OU Volleyball - Big Match Tonight! - OU @ Baylor - 8 PM

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OUBeliever56A
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OU Volleyball - Big Match Tonight! - OU @ Baylor - 8 PM

Post by OUBeliever56A »

The young, talented Oklahoma Sooners face another big test tonight in Waco against the Baylor Bears at 8 PM. I believe the match will be televised at 8 PM on ESPNU. I could not find it on my TV listings on OEC Cable but perhaps it is there. I did find it being televised on ESPNU on Thursday morning at 10 AM on my TV listings.

This is a big test for the Sooners. The Sooners currently have a record of 1-2 in the Big 12 and are 11-4 overall on the season. The Baylor Bears are at 2-1 in the Big 12 and 12-3 overall. Baylor has defeated Kansas and TCU while dropping a match to Iowa State. Baylor is ranked as the #17 team in the country. (Texas is #1 and Kansas has received votes.)

Here is the preview article by the staff writers.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/10/4 ... -17-baylor

I think the match tonight could be a key to the season for the Sooners. Baylor offers a varied attack with 5 hitters over 110 points. their leader is McGhee #17 with 178.5 points. Harrison #31 has 173 points. McGhee also has 84 blocks on the season. For the Sooners, they have 4 hitters over a 110 points. Wilson leads the way with 255.5 points. Shelton is #2 for the Sooners with 142 points. Perkins leads the Sooners with 69 blocks. Baylor has two good servers with Brizerio leading with 22 aces and Carlson with 13. The Sooners are led by Wilson with 35 and Kaminski with 12 and Kemohah with 11.

The match tonight could be very well won at the net on defense. The Sooners blocking numbers have dropped off as of late. They need to step up tonight with a strong blocking night at the net to be successful. From the stats it looks like Baylor has a strong blocking game. It will be interesting to see who the Sooners have across from the two hitters McGhee and Harrison for Baylor.

If the Sooners can upset Baylor tonight they will rise to a 2-2 record in the Big 12 and will give them win against a top team. Texas tonight could be challenged by TCU tonight while Kansas is matched up against Iowa State on Friday which should be a good match. On Saturday Texas Tech and TCU play. That is all 5 of the 5 teams above OU in the standings. With at least 2 or 3 losing, the Sooners could make up some ground.

The Sooners are off this weekend and do not play again until next Wednesday against Texas Tech and Iowa State traveling to Lubbock and at home against the Cyclones. Including Baylor tonight that is three matches against 3 tough Big 12 teams. the record could be anywhere between 4-2 and 1-5 after next week. Two wins keep the Sooners at 3-3 at least. that would be great for the Sooners.

Here is hoping the very best play for the Sooners tonight with the young Sooners stepping up to pull the upset. It would be a very big step for Oklahoma.

Boomer Sooner!
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Post by OUBeliever56A »

The Oklahoma Sooners Volleyball Team stepped into Ferrell Center and promptly won the first set against the #17 Baylor Bears 25-22 in closely played set. The outcome of the set was probably the Sooners kill % of .303 which bettered the Baylor kill % of .300. The Sooners also tallied 13 digs in the set. Those important digs (or saves of points) and the 14 kills enabled OU to take the first set.

The second set was close until the 9-8 mark when Baylor's lead was cut to one on a kill by Wilson. The Baylor lead drew quickly though to 17-11 on 3 serving exchanges. the Baylor lead grew to 22-14 and then won 25-18. The big difference in the 2nd set was Baylor efficiency at the net with 17 kills and only 3 errors for a .483 kill %.

Baylor ran out to a 4-1 lead in the 3rd set before OU battled back to tie the set at 5-all on a Shelton kill. The set was very close throughout of the rest of the set with only a couple of leads by 2 points. There were 33 tied scores with 12 lead changes in the set. At the very end with a 22-all score, Wilson served up a service ace to give OU the lead at a critical point. In the critical 3rd set, tied 1-set all, Baylor managed to score 3 straight points on two kills and one service ace to win 25-23. Those last 3 points by Baylor changed the match. Once again the Sooners had a high number of digs to stay in the set. But the Sooners had 7 kill errors and 4 service errors which might have been the difference. But Baylor did win the final 3 points on their good play with 2 kills and the service ace.

In the 4th set, the Sooners pulled themselves up by the shirttails and won the 4th set. At the 7-all mark in the set, the Sooners took control on two service runs by Wilson and Talpash when the Sooners took a 14-10 lead. Baylor closed to trail by 1 at 17-18 when Coach Gray-Walton called a timeout for OU to regroup. The Sooners won the next 3 points to build the lead back to 4. The Sooners made that lead hold up to win the set 25-20. O:nce again the win in the set was built upon the 13 digs by the Sooners but the 6 Blocks for 3 points also helped the Sooners. Another key was the 8 kill errors by Baylor in the set.

The Sooners were 67% of their way to a win at Baylor. With the sets tied at 2-all, the now match-determining 5th set and the race to 15 points was about to start. The 5th set was close through 5-all. but Baylor won 6 of the next 8 points to take an 11-7 lead. The Sooners closed to trail by 3 at 13-10 before Baylor won two straight points to win the 5th set 15-10.

It was a very good effort for the Sooners as they tried to get the to get the win on the road against a good Baylor team. Shelton led the Sooners with 16 points followed by Preston with 11.5 and Perkins had 11. Wilson added 10 points. Kemohah had 21 of the 49 Sooner digs in the match.

A couple times in the match the Sooners hit a lull on their offensive attack with a front line of Chamberlain, Oliver and either Preston or Shelton with Wilson on the back row. The Sooners still have 3 hitters on the floor, but the sets are more difficult for Chamberlain. In these cases, with Chamberlain on the front row, the Sooners only have two hitters on the front line which puts the Sooners at a disadvantage. Chamberlain is pretty good on the blocks on the right side especially with Perkins. I think the Sooners could look for a way to get Oliver in the game when there are two front row hitters with her and when Perkins in the game have Chamberlain as the setter with her and another hitter. I am not sure what rotation changes would need to be made to help with that, but it is a thought.

Here is the staff writers article about the Sooner road trip to Waco on Wednesday night.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/10/6 ... -17-baylor

The Sooners will be off until next Wednesday night. The Sooners (1-3 in conference and 11-5 overall) will play Texas Tech (2-1 in conference and 13-3 overall) and Iowa State (1-2 in conference and 9-7 overall) next week. Those two matches will be big for the Sooners as they try to win their way back to a .500 record in the Big 12. The Sooners will travel to Lubbock for the midweek match and then host Iowa State at McCasland on Saturday.

Boomer Sooner!
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