TOPEKA — Running into the net, illegal sets and mental toughness.
To the untrained eye, the first two played a big role in Emporia State’s 3-1 loss on Friday night at Washburn. To coach Bing Xu, the loss all came down to the latter.
“We just tell them, you need to have character,” Xu said. “You don’t have character. You’re too weak.”
For most of the conference season, the ninth-ranked Hornets have jumped out to a lead and used their superior talent to overwhelm their opponents. But once the Hornets have gotten behind — at Central Missouri, at home to Truman and Pittsburg State and Friday night at Washburn — they have not responded.
“It seems to be a reoccurring theme this year and something we struggle with as a team,” junior Brianne Boner said. “... We’re lacking some heart there. You can bring as many tools and the best technique, but without heart you can’t win a game or bring yourselves back. I think that’s something we’ll need for next week.”
Emporia State jumped out to a 1-0 lead against No. 7 Washburn with a back-and-forth 25-20 win in the first set. Ahead 6-5 in the second set, ESU lost the lead and allowed Washburn to go on a 16-1 run and win the set 25-9.
During the Lady Blues’ run, the Hornets had eight unforced errors. They ran into the net twice, collided in the back row once, had an illegal set and four attack errors.
“No matter how we play, we can’t shoot ourselves,” Xu said. “Mental toughness, the second game was not there.”
After intermission, the Hornets jumped out to a 10-7 lead in the third set, but they had four more net penalties and lost the set 25-22.
“It’s just stuff we don’t do,” senior Arica Shepard said. “Once in a while we’ll have a couple net calls, but we seemed to have a lot and illegal sets, which we’re not used to. It probably played a big factor tonight. One play makes a big difference in momentum, and some of those points we could have got back would have helped us a lot.”
Washburn jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the fourth set, and Emporia State’s usually steady setter, Ting Liu, had two attack errors. Liu had 40 assists, but she was called for several illegal sets, which rarely ever happens, and she had four attack errors and had a negative-.167 hitting percentage.
“I think Ting is a really important role,” Xu said. “She has to step up more. She did not play bad, but every ball goes through her hands, and she’s got to make something run in.”
The Hornets could never get any closer than within six points after falling behind 6-1 and lost the final set 25-14.
It was the second straight year they’ve had a disappointing loss at Washburn that upset their coaches.
“Last year when we got beat pretty tough, it’s just kind of heart-wrenching,” Boner said. “This is one of our biggest rivals and they’re a really good team and hard to stop when they get going. I think we’ve seen this year that most teams are going to play their best against us, and we’re not necessarily used to that. We haven’t been ranked as high as we’ve have this year, and it’s tough to keep playing teams when they’re playing their best against us.”
The Hornets (28-5, 15-4 MIAA) have a chance today to get back on track at Fort Hays State, their final regular season game. ESU is ranked second in the region and Washburn (32-4, 16-4) is one spot behind in third. The teams will find out Sunday their seeds for the Regional tournament, which will most likely be played at Central Missouri.
The Hornets are not concerned with who they play, but more so how they respond if and when they get behind a set in the postseason.
“If we do this in the postseason, we’re done,” Shepard said. “We can’t play like this at all. We have to remember that once you start going down, you have to come back even stronger and that’s something we’ve still yet to learn and it might be our downfall.”