Sooner Volleyball in Omaha for 2 Matches: Drake (F) & Omaha (SA)

[OUBeliever56A]

The 1-1 Oklahoma Sooners will be in Omaha, NE this weekend for two matches with local team. The Sooners will play Drake (Des Moines, IA) on Friday at 6 PM and will then play Omaha on Saturday at 1 PM. Drake is 1-3 on the season while Omaha is 0-4. On Thursday night, at 7 PM Drake defeated Omaha 3 set to 0 sets.

The staff writers article about the two matches this weekend is below.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/9/5/ ... tournament

This weekend should be a good opportunity to for the Sooners to start a run of victories over the next two weekends. While I think Drake and Omaha cannot be overlooked, I think the Sooners should be favored in both matches this weekend. With Stephen F Austin and Tulsa on the schedule next weekend in Tulsa, the Sooners could build some momentum.

The Sooners are being led by Alexis Shelton (PIN) with 52.5 points and 45 kills on the young season. Kari Geissberger, Kamille Gibson and Daleigh Ellison have also contributed will from the outside at the net. Gibson played very well in the first match of the season against TCU.

At Middle Blocker, Lydia Martin has led the Sooners with 25.0 points and 14 Block Points. Hannah Pfiffner, KJ Burgess and Kesley Carrington have also played well as the other MB for the Sooners. Burgess played very well in the Sooners last match with 11 kills with no errors.

Setters Payton Chamberlain and Leah Wilton-LaBoy have played well driving the Sooner offense. Back row players and servers, Kelly Kemohah (Libero), Jasmine Ellison, Whitney Wallace have played and served well defensively so far this year.

The Sooners are playing a mix of veterans and young players and seem to be jelling at the season starts. Coach Mansfield has perhaps built a team this season that will be imporved over last season.

Both matches can be watched this weekend on secondary networks. The match vs Drake is on "OMavs.com". The Omaha match is on Summit League Network. It looks like the Drake match may be free but the Omaha match may have to be paid for. Both links are on the Sooner Volleyball Schedule page and in the article provided above.

Good luck to the Sooners this weekend in Omaha.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners picked up their 2nd victory of the season as they defeated Drake University 3 sets to 0 sets in Lincoln, NE on Friday night. The three sets were actually closely played between the two teams. Oklahoma won 25-21, 25-22 and 25-22. The final points of the match were dominated by OU.

In the 1st set, the last tie was at 11-11. OU took control and led 21-17 which took the Sooners to a 24-21 led into set point. Alexis Shelton nailed down the victory with a successful kill shot for the 25-21 win.

In the 2nd set, the score was tied at 21-all and at 22-all after 9 tied scores and 6 lead changes. Daleigh Ellison then recorded 3 straight kills for Sooner points for the Sooner win 25-22.

In the 3rd set, the Sooners led early 9-2 and 11-4. But Drake rallied and caused tied scores at 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21 and 22. But Drake had a serving error followed by 2 kill points by Alexis Shelton and Kari Geissberger produced the win for the Sooners at 25-22.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the win for the Sooners.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/9/6/ ... s-in-omaha

Two notes about the Sooners. Payton Chamberlain was at the match but not dressed in her uniform for what I could tell as she was wearing full sweats the whole match. Kamille Gibson was in the starting lineup for the 1st set, but was replaced by Whitney Wallace to serve on the first point of the match. Gibson was wearing sweat pants when I saw her on the sidelines. Chamberlain has a history of a knee injury. It will be interesting to see if she dresses for the match on Saturday. Leah Wilton-LaBoy subbed for Chamberlain as the setter and played well with a OU-career high of 37 assists with 1 error and 17 serves with 2 aces and only 1 error. She also picked up 11 digs on the night with one kill on a quick push across the net. Subbing for Gibson was Daleigh Ellison who scored 6.5 points on 6 kills, and 1 shared block. She also recorded 9 receptions on the back line.

Alexis Shelton recorded her 3rd straight 20+ points match with 21.5 points on 19 kills, 1 service ace and one solo block and 1 shared block with 12 digs. In 63 touches last night, Shelton had only 8 errors as a full rotation player. Shelton was feed several back row sets each set last night with success. Kari Geissberger added 11.0 points on 10 kills and 2 shard blocks. She had one error on kills for a strong night. KJ Burgess scored 6 points with 4 kills and 4 shared blocks. She had 2 errors on 19 touches. Hannah Pfiffner scored 3.0 points on 3 kills. Lydia Martin scored 2.5 points on 1 kill, and 3 shared blocks. Kelsey Carrington played briefly in Set 2.

