OU Women's Volleyball - West Coast Trip - Wins over Fresno State for 4 Wins in a row!

[OUBeliever56A]

The 4-2 Oklahoma Sooners Volleyball Team travels to Santa Clara, CA to play three matches this weekend.

Friday - OU vs Santa Clara (3-3) @ 8 PM CST. -
Saturday - OU vs Tulane (3-3) @ 4 PM CST.
Sunday - OU vs Fresno State (3-3) @ 3 PM CST.
The weekend play will give the Sooners an opportunity to build upon the early season success.

Here is the weekend preview article by the staff writers for volleyball.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/9/8/ ... ament.aspx

On their return trip back to Norman, the Sooner VB'ers will stop over in Abilene, TX to play a match on Tuesday night against Abilene Christian @ 6 PM CST.

Good luck to the Sooners on their 4-match road trip.

Boomer Sooner!

[SwampSooner]

OU 3, Santa Clara 0 Matches: 25-23, 25-17, 25-22

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Volleyball match against Santa Clara was a demonstration of the added depth that the Sooners have in 2022. With two starters were out; Peyton Dunn (Setter) and Adria Oliver (MB), the Sooners sent Payton Chamberlain (Setter) and Kesley Carrington (MB) and they both played well. The Sooners depth is further demonstrated by the fact that currently Savannah Davison is not starting due to the play of two freshman, Alexis Shelton and Taylor Preston at OH.

Here is the staff writers article about the 3-0 sweep over Santa Clara on Friday evening.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/9/9/ ... tchup.aspx

Changing the 'setter' for a volleyball team is like changing a QB on a football team. I thought Chamberlain did a good job last night. She had a few poor sets and a couple of times the timing was off a bit, but she is an athletic player that moves around the court well to make sets. I thought she was an asset on the block with Carrington and Perkins a few times as Chamberlain has long arms and can jump.

I thought Carrington played really well as a substitute for Oliver. I know I thought she played well at times last season, but against Santa Clara was probably her best effort I have seen.

I agree with Coach Gray-Walton about the defense and the blocking up front last night. The Sooners were a solid fence much of the game above the fence on blocks. The 24 assisted blocks and 1 solo black was instrumental to the win. 25 points on blocks is a very high number. The Sooners averaged 17.4 blocks during the 2021 season and are averaging 16.7 in 2022. to bump that up to 25 is very strong. The block leaders was Carrington with 7, Wilson with 6, Chamberlain with 5 and Perkins with 4. The Middle Blockers (Carrington and Perkins) played well once again for the Sooners.

It was a good thing that the Sooners did so well blocking because their hitting percentage was only .227 in the match due to 16 kill errors that were mostly long over the backline. Three Sooners did tally 10 kills with Wilson having 11 and Shelton and Preston having 10. Perkins, Chamberlain and Davison each had 2 kills.

Outside of the 16 kill errors, the Sooners were stingy with only 8 other errors. They had two 2 setting errors, 4 service errors and 2 receiving errors. Talpash had the only service ace in the match for OU.

I think the Sooners showed a great deal of grit in the first set. they trailed 7-1 before tying the score at 12-12. they then fell behind 23-21 before rallying scoring 4 straight points on two Santa Clara errors and 2 Preston kills at 25-21. The 7 kill errors were offset by 8 blocks for the Sooners to help them to the win in Set 1.

The Sooners led handily most of Set 2 as they won 25-17. The Sooners had 11 kills (with only 3 errors) an 10 blocks in the set.

The 3rd Set, was a competitive game in score. the Sooners lead 7-3 before being tied at 9. Then Santa Clara led 12-9 before a tie at 14-14. then Santa Clara lead 17-15 before a tie at 18. OU then led by 3 before Santa Clara rallied to tie the score at 21-21. The Sooners closed out the set winning 4 of the last 5 points to win 25-22. Santa Clara had 14 errors in the set which really helped OU who had 8.

