[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We have Wichita State volleyball coach Chris Lamb. He is here to recap the spring season for the Shockers. WSU played nine spring scrimmages, including matches with Tulsa, Kansas, Missouri, Missouri State, Kansas City and Creighton. Chris is fresh off a morning session with his setters and the noise you hear in the background is Velcro with some of his training aides. What do you got there, Chris? What are you.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: These are old sidewinders. We put them on the girl's feet and causes a lot of resistance.
It helps with creating power and balance and just make it a little more challenging for them.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: There are always interesting things going on in Shocker volleyball practice. Let's remind people about last fall. 2024, Shockers returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017. They won the AAC championship at Koch Arena. Shockers went 18 and 14106 in the conference. Lost to SMU in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Departures from that team, most prominently Morgan Stout, setter, Izzy Strand, Libero Anali Hellesty, outside. Alyssa Gonzalez, back from that team, Brooklyn Leggett, Emerson Wilford, Matty Wilson among the attackers. And a really good group of Littles that we will talk about. Gabby Moss, Katie Galligan and Grace Hett. Chris Shocker is back in the NCAA tournament. Last year, 2023 won the NIVC. What does that strong two year stretch tell you about where Shocker volleyball is?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Good question. I'm glad he didn't forget about that NIVC. That was, I think, I think that's underrated. I think it's something to be said for making a run in a single elimination tournament.
I hope, I hope that that thing continues to get enough traction to keep it alive.
Last year it's a 32 team tournament and I think they had 28 or 29 teams. I don't think they could get 32 teams who qualified to actually accept the bid. So I was. That was frustrating last year to see that. But two years ago it was a, a full field. Everybody that made it I thought was, you know, capable of advancing, you know, and I like that for our sport. It did a lot for us. You know, we've had some ups and downs with injuries to our starting lineup the past couple of years and you need a lot of good fortune in this league. I'll say it this way, Paul. A few years ago, the year after Covid, we all returned our same teams, almost every starting lineup in the conference looked the same.
So in a year where Temple came in second, they followed up the next year, coming in second to last with the same athletes and across the conference. And I just, I'm just telling you, you're going to need a lot of good fortune to sort of make your goals. I asked, I asked the SMU assistant coach two years ago when we were playing a home, a back to back there, I said, how many, how many team goals could you, could you reach if you competitive goals could you reach if you lost one starter? He said, zero. I went, yeah, there's probably only a handful of teams in any conference or basically maybe even in a country that could overcome, you know, not having your best lineup out there for volleyball, because we have to turn in lineups. We don't share minutes. So last year was no different.
We lost Gabby and Matty in the spring and it was going to be, it was going to be difficult. And we sort of knew a third of the way through conference that, you know, maybe winning the league wasn't going to happen. But we're going to retool and set our sights on the conference tournament and we trained for it, we rested for it. You don't really see that when you're chasing a conference outright championship because you're at full speed to the finish line. But, but we actually managed bodies a little bit differently in that quest.
We also had a few more bumps in the road in November to our roster, but super, super proud of the magic I thought we made in the final couple of weeks to kind of get things right and play some of our best volleyball and as you said, win the conference tournament championship. Very fun and super happy for Izzy and Morgan to be able to end their seasons back to back seasons with banners and with trophies and individual awards, you know, personal achievements like, you know, all conference this or first team all conference that, or, you know, tournament mvp. Morgan got.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: Hi, this is Rick Yiuma, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Shocker Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: You.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Know, thanks for asking. It's fun to revisit those stories. And you know, Morgan went off to be professional. Izzy's just signing a contract now to go play professionally and really happy for them.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Big story of the spring. What pops to mind? What you accomplished?
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to give the spring a C plus.
