Arizona volleyball hands Kansas State 1st home loss to open Big 12 play

It’s a serve and pass game. That’s what every volleyball coach will say. The Arizona Wildcats demonstrated that in a 3-1 (25-19, 19-25, 25-14, 27-25) victory at Kansas State on Friday afternoon.

The win ended Arizona’s four-match losing streak, three of which came on the road. It extended UA’s Big 12 winning streak to eight matches stretching back to last year. Arizona’s last Big 12 defeat was at the hands of KSU in early November of 2024.

UA pushed K-State on serve all match. It wasn’t just the eight aces, including Paige Thies’ ace on match point. Arizona also put pressure on KSU outside hitter Shaylee Myers and forced multiple overpasses from the home team. Even when the passes were kept on the KSU side of the net, they weren’t always the most effective for setter Ava Legrand to use all of her offensive weapons.

On the other side of the net, it was Jordan Wilson leading the way for Arizona, but she also had help. UA was at its most effective in the first, third, and fourth sets when opposite Ana Heath and middles Adrianna Bridges and Sydnie Vanek were offensive threats.

Wilson had a match high 21 kills on .333 hitting. Her two block assists gave her 22 points. She also contributed an assist and seven digs. The attention KSU had to commit to her allowed for others to rise to the occasion in the three sets Arizona won.

Heath took a lot of pressure off Wilson with her 11 kills on .375 hitting. She added four block assists for 13 points and contributed an assist and a dig.

If there was any shortcoming in Wilson’s game, it was serve. She was one of the two UA Wildcats to struggle with service errors and was eventually subbed out for defensive specialist Giorgia Mandotti when it came time to serve. Wilson and libero Brenna Ginder each accounted for four service errors, committing two-thirds of Arizona’s 12, but Ginder had two aces to go with her errors.

Overall, though, Arizona rode its serve to incredible success, led by Bridges with five aces against just one error. It was just one aspect of an outstanding game for the sophomore middle. Bridges had eight kills on .263 hitting and five total blocks for 15.5 points. She added two digs.

“I think everything was working,” Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs said. “I thought she played with a lot of confidence and energy.”

Her coach was most impressed by a play that didn’t turn out to matter. In a long rally in the third set, Kansas State was called for a ball going outside the antenna. Before the whistle could sound, Bridges was already in the air putting the ball back over the net just in case.

“A player is involved when something freaky happens, and they’re right there,” Stubbs said. “And she had at least two of those plays today. The one is when they end up challenging right after she kept playing, because she saw the ball and she went up, inserted her will and hit it. Granted, the ball was outside, but the person that was dialed in and aggressive and in tune was ready to play that ball, and that was huge.”

Sophomore outside hitter Carlie Cisneros was just shy of a double-double with eight kills and 10 digs. Her two total blocks gave her nine points. The Kansas City, MO native also helped provide the energy Arizona needed.

“Carlie has, I want to say, maybe 30 people here, and so in a arena that was all purple, you had this section of blue and red,” Stubbs said. “It was amazing. They were awesome, and they were cheering, and they were involved, and it was super needed and exciting. So I want credit to go to them for sure.”

During its four-match losing streak, Arizona has had issues with falling into early holes and trying to fight back. That didn’t happen in Manhattan.

“I talked to them about putting their foot on the gas pedal and being ready to go,” Stubbs said. “We can’t let up. I do think there was a time where we kind of was idling. I don’t feel like we ever took it off, but we were idling a little bit, and so they just needed the reminder that we needed to keep going. We got to press hard.”

KSU won the first point and led at 4-3, but that was its last lead. Arizona won eight of the next 11 points to go up 11-7 and never looked back. Its largest lead of the set was seven points, and it reached set point at 24-17. K-State saved two set points, but Arizona put it away on Heath’s third kill of the set.

KSU flipped the script in the second set. Part of that was taking Wilson out of the offense. After six kills in the first set, Wilson had just three in the second. She was set approximately half as many times as she had been in the first.

Part of the setback was simply errors on Arizona’s side of the net. After committing just three hitting errors in the first, UA had 10 in the second. Those errors came against just nine kills. The visiting Wildcats went from hitting .387 to -.024.

