Oklahoma Sooners VB Home vs West Virginia on Senior Day @ 1 PM

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Volleyball Team will host West Virginia today at McCasland Field House at 1 PM today in the final volleyball match this season. Oklahoma is 3-14 in Big 12 play with West Virginia being 2-15 in conference play.

Alexis Shelton has sat out the last two matches (at Cincinnati and at Texas Tech) as the Sooners have split the two matches without Shelton in five sets each match. Hopefully the Sooners will get Shelton back today without any further risk to an injury to her left lower leg.

Saturday's match will also serve as Senior day with Kristen Birmingham, Kelsey Carrington, Daleigh Ellison and Callie Kemohah all being honored in a pre-game ceremony.

- Birmingham has appeared in 23 matches and 75 sets for the Sooners across her three-year career. She has tallied 103 kills and 56 blocks in her time as a Sooner.
- Carrington has appeared in 55 matches and 156 sets as a Sooner. In her time at OU, she has tallied 170 kills and 145 blocks.
- Ellison has appeared in 22 matches and 71 sets during her lone year as a Sooner. In her time at OU, she has recorded 105 kills, 34 digs, 38 blocks and 8 service aces.
- Kemohah has appeared in 81 matches and 309 sets for the Sooners. A three-year starter, Callie has recorded 1251 digs, 330 assists and 67 service aces.

I think that Kemohah, Ellison and Birmingham have one year of eligibility remaining if they chose to return. I also think that Burts (a Senior) has one year of eligibility left due to sitting out her freshman season at Liberty.

The keys to the match today will be once again the limitation of errors by the Sooners, especially if Shelton does not take the court. But West Virginia also suffers from the same error issue. the difference on the math could be the team that minimizes the errors the most.

West Virginia does have some big hitters at the net. #20 Green, had 423 points this season, #2 Miller had 357 points and two players #8 Jackson and #22 McGath have over 250 points. Their setter #6 Delo, has over 1000 assists this season do to those hitters. The two conference wins for West Virginia this season both came at home. they have yet to win on the road this season. Hopefully, the Sooners keep the Mountaineers winless on the road today.

The most recent starters of Taylor Preston OH, Lydia Burts MB, Daleigh Ellison OPP, Kelsey Carrington MB, Ireland McNees OH, Payton Chamberlain Setter, Sydney Thomson Def and Callie Kemohah Libero along with rotation player, Mele Corral-Blagojevich should be able to play with WV as they have the last two matches and pull out a win. If Shelton, joins them and is at full speed. the Sooners have one more important piece to help them to victory today.

I wish the Sooners the best of luck today and hope they play well in their final match of the season. The Sooners have truly been a team that is enjoyable to watch play this season as they have rebuilt a great deal of their roster after last year's coaching change and roster moves. Coach Mansfield and his staff was worked hard to produce a team that can win and they have played several matches were they could have won with a change of 5 points here and there. I think the future could be bright for the Sooners under Coach Mansfield. I wish I had seen more about their potential or committed recruits for OU for next year, but I know nothing about what might be.

I hope there is a decent crowd today for their final game. I will be there with my radio in my ear listening the the Women's Basketball game.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

A very nice crowd showed up for the final Oklahoma Volleyball match of the season as the bottom bowl of seats were full with a good amount of fans in the upper bowl of McCasland Field House. The good crowd was rewarded by 5 sets of competitive volleyball between the Sooners and the West Virginia Mountaineers. The Sooners won the five set match as they won the 2nd, 3rd and 5th sets convincingly. The set scores were WV 25-22, OU 25-15, OU 25-19, WV 28-26 and OU 15-9.

On Senior Day for 4 Sooners, three of the Seniors played very well on Saturday afternoon. Callie Kemohah once playe dmanned the Libero position for the Sooners. she played almost error free on Saturday with 69 touches (12 sets with 4 assists, 16 serves with 1 Ace and 1 error, 20 reception and 21 Digs). Kemohah has usually been the glue that keeps the Sooners back row in the game. Kelsey Carrington added 16 points to the Sooner effort in what was a season high for her and maybe a career high for a match. Carrington had 13 Kills on 30 attempts with only 1 error. She also added 2 Digs at the net and 3 Block Points on the day. Daleigh Ellison added her own 13 points on Saturday. She had 11 Kills on 24 attempts with 2 errors and 2 block points. Kristen Birmingham, the 4th Senior did not play yesterday.

Here is the Sooner staff wrtiers article about the Sooners season ending victory over West Virginia.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/11/2 ... y-saturday

Taylor Preston led the Sooners with 21.0 points on Saturday as she tallied 17 Kills in 42 attempts with 11 errors, 2 Service Aces in 13 serves with 0 errors, 1 Dig and 2 block points. Lydia Burts also had a strong effort at the net at MB with 12.5 points with 10 Kills against 3 errors in 23 attempts. She had 1 assist and served 13 times with only 1 error and 2 digs with 2.5 block points. Payton Chamberlain picked up 55 assists on 137 sets attempts, 4 dump kills against 1 errors in 9 attempts, 16 serves with only 1 error, 5 digs and 1.5 block points. Sydney Thompson added 3 points on 3 service aces in 21 assists with 3 errors, 2 assists, 15 service receptions and 12 digs.

