Oklahoma VB on the road in Mississiippi This WKND for 2 Matches!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Volleyball Team is on the road this weekend as they travel to Mississippi to play Ole Miss on Friday at 1 PM CST and then play Mississippi State on Sunday at 2 PM CST. The three teams are currently 4-6 in SEC play while Ole Miss is 14-8 overall, OU is 10-8 overall and Mississippi State is 10-9. Both matches are on the SECN+ network.

The Oklahoma Sooners have been playing well as of late as indicated by their upset of Texas last Sunday in Austin in a 5-set match. But the three teams seem to be very evenly matched.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the trip to Mississippi.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/11/7 ... -road-trip

I looked at the common SEC opponents for al three teams and there is no indication of who might be the better team between the three of them. Here is that review:
VS Florida --> All 3 teams lost their matches with the Gators. OU in 5, the other two in 4 sets.
VS Tennessee --> OU and Ole Miss won and MSU lost to the Volunteers.
VS Arkansas --> MSU won while OU and Ole Miss lost to the Razorbacks.
VS LSU --> Ole Miss won and OU and MSU lost to the Tigers.
VS South Carolina --> Ole Miss and MSU won while OU lost to the Gamecocks.

If you look at the offensive points per set and errors per set for the three teams, the matches still look to be very close.
Ole Miss --> Offense: 13.2 Kills, 178 Service Aces and 1.69 Block Points = 16.67 Points per Set
Oklahoma --> Offense: 13.2 Kills, 1.26 Service Aces and 2.26 Block Points = 16.72 Points Earned per Set
Miss State --> Offense: 13.8 Kills, 1.15 service Aces and 1.83 Block Points = 16.78 Points per Set.

Ole Miss --> Errors: 4.84 Kills, 2.76 Service, 1.30 Receptions, 0.78 Blocks = 9.68 Errors per Set
Oklahoma --> Errors: 4.77 Kills, 2.69 Service, 1.62 Receptions, 0.52 Blocks = 9.69 Errors per Set
Miss State --> Errors: 4.97 Kills, 1.92 Service, 1.41 Receptions, 0.84 Blocks = 9.14 Errors per Set

Ole Miss --> Offense VS Errors Net = 6.99 per Set
Oklahoma --> Offense VS Errors Net = 7.12 per Set
Miss State --> Offense VS Errors Net = 7.64 Per Set

As you can see, the three teams are very close with perhaps Mississippi State having an overall edge over the other two teams. Mississippi State did defeat Ole Miss in 4 sets in Starkville.

I think the key for Oklahoma will be having strong matches at the Service Line and on Receptions while continuing their strong blocking game at the net. Oklahoma can dominate points on defense at the net. they need to do that this weekend in Mississippi.

If you look at the point leaders for each team you find this:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OU --- OM -..- MSU
Players over 300 Pts = .... 1 ....... 0 ....... 0 - OU - Shelton
Players over 250 Pts = .... 0 ....... 0 ....... 0
Players over 200 Pts = .... 2 ....... 0 ....... 2 - OU - Martin, Geissberger // MSU - Newsome, Schmidt
Players over 150 Pts = .... 1 ....... 3 ....... 2 - OU - Gibson // OM - Brgosh, Washington, Meyer // MSU - Shackelford, Smith
Players over 125 Pts = .... 0 ....... 1 ....... 0 - OM - Ammerman
Players over 100 Pts = .... 0 ....... 0 ....... 2 - MSU - Beckham, Walk
Players over 50 Pts = ...... 2 ....... 2 ...... 1 - OU - Gibson, Pfiffner // OM - Ratliff, Dyess
Oklahoma has the best offensive player in Shelton with two other strong attackers, Ole Miss has the most most diverse offense attack and MSU is somewhere in between.

The two matches for OU will require the Sooners to play strong volleyball on the road. If they do, they will be able to hold out that hope of improving their RPI value and continue their work of perhaps earning and NCAA tourney berth.

Good luck to the Sooners this weekend.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Big win for the Sooners in Oxford, MS over Ole Miss. OU wins the match 3 sets to 2 sets with a 15-10 fifth set Win!

In the match, Payton Chamberlain picked up her 3000th assist and Alexis Shelton earned her 1000th kill on the final point of the match.

BTW, Callie Kemohah had 24 Digs today!

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

I watched the entire match yesterday with at least one eye and with both eyes much of the time. The match with Ole Miss was a very important match for OU as they finish the 2024 season schedule. If the Sooners can win at least 4 or maybe 5 of their last 6 matches (including Friday's against Ole Miss), they have a chance to earn an NCAA tourney berth.

But, Oklahoma played pretty poorly in the first set as they barely had a 'positive' hitting % and Ole Miss won the set 25-16 as Ole Miss had a hitting % of almost 50.0%.

Oklahoma rebounded to win the 2nd and 3rd sets playing pretty well as they hit 26.7% while Ole Miss hit 14.5%. Ou won the 2nd set 25-20 and the 3rd set 25-21.

Ole Miss raced out to a lead in the 4th set, but in a key point, Oklahoma rallied the last half of the set and only dropped the set 21-25. I think that comeback gave the Sooners some momentum for the 5th and final set.

In the fifth set, OU played well early but an Ole Miss rally had them in the lead at 8-7 at the chahge of sides point in the final set. But after the side switch, OU won 8 points to only 2 points for Ole Miss. The Sooners hit 29.6% in the fifth while Ole Miss hit just 10.7%.

When I looked at the stats from the match this morning, I really am surprised. Without trying to be negative, OU probably should not have won the match. They only generated 74.0 earned points on 55 kills, 7 service aces and 12,0 block points. Ole Miss 'out-earned' Ok;lahoma by 7 points with 81.0. In a surprise, Ole Miss out-blocked OU 15.0 points to 12.0 points. The errors were very close with Oklahoma having 50 errors (points for the other team) while Ole Miss had 1 less with 49.

The one thing that the Sooners did do well, was keep points alive. The Sooners had 57 Digs in the set. The Sooners were led by Callie Kemohah with 24 Digs! She was all over the court diving, getting pancakes (hand flat on the court with the ball bouncing off her hand and in play), and facing shots with force and playing the ball successfully. Whitney Wallace had 8 DIgs to back up Kemohah. Kemohah and Wallace also had 0 receiving errors.

Two Sooner milestones were reached also in the match. Payton Chamberlain reached 3,000 assists in the match for her career at Wyoming and Oklahoma as she tallied 44 assists in th match. Alexis Shelton reached the 1,000 kill milestone in the match on the last point of the last set of the match. She led OU with 23.5 points with 21 kills in the match.

Kari Geissberger and Lydia Martin were soild backups to Shelton on points as Geissberger added 14.0 points and Martin added 13.5 points.

The Sooners also had 7 Service Aces with only 5 service errors. That is great progress for the Sooners at the service line.

Here is the post-match article by the Sooner staff writers about the important win by OU over Ole Miss.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/11/8 ... et-victory

The Sooners will continue their weekend in Mississippi with a match against Mississippi State on Sunday at 2:00 PM CST.

The Sooners are now 5-6 in the SEC and 11-8 overall.

Congrats to the Sooner Volleyball Team as they might have stolen a victory on Friday against Ole Miss.

Boomer Sooner!

[AustinTXSooner]

Now that we've really reduced the number of service errors, our results have improved. Jasmine Ellison had a wicked serve going on yesterday. Martyn's serve has been pretty wicked all season. And neither one of them had an ace yesterday. And nobody had more than one service error.

We've proven that we can play with anybody. And we're playing our best right now.