Volleyball | Photo by Brett Hull | The Wright State Guardian
Wright State University (WSU) Volleyball is on a hot streak heading into the Horizon League tournament, clocking six straight match wins to secure a third-place seed.
Their final two wins over this weekend were 3-1 matches over the Oakland Golden Grizzlies and the Cleveland State Vikings, with four of WSU’s hitters scoring double-digit kills in a match.
The Raiders will meet the Golden Grizzlies again in their next match, opening HL tournament play against Oakland in the quarterfinals.
The tournament will take place at first seed Milwaukee from Nov. 19 to Nov. 21 where the Raiders will hope to take home their second straight championship title, and claim an NCAA ticket for the second year in a row.
Digging up treasure
Defensive play has been the backbone of Raider Volleyball this season, dominating both Horizon League statistics as well as national leaderboards.
The biggest player on the defensive side for WSU has been Libero Jenna Story, whose 629 digs not only lead the team but have given her the highest career digs in program history.
Story dominates even bigger on the League and national stage, leading not only the HL in digs/set and total digs, but currently sitting second of all NCAA D1 players in both stats.
The rest of the team also pulls their weight defensively as well, with the overall team sitting first in the entire nation for total digs, and second overall in digs/set.
Not only is the team defensively strong in digs, but they also force errors on other teams, with opponents having the lowest hitting percentage in the League versus the Raiders.
Sharing the scoring
All of WSU’s hitters put in work this year for the team’s success.
Junior Megan Alders leads the Raider offense, leading the team with 281 kills, followed closely behind by Nyssa Baker with 257, and Callie Martin with 255.
Six hitters have totaled over 100 kills, and four have just under 200 or higher, making all of the team’s attackers a threat on any given day.
Coming into the HL tournament, opponents will have to find a way to break through the Raider defense, and deal with their mixed attacking lineup in order to win.
