The RoundHouse | 10/4/2018 10:33:00 AM

Wichita State volleyball coach Chris Lamb watched Brooke Smith work out in the sand and the sight of legs churning made an impression. 
 
"I saw how hard she was working through that, and that's a chore," Lamb said. "It makes you go 'OK, this can happen. This girl is going to go find something.'"
 
Lamb previously watched Smith in Wichita State's summer camps. He noticed her skills and decided she needed to get stronger and learn the game. He watched her push herself through a sand conditioning session at the Wichita Sports Forum and decided to bet on her work ethic.
 
Smith, who attended Goddard Eisenhower High, ran the 400 and 800 meters for the track and field team and played volleyball, didn't see herself in college volleyball. She planned to run track at a small school. Lamb's interest in her changed those plans. She wanted to be a part of a team, make friends and try to do something special with the Shockers.
 
"He invited me to their elite camps and that's when I started to like volleyball," she said. "It was like a fresh start. I didn't look at any colleges. It was kind of a dream to play here."
 
Smith, a 6-foot-3 sophomore middle blocker, planned to redshirt in 2017. Injuries changed that plan. She played in 15 matches with a season-high seven kills against Miami (Ohio). This season, injuries again opened a need at middle and Smith recorded a career-high 13 kills and hit .423 in Saturday's 3-2 loss at Tulsa, her first match of the season.
 
"Her length and mobility allow her to make positive plays for us," Lamb said. "She's patient as a read-blocker and willing to get up early. She's got some arm-swing work, some attacking things that will grow with her career."
 
Ready, when needed. 
 
Smith remembers smiling big when she debuted in 2017 against Marquette in the fifth match of the season.
 
"If I'm nervous, I play better," she said. "There's that energy in me."
 
Smith broke the pinky finger on her right hand playing volleyball during the summer, which set her back and opened her to redshirting this season. With middle Emma Wright sidelined by a thumb injury, the Shockers needed Smith again against Tulsa.
 
"I started preparing myself again, knowing I had to be on top of it," Smith said. "I don't want to disappoint the team."
 
Saturday's loss to Tulsa ended Wichita State's 22-0 run in the American Athletic Conference. The Shockers (7-7, 2-1 American) travel to South Florida (13-3, 2-1) on Friday and Central Florida (12-3, 3-0) on Sunday. Lamb is encouraged by two strong practices this week in which he said the Shockers showed more effort and competitiveness, perhaps spurred by the end of the winning streak.
 
"I can point to all sorts of voids in our statistics and things that have to improve and where they have to improve, but it's kind of like nothing really matters if we're not going to go hard and compete," he said. "I've thought for a couple weeks now this team . . . we could get closer. We could compete harder for longer."
 
The Shockers lost Saturday, a defeat that included a 41-39 win in the first set, the longest in program history. They didn't practice Sunday. The first discussion of the defeat came Monday afternoon. When they practiced, Lamb saw more hustle, more bodies on the floor, better body language and heard more talking. 
 
He liked that response.
 
"Maybe coaches' words aren't as a powerful as taking a loss," Lamb said. "They had a lot of time to think about it before we really put it to bed. Maybe there was nothing more painful in their eyes than a first conference loss. Maybe that was the jolt."
 
Smith noticed the same things. The Shockers talked about playing with urgency and energy.
 
"Hard work everywhere," she said. "The loss against Tulsa really opened our eyes – we have to go for every ball, we have to try for everything."
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.