I felt that competitively it was just average, but maybe A B minus. But some of the things we worked on the, you know, we like to be really aggressive in the spring and then you back up. See, you try to, you try to almost play at maximum speed in the spring and then in the fall it's more maximum controlled speed. What can you do? Well, so a lot of, A lot of, you know, science room projects, you know, experiments rather going on in the spring. People doing different positions, people trying to expand their skill set, doing, you know, just who's gonna be, who's gonna become the next passer. So everybody's trying that where it work. How many different sets can you score with? How fast can the setters play? You know, that's what spring. I don't let spring be easy. In a way, you might say I sort of sabotage us in the spring from being really good on the scoreboard and playing matches. But I also felt the reason I say average was I don't know how hard we fought in a couple of our matches. And I had to remind them of that. This literally is our preseason.
I think as a mid major, your non con is absolutely part of your season. So anybody that says preseason once August rolls around in the fool. So if we have a preseason, it's the previous spring and so it matters. And I just felt there were some ups and downs with that competitively in terms of how we approached competing.
I'm not afraid to say that out loud, but we also had some great development. I feel like both Sarah and Hannah, two setters that are going to be taken over for Izzy carrying the torch.
I can tell you they made great progress. Like Allie Polson is just a different athlete than she was a year ago. She's come a long way.
I think people are going to really, really like what Sidney Dunning can do for us. I think she's.
When I say Emily Stockman, I don't mean to put that kind of, you know, is she capable of being Emily Stockman? Well, in terms of a job description, Emily was asked to be a top third digger at her position, a top third passer at her position, and a top third scorer at her position in our league. And we call those the aircraft carriers in our sport. And there's teams that won't have a person who can do that ever. Well, I will tell you that once every five or six years, we're even at attempting to make a claim that somebody can do all of that.
Well, I'll make a claim that she's capable of doing all of that. So that's exciting for Us Brooklyn Leggett is becoming more well rounded, more polished. I think she's scoring more with more range. She's scoring on both pins now. I think she was good. Another one that's super happy to see Gabby Moss. She lost her season last year to an ACL tear in last spring, the previous spring preparing for Brazil and honestly she got back sooner than I expected and was playing at a higher level sooner than I expected. So Gabby literally looks like she took off where she left off. If I'm saying that right. I mean she looks like she's in mid season form already and I just be honest, I didn't see that coming. So really, really excited for her. I'm sure I'm leaving people out. Those are things that just sort of come to mind right now. Watching our team in the spring. Oh, Katie Galligan has just been steady Eddie and has taken more of a leadership role on the team and I have no problem handing over team leaders locker room stuff to a person like Katie Galligan.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Is there a scrimmage that you look back on and say that was particularly promising or revealing from the spring?
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Honestly, our last match versus Missouri, who I think is very, very good, we didn't win that, but I thought we played right with them.
So our very last one sort of left, left a good taste in my mouth that felt pretty good. But I wasn't here for our match with Kansas, a match that we won in five sets and I was at a family function so I missed out. But I wasn't going to say I had scheduled myself, Paul, to be at a wedding, my niece. And then along came a new coach at Kansas and he agreed to return, which we kind of owe. We do home and homes with the locals and it was their turn to come back and I didn't know what we'd get. So they didn't start competition until April and I wasn't going to not take them just because I couldn't be here. So exciting to sort of see the text messages while I was gone that things were going really well and I had a fun time watching that videotape. But those, those would have been our best performances against high level competition.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Let's go back to the littles. Gabby Moss, you mentioned her back from injury. Katie Galligan, she took over Libero late last fall and I think that was one of the big factors in the late season surge. Grace Hett played really well as a fre. Take us through that group this spring.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Well, there's 13 teams in our league, you know, Missouri Valley at 10. I was in the Pac 10 when it was the Pac 10. You know, I've always sort of sliced teams up in thirds in the conference and then all the skills in the thirds. And let's be honest, if you're going to win the league, you're going to be top third in point scoring, you're going to be top third in a lot of individual categories, meaning you've got players that are playing at the top of the league.
