Bears vs Shocks Friday night

by **pawball** » September 20th, 2011, 9:01 pm

Wichita should be jumpin' at the old arena Friday when Bears come to down. Shocks seem to be putting things together, and Bears are too.

Latest estimated RPI has:
\
Panthers @ #3....besides UNI's record, check out their opponents rating....slightly unreal
Bears @ #18
Shocks @ #34

after this it Illinois St @ #91 and Jays and Evansville! both @ #95. Jays not winning as much as expected, at least yet.

The Pablo Rankings have:
UNI @ #8
Shocks @ #44
Bears @ #46

**Sponsor**

by **JayJ79** » September 21st, 2011, 4:19 am

pawball wrote:Latest estimated RPI has:
\
Panthers @ #3....besides UNI's record, check out their opponents rating....slightly unreal

unreal? how so?
UNI did put together a fairly challenging non-conference schedule this year

by **pawball** » September 21st, 2011, 8:56 pm

Meant unreal good. UNI put together maybe the strongest overall non-conf schedule I've seen a Valley team of any kind ever have. A lot of'em were at home, which helped, but gotta give UNI credit, they knew they'd have a gangbusters team this year and scheduled accordingly.

by **1972Shocker** » September 22nd, 2011, 1:23 pm

I'm expecting the usual knock-down, drag-out give and take battle that has been the norm for Shocker-Bear matches in recent years. I would rate this match a toss-up.

Hoping for a good crowd, although our attendance so far this year seems to be down a little perhaps a casualty of the weak economy.

Key for the Shockers will be the health of OH Camri Zwiesler. Camri, who Coach Lamb says is our best all-around player, has been bothered by undiaginosed pain in her left shin and lower back. In our loss to Northern Colorado she played a couple of sets then had to come out in tears as the pain became too much (she had a very uncharacteristic 6 kills and 8 errors in the two sets she did play in). That seemed to be worst of it. She has since played in 4 matches, including our win over OU, and she has played pretty well. She said the pain comes and goes so I hope Friday is a day it goes. She said she felt pretty good in the Nebraska-Omaha match this past Tuesday.

Shocks have been a little inconsistent this year although the Shocks also played a pretty challenging pre-conference schedule which may have had something to do with that. Our losses are to Arizona, Hawaii, Louisville and Northern Colorado. I was disappointed we didn't play better against Arizona and Louisville, although both are Top 40-50 teams. The injury to Camri Zwiesler contributed to the Northern Colorado loss although I will say UNC is a pretty solid team. We do have a nice win over Colorado State on the road and the home win over OU. We also defeated what appears to be a very solid San Franciso team in Hawaii.

Should be a good one.

by **JayJ79** » September 23rd, 2011, 8:44 pm

MSU goes into Wichita and wins 25-23, 25-21, 26-24.

I'll be honest, that result surprised me when I saw it.

by **1972Shocker** » September 23rd, 2011, 8:52 pm

MSU was definitely the better team tonight.

The match sure didn't feel as close as the scores would indicate.

A good showing by MSU and a poor showing by the Shocks.

A really don't know for sure about what we have with this Shocker team. Something is missing.

by **pawball** » September 24th, 2011, 9:27 am

Bears have really turned up their defense tenacity 2-3 notches from a year ago, esp the backrow play. Shocks' outside hitters certainly are very good, as is their play in the middle. Soph setter Carly Thomas is beginning to assert herself more offensively for the Bears and gives the Bears a solid backrow defender when she's there (she led in digs last night). Stokes now has luxury of going with 3 different OH's, depending on who's hot and who's not.

Interesting stats from last night:

Blocks: Shocks.. 12.5....Bears 4
Hitting %: Shocks .224.....Bears .198
Digs: Bears 57.........Shocks 40
SE's: Bears 2..........Shocks 8