Oklahoma Volleyball at Waco to play Baylor tonight in the Big 12

[OUBeliever56A]

Fresh off their split of two matches with iowa State this weekend in Ames, IA, the Sooners are back on the road today as they travel to Waco for a match against the Baylor Bears. The Bears are th #21 ranked team in the country. Baylor is 12-9 on the season and is 6-5 in the Big 12. The Sooners are 2-9 in the Big 12 and 9-12 overall. Ou has defeated Kansas State and Iowa State in the Big 12 as they split their DH this season. All the other losses for the Sooners are against teams in the upper half of the Big 12 Standings.

The Sooners could pick up a big win against Baylor tonight on the road. The match is on ESPN+ tonight and a Live Stats feed is also available. First serve is at 7 PM.

Here is the Sooner staff writers about the Sooners match against Baylor.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/10/3 ... -21-baylor

I do think the Sooners have a good shot at picking up a win against Baylor tonight. It is the only match for OU this week which is good after spending the weekend in Ames, IA. They could use a rest after tonight. As always the Sooners keys will be for them to reduce the errors and give away points on service errors. The Sooners can hit with most any team if they handle the ball well on first touches on the points. The Sooners played their best match of the year against Iowa State on Sunday. Hopefully, the Sooners can reproduce that effort tonight.

Good luck to the Sooners tonight vs Baylor.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Big 12 Standings page for your review.

https://big12sports.com/standings.aspx? ... 92&path=vb

This week's Big 12 Schedule is as follows:

Wednesday: - Oklahoma at Baylor - Oklahoma is looking for another upset.

Thursday & Friday: - Texas at West Virginia - Texas should remain unbeaten in the Big 12.

Friday and Saturday:
Iowa State at TCU - Two teams at .500 in the Big 12 - I-State is 5-5 and TCU is 6-6. The two teams probably split the two matches.
Kansas State at Kansas - Kansas is 7-3, with K-State 7-5 in the Big 12, but I think Kansas is better at home. This might be a split but Kansas could win both matches.
UCF at Houston - Houston at 5-5 is supposed to be good. UCF has surprised at 8-3 this season in the Big 12. Houston needs a sweep, UCF will fight to win at least one.
Cincinnati at BYU - BYU at 7-4 should win both matches over Cincinnati at home.

Saturday: - Baylor at Texas Tech - Baylor should win over Tech on the road.

[OUBeliever56A]

I was not able to watch the VB last night as I was at the OU Softball Game. But from what it appears, OU played very well in the last three sets after not playing very well in the first two sets which Baylor won by the scores of 14-25 and 19-25. OU roared back from the 2 set deficit, to win Set 3 by the score of 25-20 and then the 4th set by the score of 25-23. then in the 5th and final set, Baylor won 12-15. BTW, Baylor is the #21 ranked VB team in the country.

The match points were very close with Baylor having 75.0 while the Sooners had 74.0. OU had 9 more kills than Baylor with 63 to 54. OU had 10 more assists than Baylor with 58 to 48. OU had more Digs than Baylor with 57 to Baylor's 51.

But once again the Sooner errors look like the difference compared to the Baylor errors. The Sooners had 54 errors to Baylor's 35. The errors that directly lead to points also favored Baylor as the Bears had 29 to Oklahoma's 53.

The only thing I see in the Gamebook is that it looks like Kelsey Carrington started in Set 1 but then did not play in sets 2 thru 5 where Hannah Pfiffner started in her spot. I wonder if she maybe as injured. I will try to watch the replay on ESPN+ today.

Alexis Shelton had 20 Kills and 20.0 points on the night for another big performance. Taylor Preston had 15 Kills and 16.0 points for a strong effort. Pfiffner had a career high 12 Kills and 13.0 points. Lydia Burts added 8.0 points, Daleigh Ellison added 7.5 points from the front line. Carrington had 1.0 in the first set.

Payton Chamberlain had 55 assists in 129 attempts with only 1 set error and she added 4.5 points and 10 Digs. Callie Kemohah 22 receptions with no errors and 13 Digs on the night. Mele Corral-Blagojevich had 25 successful receptions and 11 Digs, Ireland McNees had 24 successful receptions and 6 Digs, Sydney Thompson had 12 successful receptions and 10 Digs.

In the three sets that Oklahoma dropped to Baylor the Sooners did not have a Side-out% of 50% or more. In the two sets they won, the Sooners had a Side-out% of 65% and 66%.

The Sooners drop to 2-10 in the Big 12 and 9-13 overall with the result. The Sooners will have the weekend off before they host Houston on Nov 9th and 10th in McCasland Field House in thursday and Friday 6 PM first serves.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Baylor Match last night.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/11/1 ... -21-baylor

Boomer Sooner!