WICHITA STATE (17-7, 11-3 American)
Friday, Nov. 10 (7:00 p.m. CT) vs. UTSA (15-11, 8-7 American)
Wichita, Kansas (Charles Koch Arena)
Live Stats //
Watch
Saturday, Nov. 11 (1:00 p.m. CT) vs. UTSA (15-11, 8-7 American)
Wichita, Kansas (Charles Koch Arena)
Live Stats //
Watch
Â
Wichita State looks to bounce back from their first home conference loss of the season, hosting UTSA for two matches at Charles Koch Arena.
Both matches will be streamed on ESPN+. Track live scoring throughout the weekend at shockerstats.com.
SCENE SETTERS:
- After splitting two matches at home against North Texas, Wichita State welcomes in new conference member UTSA to The Roundhouse for matches on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.
- The Roadrunners enter play on Friday as one of the conference's hottest teams. UTSA has won seven consecutive matches dating back to October 15.
- The Shockers need to win three of their final five matches to secure a 20-win season, a mark the program has not reached since the 2017 club went 29-4. Wichita State has won 19 and 18 matches in the last two years, respectively.
- The Shockers (11-3) have slipped into a tie for second in the American Athletic Conference standings with Rice (11-3), who also own a 17-7 overall record. WSU's slim conference championship hopes took a hit last weekend; the Shockers would now need to win their final five matches of the season and have first-place SMU (13-1) drop three of their final five contests. With no conference tournament, the winner of the regular season is awarded the conference's automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.
- Head coach Chris Lamb is one win shy of reaching 500 victories over the course of his 24-year career at Wichita State. The Shockers have won at least 15 matches in 19 of Lamb's 24 seasons at the helm. Lamb would become the 19th active head coach with 500 wins at the Division I level, and just the ninth to reach 500 at one school.
- Wichita State leads the American Athletic Conference with a team hitting percentage of .249, thanks in large part to the efforts of middle blocker Natalie Foster and her league-best .403 mark.
LOOKING BACK:
- Wichita State downed North Texas in a hard-fought match on Friday night, 25-19, 23-25, 25-23, 27-25 before suffering their first reverse sweep of the season at the hands of the Mean Green the following afternoon, 25-19, 25-16, 20-25, 23-25, 11-15.
- Four of the nine sets played between the Shockers and Mean Green were decided by the minimum two points, including Friday's fourth set clincher that went to extra points at 27-25.
- Friday's match featured a staggering 32 ties, including 15 in the second set and 12 more in the fourth. Neither team had a lead of more than three in either stanza.
- The Shockers had a season-high 21 kills in the fourth set of Friday's match led by six from Sophia Rohling and four from three other Shockers. Rohling finished with a match-high 18 kills at a .452 clip, while Foster poured in 15 terminations at .462.
- In Saturday's defeat, Wichita State had a chance to close out the match in the fourth set with a 23-21 lead down the stretch. North Texas star Treyaunna Rush responded with three consecutive kills, and a block on set point allowed the Mean Green to extend the match to a fifth set.
- Rush started the match with just three kills and six errors in her first 16 attempts but caught fire over the final three sets. The lefty had 14 kills on 25 attempts to spark the North Texas rally.
- Outside hitter Brylee Kelly was one of four Shockers in double-digit kills, scoring 11 times to reach 1,105 terminations for her career. With 13 more kills, Kelly will break into the program's top ten in career kills; Becky Sutter (1990-93) currently holds the #10 spot with 1,118.
WSU-UTSA SERIES:
- The Shockers lead the all-time series against the Roadrunners 4-2, including a 2-2 mark under Chris Lamb.
- Wichita State is 1-1 at home against UTSA, 0-1 in San Antonio and 3-0 in neutral matches.
- The most recent meeting came in 2016 as part of the Roadrunners Roundup in San Antonio. UTSA overcame a 2-1 deficit to best the Shockers in five, 21-25, 25-20, 25-21, 16-25, 10-15. Mikaela Raudsepp led the Shockers with 17 kills.
- The series dates back to the 1984 season, when Wichita State swept the Roadrunners at the Oral Roberts Invitational in Tulsa. The last meeting in Wichita came in 2006, a 3-1 Wichita State victory.
SCOUTING THE ROADRUNNERS:
- UTSA enters the series with an overall record of 15-11, including an 8-7 mark in American Athletic Conference play. The Roadrunners have won seven consecutive matches for the first time since the 2016 season, knocking off North Texas, Tulane (2x), Memphis, Florida Atlantic and Tulsa (2x).
- The service line will be a crucial factor in this weekend's matches. The Roadrunners bring the conference's best serving unit to Wichita, averaging 1.83 aces per set to rank 32nd nationally. The Shockers average just 1.03 aces, 322nd in the country.
- 6'4 freshman Miranda Putnicki has piled up the blocks over the course of UTSA's winning streak. The talented middle blocker has 39 block assists and three solo blocks in the last seven matches, including 11 block assists in a four-set win over Memphis on October 27.
- As a team, UTSA's 2.51 blocks per set are the 36th-most in the country entering play on Friday.
- Offensively, Kent State transfer Mia Soerensen spearheads the Roadrunners attack. The sophomore opposite leads the club with 3.19 kills per set at a .261 hitting percentage.
- Head coach Carol Price-Torok is in her second season at the helm of the Roadrunners after spending the previous six years as head coach at Bradley, where she was named the 2018 Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year. Price-Torok owns a career record of 108-119 in eight total seasons.
UP NEXT:
- Wichita State embarks on their final road trip of the regular season, heading to Houston for two matches against conference newcomer Rice. Friday's match is scheduled for 6:00 pm while Saturday's first serve is at 2:00 pm.
