Wichita State volleyball head coach Chris Lamb knew No. 17 Kansas would pose a challenge for the Shockers when the two teams agreed to play each other this season.
His intuition was correct, as the Jayhawks overwhelmed WSU (6-3, 0-0 American) Tuesday night with size all over the court, as the Shockers failed to find a balanced attack on offense. This resulted in another 3-0 loss in Koch Arena.
“You want these things on your test, on your schedule,” Lamb said. “I’ve said it forever. The best kind of pain is growing pain, so you better grow. That’s the pain I can live with.”
The Jayhawks’ (7-4, 0-0 Big 12) front row defenders made 13 total blocks, which resulted in half of WSU’s attacking errors for the game. KU’s underclassmen trio of Jovana Zelenovic (6-foot-7), Reese Ptacek (6-foot-3) and Aurora Papac (6-foot-4) denied just about everything the Shockers sent at them.
“We knew they were big coming into this game,” said junior Jordan Heatherly, who made 12 assists and 13 digs. “We all took accountability in the locker room of what we could’ve done better. Lambo kind of mentioned the spread of the offense wasn’t great tonight.”
The Shockers will look to put their performance behind them with a quick turnaround before competing in the South Dakota Classic from Thursday to Saturday. Their first match of the tournament is against Drake at 4 p.m. Thursday.
WSU was outscored 60.5-37 in the loss. And for every kill it made, it answered with an error for a .016 hitting percentage for the game. KU hit .220 with 43 kills.
Lamb likened the game to the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. It’s a team-oriented footrace where your team, or “centipede,” isn’t finished until the last person crosses the finish line.
“We need the lower portion of our offensive model here on the scoreboard,” Lamb said. “This cannot be Sydney (Dunning) and Brooklyn (Leggett) up here — the head of the centipede — going, ‘Oh look, we won.’ No, we didn’t. We’re going to win when we get points from her, and her, and her, and her.”
Dunning and Leggett led WSU in attacks, with 33 and 23, respectively. Dunning recorded a team-high eight kills, but hit .000, and Leggett found five on a .087 hitting percentage.
Despite being outmatched by another ranked opponent, the Shockers kept KU on its toes the entire first set.
Sophomore Allie Paulsen tied the frame at 21 and was awarded with the loudest cheers of the night. WSU pushed it to set point, 24-23, threatening to take one from the Jayhawks, but a block by the away team sent it to extra points.
The Shockers eventually lost by a score of 28-26. Lamb said the game would’ve looked different had WSU been able to make the ball drop.
“I can tell that it left a mark,” Lamb said. “We were on a high, fighting, and then when we switched sides, it felt like something got taken from us.”
Senior Katie Galligan said there was a lot to take in and learn from the way the team played in the opening frame.
“I think that when it’s time, how do you do under that pressure to execute, to run it well, to run it like the score is 0-0?” she said. “When you can do that, that’s when you win those sets, and I think that’s a good thing. I’d rather learn that now than November.”
From then on, it was all Jayhawks. They hit .324 in both the second and third sets with 29 combined kills. Multiple scoring runs of 7-0 or greater paved the way for 25-14 and 25-16 wins in both frames.
WSU hit -.032 in the second set with five kills. It kept the third set a little more competitive, hitting .079 with 12 kills. But it just wasn’t enough to win its first match against a ranked opponent since September 2017.
