Still Unbeaten, KU Volleyball Defeats K-State, Opens Big 12 Play 1-0

Kansas Women's Volleyball defeated Kansas State in four sets to open up Big 12 Conference play with a victory, 25-23, 19-25, 25-22, 25-21.

The Jayhawks started this week with the highest ranking ever attained by the volleyball program at #15 in the AVCA.  The 'Hawks came out of the gates pumped up - maybe a little too pumped up.  The Jayhawks missed serves, hit into blocks, and played fairly disjointed, allowing Kansas State to hang around in a back-and-fourth set.  The Jayhawks ultimately prevailed in Set 1, but their erratic play continued as K-State took Set 2 rather handily.

Kansas came out focused in Set 3 and it showed, however, the Wildcats also refocused during the break and recovered from an early hole to bring the set to 20-20 late.  But, Kansas once again bore down and won five of the next seven points to take the third set.

Set 4 started like the others as a back and forth affair.  But at 14-14, Kansas finally played the way a top-15 team should, building a 22-16 lead.  K-State crawled back to make it 23-20 as the atmosphere inside Horesji grew tense, but once again, the Jayhawks buckled down and put them away.  (Click over to RCT's Facebook page to see match point.)

Kansas showed flashes of being the dominant team that we saw in the non-con, but we also saw spurts of the inexperience and lack of focus that I warned about a few days ago.  Kansas has three more conference games to continue to work out the kinks before a big matchup with Iowa State on October 10.  Next up, at TCU on Saturday, September 26, at 2 PM.