Sooner Women's Volleyball Hosts Texas Tech and Texas this week!

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OUBeliever56A
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Sooner Women's Volleyball Hosts Texas Tech and Texas this week!

Post by OUBeliever56A »

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Volleyball team faces a big week with matches on Wednesday and Saturday against two teams that are above them in the Big 12 VB Standings. Both matches are at home in McCasland Field House. The Sooners face Texas Tech on Wednesday night at 6 PM. On Saturday night at 6 PM, the Sooners face #1 ranked Texas at 6 PM.

The Sooners dropped both matches to the two teams on the road in the first round of Big 12 play. Tech won 3-1 over OU and Texas won 3-0 over OU. Here is the review of this week's volleyball action written by staff writers.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/11/8 ... no-1-texas

I am hopeful that I will see a win on Wednesday night against Texas Tech. The middle two sets of their match in Lubbock were very close sets with the teams splitting them. the 1st and fourth sets were won by Tech going away. At home the Sooners should play better and not allow those two sets that were not competitive in Lubbock. Coming off of two straight wins over Kansas and West Virginia they Sooners may be on a roll that will continue on Wednesday.

Good luck to the Sooners on Wednesday night.

Boomer Sooner!
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Post by OUBeliever56A »

Oh those mistaken mouse clicks. I have been recapping the match last night for about 45 minutes before a fatal click with my mouse. My bad.

Suffice it to say, the Sooner Volleyball team played very well last night in their win over Texas Tech in a five set match. The Sooners won the first two sets and then lost the 3rd and fourth sets before reviving themselves for a 5th set win to win the match. The 4th set was an old-fashioned barn burner with 21 tie scores and 6 lead changes. The set scores were 25-18, 25-21, 19-25, 28-30 and 15-13.

Previously in Lubbock, Tech won in 4 sets over Oklahoma. For the young Sooners to win over Tech the second time around shows strong progress for OU. Tech plays 8 SRs and JRs in the 11 player rotation. OU plays 2 SRs in the 9 player rotation. The Sooners are setting themselves up for a pretty strong couple of years going forward.

The Sooners were led by the trio of OHs. Wilson had 25.5 points with a stat line that shows her contributing at every skill. She led the Sooners with 5 service aces. Preston added a strong 24.5 points and led the Sooners in kills with 23. Shelton played the 3rd role with 19.0 points with the highest hitting % at .324%. MB's Perkins and Oliver did their part with 11 points inside which included 9 blocks. Chamberlain (setter) and Kemohah (Libero) played strong matches as they seem to always play. Specialist Kaminski and Talpash also did their part to secure the win. The playing rotation put on the floor by Coach Gray-Walton is really producing right now with at least three hitters and usually four on the floor at all times.

The win lifts the Sooners to a 14-10 overall record and and a 4-8 record in the Big 12. The Sooners have won 3 in a row with wins at Kansas, at West Virginia and now at home over Texas Tech.

On Saturday the Sooners have a big match with the #1 ranked Texas Longhorns in the volleyball version of the Red River Rivalry. The match is at 6 PM on Saturday, so everyone has the chance to digest the Sooner football game against West Virginia on the road and have supper before the match. Hopefully the current winning streak will bring out extra fans to support the Sooners in the RRR matchup. I think the match may show the progress of the young Sooners during the season as the win over Kansas and Tech did in their last three matches.

Texas is 11-1 in the Big 12 and 18-1 overall. In Austin in the first go-round of the Big 12 schedule, Texas won is straight sets by the score of 25-20, 25-21 and 25-18. That match was closer than most expected I think. i wonder is a big surprise is in store for Texas on Saturday. The only loss for the Longhorns was at Iowa State in a 2-3 set loss for Texas. Maybe lighting can strike twice against the Longhorns.

Hope to see many of you in the stands on Saturday.

Boomer Sooner!
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Post by OUBeliever56A »

When I arrived at McCasland Field House at 5:10 last night the parking was filling up and their were many fans headed for the Field House. Once inside, it was obvious that the crowd was going to be large. Many Longhorn fans made the trip to Norman to cheer on their #1 team. As Coach Gray-Walton mentioned in the post-game comments the crowd was a record for the Sooner Volleyball team. 3,702 spectators filled McCasland ready to see a good match between the up-and-coming Sooners against a powerhouse Texas squad.

The match left a little to be desired by the Sooners. The effort was there for the Sooners but the Texas squad played very well. Immediately, I was struck watching the Longhorns warm up that they were big, powerful and very deep with talent. Since I do not have the Longhorn Network, I did not watch the match in Austin earlier this year when the Sooners played Texas tough in 3 close losing sets. I would like to review that match to see what was different.

Texas won the first set 25-14 as they went out to a 5-point lead early and took the set. The second set was a very good set though. The Sooners rallied themselves and played point-for-point with Texas up to the 15-15 tie score. From that point, Texas took control and won 25-19. In the third set, Texas focused even more and closed out the Sooners 25-10.

To me as a fan, two things were fairly obvious in the match. OU needs to improve their return of service skills against a really strong serving team. The Sooner back row was challenged to handle the Texas serves and send the ball to the setter for a strong attack back at Texas. Too many times the Sooners were chasing the first touch by the back row. The other thing that stood our was that the Texas offense and attack at the net is superior. Too many time they had clear shots from way above the net with no Sooner blockers in their way to slow down the speeding volleyball. Texas placed their attack shots often where no Sooner was located. The Sooners also let many balls go, only to see them land on the back line for a point for Texas.

I am not down on the Sooners at all. Texas is very, very good. This match can serve as a reminder of where the goal is for the Sooners. As the Sooners add players to a really young team, they are building a strong roster to allow them to compete in the Big 12.

Here is the staff writers article about the match.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/11/1 ... no-1-texas

The Sooners big 12 record is now 4-9 and 14-11 overall. The Sooners travel to Manhattan to play Kansas State on Wednesday at 6:30 PM. The Sooners lost a 5-set match to K-State earlier in the year in Norman. The Sooners need to win one more match to ensure a winning record in 2022 for the team. The Sooners have K-State, Iowa State on the road and TCU at home to get that win.

Boomer Sooner!
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