Shocker Volleyball |
ShockerVolleyball.com |
Kansas and WSU will no longer be such happy places after these dear seniors, Jackie and Emily, have passed the baton to the 2013 class of Shocker volleyball players.
Chelsey Feekin is now ranked #1 in the nation in hitting percentage.
Jackie Church and Jordan Hinkle are expressing their emotions for their team.
Sam Sanders—what a Shocker senior!
Chelsey Feekin has become a highlight to watch and national shining star in volleyball player statistics. She is third highest in the nation in hitting percentage, and recently achieved the first triple-double since 1999 in Shocker Volleyball history. She is the "left-handed monster."
Emily Adney #6, Jackie Church #10, and Jordan Hinkle #11, make quite a group of volleyball players. Adney was named the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Week for this week.
Shockers win by 25-20, 25-15, and 25-22.
25-16, 25-16, and 25-17 tell the story about the evenly-paced winning game by all of the Shockers today. And the rest was all about Ashlynn, who joined the ranks of great volleyball players, leading everyone with 16 points, all as a young freshman.
When a team of any kind can match its opponent after being down for the first two-thirds of a game, that shows true grit. And when a top senior player can celebrate her birthday with such emotion for her team, that's high class.
When a team loses, it can still come first and win our hearts. Even a fan of the other team surely would have given victory to us if it were up to our evaluation of how well players really played.
A team is when the ones who didn't get to play are even happier for the ones winning who played than the ones who played are for themselves. And the WSU shocker volleyball ladies surely demonstrated this with their display of joy after the incrediblely sweet victory tonight.
Chelsey Feekin as a setter played a leadership role in a good win against CSU.
The Shocker volleyball girls outdid themselves tonight with a super performance. However, the Wichita residents should be ashamed of themselves for not showing up in larger numbers. Come on, Wichita! Go Shockers!
Samantha Sanders (Sam) plays her heart out for the Shockers.
The game tonight was at least twice as fast-paced as usual. Both teams delivered incredible plays in rapid-fire succssion. Led by Bre Payton, the Panthers seemed unbeatable, and yet the Shockers played so well that the 0-3 loss seemed like it was due to steaks of bad luck rather than any lack of skill on the part of Wichita State.
Kelsey Banwart, high school track star and sprinter, is being molded into an unbelievable volleyball player! Gladly, the Shocker volleyball team is developing (growing?) some great new players.
Sadly, the Rangers lost, and nothing can be done to cope with a loss. However, the Shockers won, our own special school team, and nothing can take away a victory.
Last year the Shockers had a tough time defeating the Creighton Bluejays at home, winning in come-from-behind fashion after dropping the first two.
This year, it was different. The Shockers swept the Bluejays, thrilling the crowd. Amazingly, both teams wore pink for cancer, confusing even some of the media and photographers at the beginning of the match.
Watching no matter how many volleyball matches, one cannot cease to be amazed by the talents of faithful standouts like Mary Elizabeth Hooper, who quickly approaches 2nd place in WSU record books for setters. Quickly the sad time is drawing nearer when her senior season closes and the memories are all we have of such a great, outstanding volleyball player. May God be with her and her fellow seniors, Sarah Waldorf and Camri Zwiesler, through the rest of their lives.
So close and so agonizing. A shallow glance at the result 0-3 makes it sound like an easy three-set sweep for the Bears, but anything was further from the truth.
It was very reassuring (and heartwarming) to see a new crop of volleyball athletes at the close of the third set, guided by the senior, Waldo--yes, Shocker Volleyball is in good hands for the future. Like watching children grow up, they become near and dear to us, like Mary Elizabeth, and then when they leave we feel like a grandmother does with tears streaming down her face as her college graduate travels hundreds of miles away to make a living. Tears keep falling long after our child's car disappears from view after turning a corner, both literal and figurative, at the end of the block where they played as a child.
Unbelievably, the Shockers held the Mavs to a .000 hitting percentage.
After a scary opening for Wichita fans, when the Illinois State Redbirds ran ahead three points to zero, things went great for the Shockers whose women won by scores of 25-11 in the first set and by 25-15 for both second and third sets. Relieved and loyal fans were happy that their favorite girls were not having any trouble--at least not at home, and not so far: on Tuesday they will be facing Nebraska-Omaha.
This match brings Shocker Volleyball up to 3rd place in MVC standings, behind the Missouri State Bears (their notorious foe that ended their 29-0 dream season and snatched away "defeat from the jaws of victory" by taking the MVC Championship after the Shockers obtained seasonal perfection together with the legendary and all-time great 2008 Penn State team) and UNI, their most "hated" (in a healthy way) rival of all.
WSU had a great MVC home opener tonight, winning three sets to zero against the Indiana State Sycamores.
One of the faithfully-serving umpires for volleyball tournaments worked her very last game today with the Shockers (NR/#30 Wichita) versus the Sooners (#22/#19 Oklahoma). The Shocker's home page said "thrilling" and the Sooner's home page didn't even have a word to say an hour after the game. How could you explain losing three straight sets after winning the first two? This sounds like what happend to Penn State versus Carolina--you remember, the year that Penn State never lost even a single set until the national final versus Nebraska.