“They started out on, it was a 6-0 run, because it was all of our attacking errors,” Stubbs said. “So to me, that means, at first, ‘Let’s go!‘ And then it didn’t work, and then the slide would become hesitant.”

Arizona’s block also took a holiday in the second. After four total blocks in the first, the team had just one in the second. KSU also began to tool the block for points on the home side of the net.

Just as Arizona did in the first set, KSU reached set point at 24-17. UA saved two set points, but K-State evened it with a 25-19 win.

Arizona rebounded in the third. The hitting went back up to .355 and the group committed just two errors. Four total blocks, 16 digs, and two aces helped the dominant 25-14 performance.

Up Next for Arizona Volleyball

Arizona Wildcats (7-4) @ No. 18 Kansas Jayhawks (9-6)

When: Sunday, Sept. 28 at 10 a.m. MST

Where: Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena in Lawrence, Kan.

TV/Streaming: ESPN and Watch ESPN

Stats:Arizona Live Stats

Arizona kept its nose in front in the fourth, eventually building a six-point lead. KSU chiseled that down to two points at 20-18, then tied it at 22 points apiece.

Arizona won the next two points to reach match point. KSU fought back to tie it again, then grabbed a set point at 25-24. Wilson’s 2oth kill wiped that away.

It was time for Bridges to serve. Although she had a strong night of serving, Stubbs put in freshman outside hitter Thies with the match on the line. Thies had been on the bench all night.

Stubbs said that she knew Bridges was having a great game, but she hasn’t been in that situation much. She also knew that KSU had been playing cross court a lot, so Bridges would likely have to dig while in that rotation. She wanted someone who was had more experience playing defense in the back row in that situation. That meant an outside hitter or defensive specialist. She went with the outside hitter.

“Paige, who has a phenomenal serve, you get her in there in that situation, and then we’re able to run our defense seamlessly,” Stubbs said.

The first point ended with Wilson’s 21st kill off the assist from Cisneros. Arizona had its third match point. The match ended on Arizona’s eighth ace off the hand of the freshman.

The trip was Arizona’s first to Manhattan, giving them the first look at Kansas State’s Morgan Family Arena. The volleyball-only facility includes practice and playing courts, multiple locker rooms, offices, and seating for 3,100 fans, among other amenities. It cost $23 million and was opened in 2023.

It provides a much different environment than the large basketball arenas that are being phased out by many volleyball programs these days. For one, it’s cozier, which has both upsides and downsides. The Taraflex flooring can stay down instead of being removed and reapplied repeatedly in a multipurpose arena. The crowd is much closer to the action. It also can have an impact on how the ball plays.

“Everything is on you much faster,” Stubbs said. “I mean, as soon as we walked in the first day and we were serving, I’m like, ‘Dang, this ball is moving!’ I mean, I look like I was all that and a bag of chips serving at the players…and that was with no one in the arena. And then all of a sudden, all the people were in there. It was hot, and very rarely am I hot, but I mean, I was sweating hot. So I don’t know if they turn the air off or what was going on. The crowd was involved, and they were booing and they were getting hyped up for their players and stuff. And you just, it sounds different when the arena is smaller.”

Arizona will get back on the road to drive to Lawrence on Saturday to face a Kansas team that dropped a five-set match to Arizona State on Friday. Stubbs said that due to the late release of the Big 12 schedule and the football game in Lawrence on Saturday morning, they were not able to get rooms in Lawrence for Friday. That necessitated the extra day in Manhattan.

They will practice at KU before going to their hotel on Saturday. That follows the flight to Kansas City and two-hour drive to Manhattan prior to the KSU match. Because Arizona does not charter for volleyball, the travel to some of the smaller cities in the Big 12 are a challenge, especially given the timeframe of the conference schedule release.

“What I tell the ladies is, this is what it is,” Stubbs said. “We can’t make an excuse. You know, someone else is going through it with us, and if you’re feeling bad about it, how long are you going to feel bad about it? Still got a job to do.”