Points-wise, Oklahoma was lead by Wilson with 14, Shelton 11, Preston 10, Perkins 5 and Carrington and Chamberlain with 4.5 points. The Sooner back row players of Kemohah, Kaminski and Talpash played well in the match with 0 errors. Kemohah had 61 touches with no errors in the match. Kaminski had 31 and Talpash had 12 with no errors.

As far as the two Sooner injuries, MB Oliver was wearing a ankle boot on her left foot. Hopefully she gets back to be able to play when the Big 12 play starts on Sept. 24th against Texas in Austin. Dunn was dressed in street clothes with no visible sign of an injury that I could see. Maybe she will be available to play Sooner rather than later.

A player for Santa Clara that was fun to watch was Julia Sangiacomo. The 4th year Senior who is 6'5" had 20 kills and 1 block with only 6 kill errors. She kept Santa Clara in the 1st and 3rd sets.

The Sooners take on Tulane on Saturday at 4 PM CST. Tulane is 4-3 after defeating Fresno State 3-1 on Friday.

Good luck to the Sooner VB'ers today.

Boomer Sooner!

[SwampSooner]

OU 3 Tulane 0, Matches: 25-12, 25-12, 25-19

[OUBeliever56A]

he Oklahoma Sooners VB'ers won again fairly easily on Saturday afternoon over Tulane in 3 sets, 25-12. 25-12 and 25-19. This is the 2nd time this season that the Sooners have won 3 straight matches as the Sooners are now 6-2 on the young season. The 'young' freshman Sooners led the way as the Sooners dominated the match yesterday as Preston, Shelton, Perkins and Kaminski contributed 31.0 of the 57.5 points for Oklahoma.

Here is the staff writers article about the win over Tulane.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/9/10 ... sweep.aspx

The Sooners started 3 different lineups in the 3 sets:

Set 1:
- Chamberlain (Setter), Kemohah (Libero), Carrington (MB), Perkins (MB), Wilson (OH), Preston (OH), Kaminski (DS-Serve)
- Shelton (OH) and Talpash (DS-Serve) played in the set.

Set 2:
- Chamberlain (Setter), Kemohah (Libero), Carrington (MB), Perkins (MB), Wilson (OH), Preston (OH) and Shelton (OH)
- Davison (OH), S Thompson (DS-Serve), Kaminski (DS-Serve) played in the set.

Set 3:
- Chamberlain (Setter), Kemohah (Libero), Carrington (MB), Perkins (MB), Wilson (OH), Davison (OH), Kaminski (DS-Serve)
- Preston (OH), Talpash (DS-Serve), S Thompson (DS-Serve), Bayless (OH) played in the set.

This was the first action of the season for preferred walk-on Beth Bayless. (The article said she started but the box score does not show that.)

In Set #1 the Sooners had 14 Kills, 2 Service Aces and 2 Blocks for 17.0 points against 7 errors.

In Set #2 the Sooners had 12 Kills, 2 Service Aces and 8 Blocks for 18.0 points against only 5 errors

In Set #3 the Sooners had 15 Kills, 3 Service Aces and 9 Blocks for 22,5 points against 10 errors.

Point leaders for the Sooners were:

11.0 points - Wilson (OH) with 5 Kills, 5 Service Aces and 2 Blocks. (4 errors)
11.0 points - Preston (OH) with 9 Kills, 1 Service Ace and 2 Blocks. (2 errors)
9.0 points - Perkins (MB) with 7 Kills, 4 Blocks. (2 errors)
8.0 points - Shelton (OH) with 8 Kills. (1 error)
6.5 points - Davison (OH) with 5 Kills, 3 Blocks. (5 errors)
5.5 points - Carrington (MB) with 3 Kills, 5 Blocks. (0 errors)
4.5 points - Chamberlain (Setter) with 3 Kills, 3 Blocks. (3 errors)
2.0 points - Kaminski (DS-Serve) with 1 Kill, 1 Service Ace. (0 errors)

The Sooners held a Hitting% of .367% in the match with a .456% Kill% in the match. The Sooners also held a strong Side-Out% in the Match of .727%.