So, you know, opponent hitting percentage holding your opponents to lower scoring than what they're used to is one of the cardinal stats in our sport. And I believe that if we're in a 5:1 and all three of them are playing, I believe that we will be able to keep up with the top teams, one of which will be us in defense. If we're in a six two and we're only playing two of them, we're speaking about the Liberos right now, the Littles, as we say in our sport. Yeah, it'll be too bad, but we're in a 6:2 for. If we're in a 6:2, it's because of other reasons. But you know, I'd like to think that because of them that our passing and our digging should keep us in the top third. Usually coaches say serve and pass together, but serving is different. I'm not willing to say that we will be top third there just yet, but I believe that we can be a top third passing and digging team primarily because this is how much confidence I have in those Liberos.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Should be a really strong group. Three newcomers join the Shockers this spring. You mentioned Sydney Dunning, a junior transfer from Cal State Bakersfield, outside hitter, junior setter Hannah Hawkins, transfer from High Point in North Carolina, and junior middle Eleanor Engel from Central Missouri. How are those three fitting in?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: So all of them are wired right? I love what they're about. They all work hard.
They were all sort of seeking more than what they were getting and I think they have found that here. I think they feel very challenged, I think they feel very welcomed.
I think they like the vibe with our staff. I think they like the vibe in the locker room, as we say in sports, meaning amongst the team, you know, and they are, they are part of keeping our atmosphere hungry and strong. I'm speaking to their brain and their character right now, not their ability. These are three young women that want to fight and easier said than done recruiting that. So, you know, we think we thought we were getting that when we watched them on tape and did our homework. But to have them in the gym and to see them approach practice every day training, you know, we got that part right. So the next part is, you know, what roles will they have? Well, I already mentioned how Sidney can be maybe the busiest player on our team.
Hannah.
We said goodbye to a first team all conference setter. I felt next year might be setting by committee anyways, so I wanted to find someone a little older. I was hoping to find a junior, a senior. We found a junior in Hannah, and I just wanted to. I wanted the setting room, if you can say it that way, like they do in the NFL.
I wanted the setting room to be more competitive. So I just. I felt, let's add another setter to the mix. And we ran a six two this spring. Two setters. Not so much for the setting or what I expect from the setting, more as it just was more of a tryout for all the other things in the 6:2. My rights can play left, my lefts can play right. More attackers can be on the floor. More attackers have to handle the ball. Not really setting up spring for winning as much as I'm setting spring up for developing. So you asked about the setters. I thought that having another setter, getting a setter in here at spring allowed a lot of that to happen. And then, you know, with Eleanor. Yeah, she came from Division 2, but so did Brooklyn, by the way, and she's done just fine here. I just like what Eleanor's about. I mean, her talking to Eleanor on the phone. She's like, how do I convince you that I'm really, really interested? I'm like, well, Eleanor, you kind of have. She's, I want to drive down and meet you. I'm like, come on down. I mean, just very purposeful. Like her motor, like ask the best questions in training. You know, we just. We got to get her in the best shape of her life, and we got to get the ball on that arm because she has one of the better arms on our team. So if we can find a ball for Eleanor that she can score with, whether it be middle or perhaps on the right side, you know, that will. That will probably tell you how she's doing or where she's going. Us finding a ball that she can score with at a regular rate. I mean, she's got arm talent, and our job is to find a ball that she can score with. And so that's what we're working on with all of our players. But that will be. That will tell you how she's doing. On our team competitively.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: And Eleanor is from Kansas City. So when you talk to her, she would have a, she would have a three hour drive down here. You mentioned the word challenge. And when I talked to the three newcomers a couple weeks ago, I think all three of them mentioned that word. Are you able to tease that out during the recruiting process that that's what they're looking for?
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Well, I, I mean, I try to be really, really honest. And with Sydney, it's like, hey, you can make us better. You can come here and be really busy. And she's from the same club that's Emily Stockman was from. And, you know, it was like Emily wanted to be a really, really, really, really busy and important person. And I said, hey, you know, you're coming, you're coming from the land of Stockman. And this is what I told her. And that's a role for you. And yeah, she's, she's delivering. It will, it will continue to be challenging for her. But, you know, I just told her that with Hannah and with Eleanor, it was, you know, I need depth at these positions. I have no idea how soon you're going to help us on the court. It may be immediately, it may be never. I like what I see from you. I like what you're about.
