Sooner Volleyball Hosts Tulsa on Tuesday Night VB Match at 7 PM

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Volleyball Team will host Tulsa on the 14th, tonight at 7 PM in their annual Cancer Awareness Night. The Sooners are 7-11 overall and 1-8. Tulsa is 1-11 overall and 4-7 in conference.

Tulsa has a high point scorer in Kayley Cassaday (#10). She has scored 443.0 points. She has 408 Kills, 134 service aces, 21 Block Points an 27 Digs for the season. She is a 5'11" OH. OU will have to have a block up in front of Cassaday every point and attack. As a team, Tulsa has 105 service acesa nd 1030 Kills in 22 matches.

OU averages more Aces per set, more Kills per set but less block points per set. OU does average more errors at the net and move service errors per sta however though.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the OU-Tulsa Pick matchup tonight.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/10/2 ... ence-match

The Sooners are coming off of a good win in 5 sets of K-State on last Thursday before losing to K-State 0-3 on Friday in a disappointing loss. After Tulsa, OU plays Iowa State this weekend in a DH on Saturday and Sunday.

I wonder if Chamberlain gets some rest tonight due to the DH played on Thurs-Fri against K-State and the DH to be played on Sat-Sun. Shelton has a hand injury of some sort I think also. I wonder if she gets some rest tonight.

Coach Mansfield has gone with a smaller more defensive back row for several matches as of late. I wonder if that continues or not tonight. I think the Sooner should be favored tonight, but as always, OU has to manage those errors which so often determines the outcome of the match.

Good luck to the Sooners tonight against Tulsa.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Volleyball Team was able to make an strong comeback against Tulsa last night in McCasland Field House. The Sooners played last night without the starting setter Payton Chamberlain who was sitting out, (I believe) due to a season long knee issue. Raylee Fay and Emma Henry filled in for Chamberlain. OU dropped the first two sets to Tulsa by the scores of 21-25 and 19-25. In both sets the Sooners had more errors than Tulsa and did not side out well as the Sooners struggled on their first touch on defense to keep the ball 'in system'. Henry replaced Fay at setter late in the second set.

In the 3rd set, Coach Mansfield changed things a bit as Henry replaced Fay to start the set along with Daleigh Ellison and Chloe Kaminski replacing Hannah Pfiffner and Ireland McNees respectively. The Sooners play improved early in the 3rd set as they ran out to 11-7, 17-12 and 21-14 leads. The Sooners won the 3rd set by the score of 25-15. In the fourth set, the match was timed at 13-13 when OU began to build momentum to take a 20-15 lead and eventually win the set 25-20. that evened the match at 2 sets apiece.

In the 15-point 5th set, the Sooners led 7-3 at the court-end switch mark. But Tulsa closed the gap to just 1-point match at 12-11. OU won the last four points though to win the deciding set 15-12.

Here is the Sooner staff wrtiers article about the win for Oklahoma.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/10/2 ... to-victory

The Sooner offense was led by Taylor Preston, Alexis Shelton and Lydia Burts last night especially in the last three sets. Preston's career high 28 Kills came on 64 attempts. Preston added 28.5 points to OU's total for the Match. Shelton recorded 21 Kills and 22.5 points on 61 attempts. Lydia Burts recorded 13 Kills on only 27 attempts and added 16.5 points.

I thought the swap of the three players for the last three sets added some stability to the Sooners on defense and offense. The changes moved Burts back in the middle of the net where she looks to be more comfortable. I thought the timing between Henry and the attackers for OU looked pretty good. Henry actually got credit for a half block at the net on defense.

After the Sooners had 7 serving errors in the first two sets, reduced the serving errors to only 3 in the last three sets and 4 of their 5 service aces. Callie Kemohah also recorded a career high 27 Digs last night with 12 assists on bump sets to the hitters. Mele Corral-Blagojevich and Sydney Thompson also recorded career highs for Digs with 16 and 12 respectively. Kaminski played the last three sets without committing an error.

The win raised the Sooner record to 8-11 for the season.

I will note an unusual stat for Tulsa in the match last night. I shared about Kayley Cassaday having over 400 points for Tulsa coming into the match. She attempted 85 kills last night which was 47.2% of the attack attempts for Tulsa. The next Tulsa player was former Sooner, Beth Bayless with 37 attempts or 20.5%. Cassaday recorded 28 points last night for Tulsa. Preston's 64 attack attempts were 35.6% for OU. Shelton's attempts were 33.9% of OU's total.

The Sooners will be on the road this weekend in Ames, IA. They play Iowa State on Saturday at 2 PM (ESPN+) and on Sunday at Noon (on ESPN). After returning home to Norman on Sunday afternoon and evening. The Sooners will spend Monday and Tuesday getting ready for Baylor and travel to Waco on Tuesday late or Wednesday morning before the first serve at 7 PM. I think the this is part of the reason for not playing Chamberlain last night against Tulsa as the need to have Chamberlain to play against Iowa State and Baylor is important. Iowa State is ranked #31st and Baylor is ranked as #20th in the polls this week.

Good luck as the Sooners prepare and travel to Iowa State for this weekend's matches.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Big 12 Volleyball Standings through last night's play.

1st - Texas - 9-0 and 14-3 overall. - Ranked as the #5 team in the country.
T-2nd - BYU - 7-2 and 18-3 overall. Ranked as the #8 team in the country.
T-2nd - UCF - 7-2 and 16-4 overall. Ranked as the #27 team in the country.
4th - Baylor - 6-3 and 12-7 overall. Ranked as the #20 team in the country.
5th - Kansas - 5-3 and 14-4 overall. Ranked as the #14 team in the country.
T-6th - TCU - 5-5 and 12-9 overall.
T-6th - Kansas State - 5-5 an 11-8.
8th - Iowa State - 4-4 and 13-6 overall. Ranked as the #31 team in the country.
9th - Houston - 4-5 and 11-7 overall. Ranked as the #22 team in the country.
10th - Cincinnati - 3-6 and 10-9 overall.
11th - West Virginia - 2-7 and 9-13 overall.
12th - Oklahoma - 1-8 and 8-11 overall.
13th - Texas Tech - 1-9 and 8-14 overall.

Here is the remaining schedule for the week through Sunday.

Wednesday:
Texas Tech at Cincinnati. Cincy is probably favored in this one.

Thursday:
TCU at UCF. This matchup might revel if UCF is the team their record indicates or not. TCU can perhaps move up in the standings with a win on the road,
West Virginia at Kansas. Kansas should win this match and substantiate their ranking at #14.
BYU at Kansas State. BYU should win, but I wonder if Kansas State can raise their game to play with BYU and maybe steal a match.
Baylor at Texas. When Baylor was very strong, this was a good match. I think Texas will be too tough for Baylor at home.

Friday:
TCU at UCF. I think whoever loses on Thursday will rebound to win on Friday. A sweep by TCU would really surprise me.
West Virginia at Kansas. Kansas should win the second match and substantiate their ranking at #14.
BYU at Kansas State. I think BYU wins for sure on Friday.
Baylor at Texas. Texas wins again.

Saturday:
Oklahoma at Iowa State. I would like to believe that OU can win one of the two matches against I-State. I think winning the first match is more likely than the second match.

Sunday:
Oklahoma at Iowa State. This match may be tough for OU to win.
Houston at Cincinnati. I think Houston should win if their #22 rankings is earned.