LAWRENCE – Wichita State flirted with equal parts perfection and disaster for much of Saturday morning's Kansas Invitational finale against Delaware but found enough of the former to win in five sets: 25-16, 20-25, 26-24, 19-25, 15-11.
WSU (5-1) hit a season-best .288 and held Delaware (5-3) to a .188 attack percentage.
Four Shockers finished with double-digit kills, led by
Kailin Newsome, who hit .245 and recorded 18 kills on 53 swings. She was joined by
Sophie Childs (15 kills),
Lauren McMahon (13) and
Sophia Rohling (13).
It was a breakthrough performance for Childs, whose 15 kills were eight more than previous career-best, set Friday against Kent State.
McMahon hit a team-best .462 on 26 swings.
Kayce Litzau set a new career-high of her own with 54 assists on WSU's 67 kills.
Lily Liekweg added 25 digs.
Rohling took part in four the 11 Shocker blocks.
Shocker head coach
Chris Lamb notched his 450th career victory.
It was the second five-set loss for Delaware in less than 24 hours. The Blue Hens fell to Kent State on Friday evening.
Savannah Seemans recorded a team-high 16 kills for the Blue Hens. The sophomore entered the weekend ranked second nationally in service aces and added to her total against the Shockers, accounting for four of the team's nine aces.
WSU now prepares to open its home schedule with next weekend's Shocker Volleyball Classic, Presented by Aspen Heights.
WSU meets South Dakota (Friday, 7 p.m.), Wyoming (Saturday, 10 a.m.) and Creighton (Saturday, 7 p.m.). Fans can purchase seats online at GoShockers.com/Tickets or by phone at 316-978-FANS (3267).
FIRST SET: WSU, 25-16
The Shockers put together perhaps their best offensive set of the young season, hitting .536 collectively on 28 error-free swings. Newsome (5-0-9, .556) and Childs (4-0-7, .551) combined for nine of WSU's 15 kills, while Litzau registered 12 assists.
SECOND SET: DEL, 25-20
After going the entire first set and nine points into the second without a single attack error, WSU committed errors on three-straight points, allowing Delaware to claw back from a 6-3 deficit. The Shockers finished the set with eight attack errors and hit just .143. The teams traded points through the middle portion of the set and were tied at 15 before the Blue Hens began to pull away. Service aces accounted for four of Delaware's final 11 points. The Blue Hens hit .241 and registered 5.0 blocks.
THIRD SET: WSU, 26-24
Tied at 24,
Sophie Childs delivered consecutive solo blocks to give the Shockers an improbable, come-from-behind win. She also added six kills. WSU trailed 19-13 but scored 10 of the next 13 points to take a 23-22 lead. Delaware helped the Shocker cause during that stretch with six errors (five on the attack and one on a serve). The Hens moved back in front 24-23, but the Shockers rallied again with three-straight points.
FOURTH SET: DEL, 25-19
The Shockers nearly pulled another remarkable comeback, this time from 22-16 down. McMahon supplied two kills during a 3-0 run that sliced the deficit to 22-19 and prompted a hasty Blue Hen timeout. On the other side of it, Delaware scored three kills to restore order and force a decisive fifth set.
FIFTH SET: WSU, 15-11
The Shockers reeled off six-straight points to go up 10-5. Delaware scored four of the next five to get within 11-10, but WSU's Newsome and Rohling answered with back-to-back kills. The Blue Hens hit (5-4-23) .043 in the final set to WSU's .148 (10-6-27).