The Sooners picked up 86 points against West Virginia as they outscored the Mountaineers by 20 points, 86-66 which was the key to the match. both teams had 47 errors in the match. The Sooners only had 6 receive errors yesterday in 83 receptions for a 93.3% reception%. That might be a Sooner high moark for 2023. Oklahoma outhit West Virginia at the net with a .225 hitting% and a .391 Kill%. WV tallied a .154 hitting% with a .343 Kill%.

Alexis Shelton did not play in the final match of the season as she is still nursing her left leg injury. I hope everything heals quickly for her.

The Sooners won 2 of their last 4 matches to close out the season at 4-14 in their final season in the Big 12. Their overall mark was 11-17 for the season.

The Big 12 Volleyball play is very strong. It is possible that 6 of the Big 12 Teams will continue their season in the NCAA playoffs as the VB Brackets are announced today at 5 PM on ESPN.

Here were the final standings of for the Big 12 Volleyball:

1st - Texas 17-1 and 22-4 - Ranked 4th and RPI of #5
2nd - Kansas 14-4 and 23-5 - Ranked 15th and RPI of #14
3rd - Baylor 13-5 and 24-6 - Ranked 16th and RPI of #15
T4th - Houston 11-7 and 18-9 - Ranked 22nd and RPI of #27
T4th - Iowa State 11-7 and 20-9 - Ranked 31st and RPI of #31
T6th - Baylor 10-8 and 16-12 - Ranked 25th and RPI of #36
The six Big 12 teams above could be selected for the NCAA playoffs, but Baylor is probably on the bubble and I-State could be left of the list also

T6th - Kansas State 10-8 and 16-11 - Ranked 33rd and RPI of #57
T8th - TCU 8-10 and 16-14 - Ranked --- and RPI of #46
T8th - UCF 8-10 and 17-12 - Ranked --- and RPI of #67
10th - Cincinnati 5-13 and 12-16 - Ranked --- and RPI of #155
T11th - Oklahoma 4-14 and 11-17 - Ranked --- and RPI of #128
T11th - Texas Tech 4-14 and 11-19 - Ranked --- and RPI of #142
13th - West Virginia 2-16 and 9-22 - Ranked --- and RPI of #199

Out of 344 NCAA volleyball programs, Oklahoma was ranked #128 by RPI. That places the Sooners in the 37% of the teams. IMO, the job that Coach Mansfield and his staff did in his first season at Oklahoma was a good job. After losing players that played well at Kentucky (Wilson) and Perkins (A&M), the Sooners picked up key players like Burts and Ellison and the team generally well during the season.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Oklahoma Sooner Volleyball recruit for 2024:

Carley Butler - Owasso, OK - 6'1" MB / OH

[OUBeliever56A]

Looking forward for the Sooner Volleyball Team, the first thing is to be able to have a couple player return to the Sooners to play next season.

I think that Kemohah (Libero) and Ellison (OPP/OH) have one year of eligibility remaining if they chose to return. I also think that Burts (MB and a Senior) has one year of eligibility left due to sitting out her freshman season at Liberty. I think all three of the players have strong roles to play in 2024 for the Sooners as they enter SEC play for the first time. I will be honest and say that Kemohah is one of the reason I go to watch the Sooners as much as possible. She is the heart of the team IMO, and I love to see her dive, take those hard shots and she just keeps making plays. If she does not return to the Sooners, a huge hole will have to be filled. I have watched her play for 3 years and would like selfishly, to watch her play on final season next year.

Then it is important to keep the returning players in the house, so to speak. The Sooners will hopefully be able to keep Alexis Shelton (OH) and Taylor Preston (OH) in Norman. The two best offensive players for Oklahoma are essential as building blocks to build the team around for two more years. I would add Payton Chamberlain to that list as well as she is a very talented setter for the Sooners.

Hannah Pfiffner should pick up playing time with Carrington moving on, so she is also an important MB for the future and she played well this season when sent onto the court. Other Sooners like Sydney Thompson and Ireland McNees and young and have upsides that will help the team going forward. Mele Corral-Blagojevich can help the Sooners as well going forward but needs to improve her mobility and harness her powerful serve more of the time to be a consistent contributor. I still think that Chloe Kaminski can help the Sooners as she did not play as much this season. But she could be a Libero/Def Specialist replacement for OU if Kemohah does not return. Emma Henry is also a young player that OU needs to keep around as a reserve and future setter.

With a couple transfers to help up front along with new freshman Carley Butler the Sooners have the potential to take a step up next year if all the pieces are there and/or remain with the program.

Boomer Sooner!