Middle blocker Abbie Lehman thought two seeming mistakes had ruined her flawless kill percentage at Wichita State’s (14-7, 8-3 Missouri Valley Conference) sweep of Bradley (0-21, 0-11) Saturday night.

Nevertheless, she soon found out that not only did she retain her mark due to net violations, but she also tied the NCAA volleyball record with 15 kills out of 15 attempts, an honor which was last achieved by Arkansas State’s Katie Silliman in 2011.

“I didn’t think I was going to get 1.000 or anything,” Lehman said. “My teammates didn’t know it was 1.000, but they were all super pumped. They were all like ‘What did Abbie get?’ and we were all taking guesses.”

Lehman said WSU’s strategy to consistently run the middles as crucial to winning the game.

“We’ve definitely been building and improving, and we come back with more firepower each and every day,” she said.

Coach Chris Lamb echoed Lehman and said that middle blockers were key to the Shockers’ victory.

“Middles can always have a big night if things go right,” Lamb said. “Teams have to really, really work hard and do little things right to cause a problem.”

Lamb also noted Lehman’s record and praised her ability to exploit the visitors’ defensive weaknesses.

“You’re at a disadvantage when the setter is standing near the net, and you’ve got a middle that can go up there and get it,” he said. “It’s a tough situation for anybody to be in.”

A bountiful 26 assists from setter Emily Hiebert and a further eight kills from Jenny Whitledge also helped the Shockers triumph (25-11, 25-19, 26-24) over the Braves, which Lamb commended, despite their defeat.

“They did things right,” Lamb said. “They pushed us. You know, we missed a lot of serves there in games two and three. We had some setting errors in game three.”

The first set favored WSU as the team managed to establish a significant lead over their opponents through kills from Whitledge and Katie Reilly, and it subsequently ended with a service error from Bradley’s Kelsey Cave.

Though the second set saw the visitors take the lead, the Shockers fixed their previous errors as they turned the tide with five kills from Lehman. The set once again came to a finish with an error, this time from Jamie Livaudais of the Braves.

In the third set, WSU and Bradley reached a tie at 24-24 after a hard-fought set, though the home team eventually capitalized on an attack error from Bradley’s Lea Sack and finally won the match with a kill by Ashlyn Driskill.

The Shockers next play against Drake in Des Moines on Oct. 31.