I wouldn't be recruiting you if I didn't think you guys could make our gym better. But I hope sooner than later you can make our starting lineup better. So that was pretty much how the conversation went with those. But with those two. But I mean, I'm always, I'm always trying to do the best job I can of spelling out, you know, the job description I see them filling and then the job description I need them to fill as the years go on.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: So for the setters, what did you learn this spring about them? And as you are building a lineup, 5, 1, 6, 2. How's that process unfold?
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Well, for both of them, the M2 part of the offense is our greatest challenge. If you're a quarterback and we have X receivers, we have wide receivers, we have Z receivers, we have tight ends, we have running backs out of the backfield. Well, I'll speak to my 49ers. You haven't seen the 49ers go deep on a long time. You know, stretching the field, you know, having that X run go routes, it's just not something we do. Maybe we don't have the guy to run it, maybe we don't have the guy to throw it. Well, what I'm saying to you Is our biggest challenge right now is what we call the M2 part of the offense. It's all the quick stuff to a middle, usually in front of a setter. And to be honest with you, Paul, that's something we're known for around here. So I will. I will tell you that one of the barometers for our team will go. We'll go as far as that goes. It may not be the case. We may get great there and we don't go far. We may go far without it. It's just my guess is as that part goes, so goes our offense. So, yeah, if you ask me, what I learned is we've got a lot of work in front of us getting those middles tuned up for that and getting our setters tuned up because that is a. That's a two way street. It's like. It's like pairs figure skating. One doesn't get to be good without the other and win the gold. They're going to both have to go out there and be in sync and connect a lot of dots. So that's where Wichita State is right now. And that's one of the things we learned. We also learned Hannah can play some serious defense.
Probably the best defender at the setting position we've had here in a while. That's saying a lot and good for her. If we find ourselves in a 5:1, Sarah probably will be as effective as a blocker as we've had around here in a while at the position. So we were also learning that as well.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Sarah Musial, you mentioned she redshirted last year. So she will be a redshirt freshman this year.
Talked about the middle. Morgan Stout's departure opens up a lot of swings there. Matty Wilson is back after a good season. I've heard a lot of good things about sophomore Allie Paulson. Set up the middles for. For us.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So big question mark. Got some middles coming in that I think are talented enough to make some noise right away. I think Janiyah is a accomplished quick hitter. I feel like I can set Janiyah a certain ball right now and I think she can get on the scoreboard in our league.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: And she'll be a freshman.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: She'll be a freshman if we're in a 5:1. She'll also make some noise there. But Sophia Thompson I think will make noise with slightly slower stuff, the slides and the loopier stuff in front. But what really needs to happen is that Matty Wilson needs to be healthy enough to practice every day and play Every day. It's very difficult to sync up with middles when you can't train every single day. So this spring was about managing her jumps. This summer it's going to be about getting her back and then handling that. Because I mentioned, you know, that.
That Eleanor had the arm talent. I probably mentioned that Brooklyn had the arm talent. Sydney has the arm talent. Well, Maddie is one of the best arms in our gym, if not in the conference. So we need Maddie Wilson on the floor hitting the quick stuff and our setter and Matty need to. Setters and Matty need to get a rhythm there.
But you mentioned you're asking about the middles. So. Yeah, if right now I was to say we're going to start a match tonight, I'll tell you, we'd probably roll out a lineup that looked a lot like our Missouri match two weeks ago. And Ali Poulson and Matty were in the middle. We took away some of the fast stuff that I was talking about at the beginning of this conversation when you asked about the spring and we just started setting loopier stuff to both of them, you know, more mother's milk, if you will. Just kind of went back to something we were kind of well versed in from before and they both scored against Missouri. So, you know, it's. It makes you think that those two and maybe others can get us there. But it is a question mark.
How will the, how will Wichita State do in the middle? I went out on a limb and told the team this spring we might be better passing and defending than we were last year returning all the littles. And I'd like to think that we're going to be better on the pins, two lefts and the right or two lefts and two rights than we were last year. So I'm willing to say will pass as good or better than last year, will attack on the pins as good or better than last year, will block on the pins as good or better than last year and we'll defend as good or better than last year. I'm even willing to say probably better. The question marks will probably be, well, what are you going to do in the middle?