Oklahoma plays Fresno State in their final West Coast match today at 3 PM CST.

It is interesting that in the 4 team play this weekend that OU has defeated both Santa Clara and Tulane while Tulane has defeated Fresno State and lost to OU while Fresno State has lost to Tulane and won over Santa Clara. I think that means that the Sooners should be favored over Fresno State (4-4) in today's match.

Good Luck to the Sooner ladies in today's match.

Boomer Sooner!

[SwampSooner]

Good weekend as OU beats Fresno St 3-1. Matches: 25-17, 25-18, 23-25, 25-15.

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner VB'ers completed their 3-match sweep on the west coast by defeating Fresno State 3 sets to 1 set to run their record to 7-2 on the young season. The Sooners are building a solid record on the season as they are lead by young players. The Sooners only played two players that were older than a sophomore on Sunday, Talpash (SR) and Carrington (JR).

Here is the staff writers article about the Sooners 4th match win in row on Sunday as they defeated Fresno State 25-17, 25-18, 23-25, 25-15.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/9/11 ... state.aspx

The starters for the Sooners against Fresno State were;

When OU received serve (Sets 1 and 3) - Chamberlain (Setter), Perkins and Carrington MB, Wilson, Preston, Shelton (OH), Kemohah (Libero)
When OU serves (Sets 2 and 4) - Kaminski (DS-Server) replaces Shelton as a starter as Kaminski begins the set serving.
In Set 1, Kaminski and Talpash (DS-Server) played. In Set 2, Talpash, Shelton and Thompson (DS-Server) played. In Set 3, Kaminski and Talpash played. In Set 4, Shelton and Thompson played.

On offense, as the staff article conveyed, Preston (FR) played very well on Sunday displaying an all-around game with 19 Kills, 3 Service Aces, 11 digs and 6 Blocks for a total of 25 points. Wilson (SO) added 21 points of her own also showing an all-around game. Wilson had 15 Kills, 4 Service Aces, 5 digs and 4 Blocks. Shelton (FR) was the 3rd Sooner in double digits with 11.5 points behind 11 Kills, 1 dig and 1 Block. The MB's of Carrington (JR) and Perkins (FR) added 9 and 7.5 points respectively as both had 4 Kills with Carrington adding 1 Sole Block and 8 Blocks and Perkins adding 1 dig and 7 Blocks. Wilson and Preston are also becoming strong servers this season.

Chamberlain was in the middle of the offensive attack with 41 assists, 5 digs, 1 Kill and 4 Blocks. On the service returns it seems that Chamberlain is a little more active in returning the serve as well on defense against kills. I noticed that the assist by other players tick up with Chamberlain in the lineup.

The back row defense played well also. Kemohah is just very solid on the back row defensively. Kaminski is becoming a valuable server for the Sooners as had a couple of serving runs for the Sooners. Talpash and Thompson are beginning to share time a bit in the last rotation position.

The Sooners are going to travel to Abilene Christian (3-5) for a match on Tuesday at 6 PM. On Friday, the Sooners host Texas Southern (0-7) and Nevada (5-4) at 1 PM and 7 PM in McCasland Field House. All three matches will be on ESPN+ it looks like.

The Sooners are starting very strong at 7-2 but a note to mention is that only 3 of their opponents in 2022 have a winning record so far. That is not meant to deflate the Sooners success but to add a bit of perspective to the season so far. This week the Sooners have a good chance to be 10-2 during the pre-season before they travel to Austin to play Texas on Sept 24th. The future looks very bright for the Sooners. But the Big 12 will be tougher competition for the Sooners.

God luck to the Sooner VB'ers this week and many kudos to the team for their early season success.

Boomer Sooner!