tuesday. Illinois is lead by Terry Raina, a 6'3" OH who has scored 68 points with 58 kills.
Notre Dame is 2-2 on the season. They have defeated Wichita State (3-2), lost to Texas Tech (1-3), swept Villanova (3-0) and lost to Santa Clara (2-3). They will play Illinois on Thursday before they play OU on Sunday next weekend. The Irish is led by Sydney Palazzolo, a 6'3" OH who has 51 Kills and 59.5 points.
Boomer Sooner!
-
OUBeliever56A
- Posts: 4753
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:44 am
- 2
- Location: Norman
- Has thanked: 628 times
- Been thanked: 2692 times
Create an account or sign in to join the discussion
You need to be a member in order to post a reply
Create an account
Not a member? register to join our community
Members can start their own topics & subscribe to topics
It’s free and only takes a minute