How setting going to be? So you're asking about the middles? Well, you're asking about both because the middle offense is more setter dependent than the high ball offense. So that again, as that goes, so go the shocks.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Allie from Wichita went to Andover Central. She played in eight sets last year. Describe her progress.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: So gosh, Allie was the bad news is like when she's Doing her best, that's when she gets hurt. So two times in a row at her best when she's gotten hurt and again had an illness this spring. But we need Allie to sustain a full season.
No fingers, no ankles. You know, just, just get out there and stay healthy and battle and then continue to grow. And I'm telling you, she was. If you know that Sean and Chelsea used to work for me here, now they've been gone a couple of years. Well, both of them coached Allie a little bit as a club player when she was younger. And I've been telling them for more than a year, if you guys came back and saw Ali right now, you wouldn't recognize all things good. So it's just getting faster. She's able to score on more balls, she's touching more balls as a blocker. I mean, she's really coming a long way and she's a young shocker. So future is bright for Allie Poulson.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Brooklyn Leggett. We've talked about her. She was third on the team last year, 262 kills. Her second season at Wichita State. You should remember her third set in the AAC championship match for versus Florida Atlantic last year. She had seven kills on 11 swings. What's next for Brooklyn? How does she continue to progress?
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Scoring with more range, scoring on both pins, being a more aggressive blocker into out.
That's what's on the docket. That's the job description. We've sort of raised expectations of Brooklyn. And then I think I said this earlier, Paul, I mean I'm like, hey, all conference.
He played like an all conference player. At the end of the year we got to have it from wire to wire. A lot of times, Paul, you got a five day work week. You know, you're asking some young players to have a good day. Then you're asking them to maybe have two out of five. Then you're asking them to learn how to stack good days two in a row. Well, you're a senior now, so now I'm talking four or five days out of the week. Need to be highly productive. She's ready for that. The last great right side player here, Sophia Rowling, I can absolutely remember her, sent me and her discussing looking at stats, looking at leadership, just performance stuff in general. Hey man, all these days matter. So when you first got here, it was give me a good day, one a week. Now it's you get one, eh, A week, you know, you need to sustain that. Well, I've challenged Brooklyn to be an all conference player. But guess what? Bryce is going to have something to say about that. South Florida opposite is going to have something to say about that. Birmingham's opposite is going to have something to say about that. Tulsa's opposites, both of them are going to have something to say about that.
UTSA going to have something to say about that. I mean, I can just go through our roster, Temple, I mean, our schedule, our conference can put up eight kids that I can name that I could say if we put up three or four all conference first or second teamers. I can tell you eight girls right now that I think are fighting for those three or four spots. And I don't even know who the new girls for the league are. So it's gonna be, oh, North Texas, forgot her.
It's not gonna come easy. But if you put them all in a group and you match them all up, some's got a little of this over her, some's got a little of that over her. But all things considered, Brooklyn's in the equation. And we need Brooklyn to come out of this. 42, 43, 44% kills, consistently hitting, you know, 260 and up consistently. Two and a half, three kills a game. Like, hey, but why, why stop there? 3, 3.2 kills a game.
Like, consistent, like, average it. So, I mean, sometimes there's four and five. Like you just said, she had a seven. Well, okay, you want to average three and a half, four. Well, there's gonna have to be some six and sevens in there to do it. So, I mean, definitely raising the bar for her and I trust that she will work her tail off to achieve that.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Chris Lamb wrapping up spring volleyball for the Shockers. Chris, thanks very much for your time.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Always love talking PA.
[00:28:56] Speaker D: Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
[email protected] Bradshaw into Wingate. Wingate's gonna dribble it a couple of times and throws it in the hands of Kuznard. Threw it away. Kuznard to Ryan Martin for the dunk. The Shockers are going to the sweet 16.
It's all over. The shockers up seven, three seconds. Jeffrey by Smith is no good. Wichita State to the sweet 16.
