Wichita State lost in four sets to Houston on Friday.

The Shockers, who were picked to win the conference, struggled once again to find a winning formula. Houston picked up the regular season sweep.

After falling to one of the bottom dwellers of the conference for the second time this season, WSU Coach Chris Lamb voiced some frustration after the game.

“Houston I thought did a great job defending our pin attackers,” Lamb said. “I thought their pin attackers outplayed ours in terms of attack selection and that part caught me off guard.”

One of WSU’s goals of the game was to reintroduced their quick offense. Lamb was less than pleased with the immediate results.

“We were trying to get back to our quick attack and you could see how rusty that’s been,” Lamb said. “That might be a 17-year low in quick attacking. That was hard to watch for me.”

Although Lamb was pleased with the fight that his team showed fighting back from a two set deficit, he was very displeased with the inability to hang onto leads in the fourth set.

“Up 11-7 in the fourth set the next thing you know it’s seven straight points and four hitting errors.

“I need everyday gals I heard [Gregg] Marshall made the comment with the guys.

“Monday through Sunday, we gotta have that. There’s too much up and down to beat anyone. We are going to need everyone out there to put up average or better numbers that’s how tight it’s going to be.”

One of the few positives from the game was the return of Emma Wright. The sophomore middle returned with eight kills.

“It was really exciting to be able to play on the court,” Wright said. “It was a little rough at some points and I think I made some dumb errors at bad times, but I’m just going to try and get better.”

Coach Lamb was pleased with Wright’s presence on the court but wanted to see more from her.

“You could see how rusty she was,” he said.

The Shockers will need to find some consistency if they want to return to the NCAA Tournament. With the loss to Houston the Shockers went under .500 for the season and will try to get back on track at home when they face SMU on Sunday.