On the defensive side of the court for Oklahoma, Callie Kemohah scored 2 points on "kills" as she returned the ball twice for points. Kemohah had 52 touches with just 1 error. Kemohah recorded 17 digs to lead the Sooners. Jasmine Ellison continued to serve well as she recorded 2 aces on 11 serves with no errors, 12 receptions and 5 digs. She had 31 touches with 3 errors. Whitney Wallace added 13 serves with 1 error, 21 receptions with 2 errors and 7 digs. Ireland McNees played briefly in two sets to serve and had one ace and one error in 2 attempts.

The Sooners had a kill% of 37.7%, a hitting % of 24.6% and 33 total errors in the 3 sets. They recorded 6 service aces against 8 errors. The team totaled 8 block points.

Congrats to the Sooners on their win over Drake as they played fairly well and are starting to cement the rotations and roles.

The Sooners will play the Omaha, the host team, today in a 1 PM match. Good luck to the Sooners.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners defeated the Omaha Mavericks 3 sets to 1 set on Saturday afternoon to run their record to 3-1 as they have won e straight matches after dropping their opening match to TCU. (TCU is now 2-2 while playing three ranked teams and OU. They lost to #2 Nebraska and # Wisconsin but defeated #18 Minnesota.) It is a good thing that the Sooners have won their last three matches fairly handily and have improved in the areas needed as a team. The set scores were Omaha 25-20, OU 25-13, 25-19, 25-14.

The Sooners made a few too many errors in the first set and dropped the set 20-25 to Omaha. The Sooners trailed 20-21 and had a shot to win the set, but 3 errors by OU and an Omaha kill ran the set out for an Omaha win.

In the 2nd set, OU led 5-1, then was tied at 6-all. Again OU led by 10-7 and was tied at 10-all. But OU ran out to a 14-10, then 20-11 lead and won going away at 25-11.

In the 3rd set, OU trailed early 5-7 but rallied to tie the score at 11-all. OU then took control and lead 21-16 and won 25-19 with a good finish.

In the 4th set, OU controlled early with leads of 7-3, 12-7 and 20-9 before they won 25-14.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the win over Omaha.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/9/7/ ... -afternoon

I did not sign up for the video of the match yesterday but watched the live stats feed of the match. I am spoiled a bit though and feel like I just do not see anything with just live stats. I really like to see the play.

Payton Chamberlain did play in al four sets on Saturday after sitting out on Friday. Leah Wilton-LaBoy filled in nicely for Chamberlain on Friday at setter. Chamberlain had 33 assists in the match with 1 push kill at the net, a shared block and 8 digs. She did play errorless volleyball on the day. Wilton-LaBoy did play in one set defensively and had 6 assists and 1 dig.

Alexis Shelton once again topped the 20 point mark with 21.5 points. She had 18 kills one service ace, 4 shared blocks, and 6 digs while playing all 6 rotations. She did have a few errors with 8 on the attack at the net for a season high though as she started a bit slow. Kari Geissberger recorded her OU career high with 12.5 points with 11 kills (only 1 error), and 3 shared blocks. After not playing as much on Friday, Lydia Martin scored 9.5 points on 7 kills, one solo block, 3 shared blocks and 2 digs in a solid match. Daleigh Ellison continues to do her part with 9.0 points on 9 kills and 1 dig. She is playing well for OU. KJ Burgess as the #2 middle blocker is adding good play with 6.5 points on just one kill, but had 3 solo blocks and 5 shared blocks. Burgess seems to be a presence at the net on defense. Whitney Wallace and Callie Kemohah picked up 4 and 3 service aces for important points on the serve. Kamille Gibson had the final 2 points on 2 kills and 2 digs but had a few errors and only played 1 set. Jasmine Ellison played defense well with 8 digs for second on the team with Chamberlain and one behind Kemohah with 9. Wallace continues to be a solid defensive player with 4 digs.

Up next for the Sooners is a weekend in Tulsa to play Stephen F. Austin (5-2) and Tulsa (6-1). Neither of them have played a good opponent except for Tulsa loss to Baylor. Oklahoma has a shnce to continue to build momentum with a strong weekend in T-town next weekend on Thursday and Friday.

Boomer Sooner!

[AustinTXSooner]

Highlights for these two matches are on SoonerSports.tv. I'd post a link, but they've changed the format and I haven't figured out how to get a link to a specific video.

https://soonersports.com/watch/

Looks like we're still trying to get our timing down. A lot of dinks on what looks like mis-timed sets.