The scores included two nail-biting rounds: 25-27 in the first, and a multi-year home high of 29-27 in the fourth set, sending the girls screaming for joy and jumping far above the court after a series of agonizing moments where victory could have ended with the opposition in a mere split second.
#2 MVC ranked Wichita played against the MVC last place team Bradley giving some freshmen a chance for playing time while still winning the match three sets to zero. The photo above shows Wichita head coach Chris Lamb in his home court with a background of his players on court approximately one minute before the end of Saturday's match.
Shocker men's Basketball update from the Valley: "Shox are Lone Unbeaten as Four Fall on Sunday - In men's basketball, four of the league's five unbeaten teams fell for the first time on Sunday, leaving Wichita State as the league's only unbeaten team." (mvc-sports.com)
Sarah McGee was hurt badly in the fourth set, but she went down scoring. Wild screams and cheers at Sarah's incredible right-side kill faded to complete quiet at the ominous sight of a 6'3" college athlete lying motionless on the volleyball court. The crowd burst into cheers when Sarah finally stood to her feet. Somehow she made it to the sidelines, her face wrought with pain, before once again collapsing to the floor behind the bench.
After Sarah #21 was forced out of the match by injuries (no word yet on how serious), the Shockers couldn't collect themselves, and a hard-fought 18-16 set quickly evaporated into 25-18 surrender. In the somber atmosphere while emergency medical personnel administered care, the crowd almost didn't care as long as it was over, as if somehow the ending of the game would make her injury as if it had never been.
In the fifth set, the Shockers trailed five points to nine. If they made two points for every point of their opponent, ten points in a row, they would be able to win. Sounds impossible? The Shockers did it!
In an unforgettable, challenging victory, the Shockers defeated the Missouri State Bears, winning the 1st, 3rd, and 5th sets of a fierce match.
The Shockers defeat the Evansville Aces by 3 to 0.
The Shockers defeated the Southern Illinois Salukis 25-18, 25-20, 25-19. After the game, Camri Zwiesler autographed fans' programs, volleyball team posters, and shirts.
Despite a seriously injured left hand, Mary Elizabeth Hooper played for the duration of last night's vicious 5-set victory over the Illinois State Redbirds, and came back tonight to lead a 3-set win over the Indiana State Sycamores. In doing so, the junior setter for the Shockers earned her first All Missouri Valley Conference Athlete of the Week honors as well as another WSU Player of the Week honor.
The Shockers out-fought the Redbirds to win the battle in an exhausting 3-2 game.
The Portland Pilots lost the first set and then staged an amazing comeback to defeat an arguably better team, the Wichita State Shockers, on Saturday, September 6, 2010, thereby claiming their first championship since 2004. It was clear, even from the sprinter-style jumps and warmups performed before new players were exchangd with old ones, that Portland's players were giving their absolute best. Although the margins were extremely narrow, this proved to be enough to defeat the Shockers, whose coach seemed to be experiencing considerable trouble settling on a combination of players. Perhaps it was this second-guessing rather than any lack of potential that spelled doom for the Shockers tonight.
Alysa Heath #16 checked in for the Shockers to set the game on fire with a continuous blur of incredible blocks and back-to-back kills, clinching a 3-0 win again the Stephen F. Austin Ladyjacks on Friday night in their first match of the SpringHill Suites Shocker Classic.
The Missouri State Bears defeated the Wichita State University Shockers women's volleyball team. However, Mary Elizabeth Hooper (#5, Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year) scored the first kill as well as the last ace for the Shockers, impressing the entire audience with her skill, and providing some consolation during the tear-jerking experience of her team's first loss.
The year's first snow began to fall quietly outside during the game, cheering up the subdued fans on their way home with thoughts of Christmas.
AVCA Division I Top 25 Coaches Poll (As of 11/24/2008) |
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Rank | School | W-L | Points | Prev |
1 | Penn State (60) | 30-0 | 1500 | 1 |
2 | Stanford | 24-3 | 1434 | 2 |
3 | Texas | 23-3 | 1367 | 4 |
4 | Nebraska | 26-2 | 1308 | 3 |
5 | Washington | 22-4 | 1276 | 5 |
6 | Hawai'i | 26-3 | 1168 | 6 |
7 | Cal | 22-5 | 1147 | 7 |
8 | Oregon | 22-7 | 980 | 8 |
9 | Wichita State | 29-0 | 963 | 11 |
10 | UCLA | 18-10 | 950 | 9 |
11 | USC | 16-10 | 903 | 10 |
12 | Minnesota | 24-6 | 840 | 12 |
13 | Kansas State | 23-6 | 760 | 13 |
14 | Florida | 23-3 | 736 | 14 |
15 | Illinois | 22-7 | 641 | 16 |
16 | San Diego | 22-4 | 626 | 17 |
17 | Kentucky | 26-4 | 487 | 19 |
18 | Purdue | 22-8 | 437 | 18 |
19 | Colorado State | 22-5 | 405 | 15 |
20 | Michigan | 23-7 | 352 | 20 |
21 | Utah | 22-5 | 338 | 22 |
22 | Saint Louis | 26-4 | 304 | 21 |
23 | Pepperdine | 20-6 | 153 | 24 |
24 | San Francisco | 22-7 | 96 | 25 |
25 | New Mexico State | 23-8 | 79 | NR |
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. |