Middle hitter Brittany Fossier beats Wichita's wall.

UMKC falls to Wichita State

By: Elyssa Brogdon

Posted: 9/8/08

UMKC volleyball played their first home game of the season against Wichita State University (WSU) in front of the third largest crowd in UMKC volleyball history.

Tuesday night the Roos faced the Shockers, who are ranked 22nd in the nation, in a three game match. The Roos fell to the scores of (11-25), (19-25) and (9-25).

In addition to being the opening home game, the WSU match housed many causes.

It was Diabetes Awareness night in the Swinney Recreation Center. Half of the ticket revenue went to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and a speaker from the ADA spoke during half time.

Meanwhile another activity occurring outside the court was Bears on Patrol. The Eastern Independence Rotary Club was collecting stuffed animals for local policemen to keep in their patrol cars.

The bears and other stuffed animals will be given to children the officers encounter during tough situations.

And a Roo Crew tailgate that preceded the game and the game's Hawaiian Luau theme brought in a lot of student support.

"I think we played for a lot of good causes," said senior libero Mandy Tipton. "We knew Wichita State was going to be a tough match. So, we focused on individual goals, increasing our score each game and running our own plays."

In the first game WSU took a strong lead scoring 11 of the first 16 points. The Roos gained two more points 7-11 with freshman outside hitter Elizabeth Beck's kill. But four points was as close as UMKC got in the first game as the Shockers rounded out an 11-1 run 22-8. Moments later Wichita State claimed game one, 25-11.

"We need to work on consistency and staying mentally focused when we're down, but our kids gave a lot of effort tonight and showed a lot of heart and you can't go wrong when they are trying the best," Frugoli said.

The Roos took six of the first seven points of game two and were able to maintain their lead, 9-4. But the Shockers fought to within a point, 9-8, then after a time out tied the game.

The teams tied and tied again with the Kangaroos prevailing but the trend changed as the Shockers set ahead, 13-11.

The Shockers climbed another 13 points to the Roos four by game point, 17-24.

The Roos staved off defeat with a couple of points but a ball falling out of bounds at the hands of the Roos ended the second game, 19-25.

"We did a lot of good things in game two," Frugoli said. "We were very competitive and had the lead, and they had to call timeouts, any time you can do that against a top 25 team you know you are building something special we're just not consistent enough yet and we'll just have to work on getting better and better."

In the third game the Shockers got off to a quick lead and never stopped running.

Wichita earned run after run reaching a 15-6 lead then a 22-7 lead. The Roos climbed only two more points before the game ended, 9-25.

"It was a lot more than I expected. It was really loud and a lot of fun. I really liked playing defense against their outside hitters," said freshman libero Nicole Kerkman. "The second game I thought we played very well and we should have kept that level going into the third game but that didn't happen."

Frugoli saw a spark in his team during the game.

He said, "We showed flashes of being as good and they are and we are going to keep building on that until we are that good."

ebrogdon@unews.com