Wichita State volleyball reached the 20-win mark for the 12th straight season with its 25-16, 25-19, 25-20 victory over Missouri Valley Conference Tournament sixth-seeded opponent Indiana State on Thanksgiving Day in Cedar Falls, Iowa. This is no mean feat in a single season, let alone 12 in a row — all under head coach Chris Lamb, whose first Shocker team back in 2000, despite going 8-23 and finishing ninth in the MVC, had a feeling winning ways were coming.
This year, after dispatching Indiana State, the third-seeded Shockers (20-9) took on second-seeded Northern Iowa, the host school, in the MVC Tournament semifinals on Nov. 28, when the UNI Panthers earned a four-set win over Wichita State (20-10). The Panthers won by scores of 21-25, 25-23, 25-23 and 25-18. MaryAshton Floyd led the Shockers with 17 kills, while Ashlyn Driskill and Abbie Lehman each had 10. Emily Hiebert had 39 assists and 11 digs, and Dani Mostrom had 28 digs.
Hiebert, a freshman setter from Newton, Kan., was named to the MVC all-tournament team. She averaged 10.86 assists, 0.57 kills, 0.43 service aces, 2.71 digs and 0.71 blocks per set in two matches for the Shockers in the MVC Tournament. In WSU’s three-set win over Indiana State, she had 37 assists, three kills, eight digs and two blocks, while hitting .600. In the four-set loss to UNI, she had a double-double with 39 assists, 11 digs, one kill, three service aces and three blocks. She joined these all-tournament team members: Abby Barrow, Southern Illinois; Kinsey Caldwell, UNI; Jaelyn Keene, Illinois State; Kinsey McCarter, Missouri State; Emily Orrick, Illinois State; Leigh Pudwill, UNI; Cassandra Willis, Indiana State; and MVP, Ashley Rosch, Illinois State.
This season, WSU had three volleyball student-athletes named to the All-Missouri Valley Conference Team and two to the All-Freshman Team. Lehman was named first team all-Valley, as well as to the all-Freshman team. Floyd, a junior, was also named to the first team. Driskill, a junior, was named to the second team, and Hiebert joined Lehman on the all-Freshman team. Lehman becomes just the second WSU freshman to earn first team all-Valley honors, joining Mary Elizabeth Hooper, who was named to the first team as a freshman in 2008.
