The RoundHouse | 10/15/2018 11:33:00 AM
By
Paul Suellentrop
More and more of the scoring burden is shifting to Wichita State outside hitter
Tabitha Brown. She welcomed the weight last weekend.
Brown totaled a career-high 28 kills in Sunday's 3-2 loss to Cincinnati. She hit .284 with seven errors on 74 swings. On Friday, she hit .238 with eight kills in a sweep of East Carolina.
"It was her best (weekend) all year," Shocker coach
Chris Lamb said. "And it wasn't just front-row stuff. I really liked her in serve-receive. I liked her defensive effort."
Brown's weekend numbers look more like her previous two seasons. She hit .247 in 2016 and .268 in 2017 on her way to honorable mention All-American honors. This season, as the focus of much defensive attention and working with new setters, she slipped to .118 entering the weekend.
"What is better for me, personally, is connecting with the setters," she said. "I knew that it came down to me taking better approaches and thinking more about the shots that I'm taking and not playing with fear. Just going up and swinging how I knew how to swing."
The Shockers, down three starters to injury, need Brown's scoring. Lamb wants to get her more back-row swings to add to Wichita State's diversity.
"I saw those huge approaches . . . against a team that knew how to get in front of them and a pretty good libero back there," Lamb said. "She put up really good numbers. If she can do that to Cincinnati, she can do that to anybody."
The Shockers (9-9, 4-3 American Athletic Conference) travel to SMU (Friday) and Houston (Sunday) this weekend.
On Monday, the American Athletic Conference basketball preseason polls, voted on by coaches, picked the Wichita State men eighth and the women 10th.
On Tuesday, the Shockers bring the media spotlight back home with their media day at Koch Arena from 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Wichita State fall baseball practice ends this weekend with the Fall World Series at Eck Stadium. Games are Thursday (6 p.m.), Friday (6 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.).
Saturday's Halloween SCREAMage starts at 12:30 p.m. Activities include trick or treating, pumpkin painting, a photo booth and games.
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
