Box Score In the short time since Wayland Baptist suffered its first Sooner Athletic Conference loss to Oklahoma City University over the weekend, the Pioneers have taken a lot of positive steps. Just not enough to beat a quality opponent like Lubbock Christian as the Lady Chaparrals walked away with a 26-24, 23-25, 26-24, 25-20 victory over Wayland on Tuesday night in Hutcherson Center.
"Our blocking was better and our serve-receive for the most part was pretty good. The communication and the mental part of the game is picking up. That was encouraging to see them improve on those things since Saturday," Wayland coach
Jim Giacomazzi said.
But that wasn't good enough against LCU (7-7), a team coming off a sweep of Midwestern State and which owns wins over then No. 22 West Texas A&M and Texas A&M International.
"Our left-side and right-side are atrocious, and that has to change for us to think about going to the playoffs. We can't have negative hitting percentages out of those positions," Giacomazzi said. "So over the next couple of weeks we're going to be focusing a lot on the quality of the swing and, tied in with that, the quality of the set."
Wayland (14-4), which lost its No. 20 ranking earlier in the day and now is the equivalent of No. 26 (OCU moved up to No. 23), hit just .107 against LCU. The Lady Chaps didn't light it up, either, hitting just .119.
Shahala Hawkins had her usual solid match, putting down 25 kills and hitting .358, to go with two solo blocks and two block assists.
Chelsey Driskill added 11 kills and hit .216.
"We have to know how we butter our bread and start setting Shahala more consistently because Shahala steps up and terminates," Giacomazzi said. "The other team outdug us by 17 (95-78) due to the fact our outsides and Chelsey aren't putting the ball down. Rallies are lasting too long. We have to start putting the ball down instead of just keeping it in play. We have to have more pace on the ball."
Wayland did hold a 10-7 blocking edge, with Driskill recording six block assists,
Cindy Horn and
Jessica Stohlmann four block assists apiece, and Hawkins two solo and two block assists.
"I was pleased with our blocking and pleased with the quickness of our middles, although they still need to make adjustments on watching the pass to the setters because our middles are overrunning the setters consistently. They're seniors and they should do better than that, so we'll be working to see that improve."
Rossanna Ramos led WBU with 23 digs, followed by
Cat Wiechmann with 17, Horn with 12 and
Mallorie Ellis with 11.
Tyler Gasaloga ended with 22 assists, while Wiechmann had 16.
"Tyler is getting a lot of touches on the ball and making a lot of decisions, and that's good. She's making better decisions the more she's on the court, and that has to continue," Giacomazzi said.
Kacey Deterding led LCU with 15 kills, followed by Christiana Tavo with 12 and Emily Hanaway with 11.
Wayland returns to Sooner Athletic Conference play this weekend, hosting two upper-tier teams in Texas Wesleyan (14-8, 3-2 SAC) at 7 p.m. Friday followed by Southwestern Assemblies of God (12-4, 4-1) at 11 a.m. Saturday.
"We have two good teams coming in this weekend. We have to make adjustments so we can do a lot better job of cleaning up our side of the court," Giacomazzi said. "Teams are not beating us. We just have to do a better job when we have the ball."
Â
