The Wildcats’ NIVC win stretches their winning streak to eight matches.
The NIVC is a time to get experience for young players. It’s also a time to get more matches for seniors who have stayed loyal to the program and helped it improve. Arizona did some of both in its 3-0 (26-24, 25-19, 25-17) victory over Pacific in the second round of the season-ending tournament Saturday evening.
The win stretches Arizona’s latest winning streak to eight. If they win the NIVC championship, they will end the season the same way they started—with an 11-match winning streak.
The Wildcats (21-9, 9-9 Big 12) advance to the quarterfinals of the tournament to face Wyoming (17-12, 7-11 MWC). The Cowgirls defeated Washington State in the opening round before knocking out Utah Valley in the second round.
The Wildcats played without senior transfer middle blocker Kiari Robey, who had started most of the season but began to see four-year Wildcat Alayna Johnson take more of her time on the court lately. Robey is “preparing herself for her professional career” and will not play with the Wildcats in the postseason, according to head coach Rita Stubbs.
Johnson started in Robey’s place along with sophomore Journey Tucker. Freshman middle Adrianna Bridges also had the opportunity to get experience in meaningful situations.
“Truth be told, (Bridges has) worked hard all season long to kind of see if she can get out there,” Stubbs said. “It’s just a matter of having to be able to work her in at the right time and give her the opportunities to do it. But in practice, she actually kills the middles a lot.”
Tucker had a strong outing, as she has for most of the year. She accounted for four kills on .333 hitting and three total blocks. Johnson has two kills and three total blocks.
Junior outside hitter Jordan Wilson was the force, though. Wilson led the team with 11 kills on .214 hitting. She added two aces and two total blocks for 14 points. She also had seven digs.
Fifth-year opposite Jaelyn Hodge led the team in total blocks with four, including one solo block. She added eight kills and two aces for 12.5 points. Her 10 digs made her one of four Arizona players with double-digit digs.
Arizona also got 10 or more digs from setter Avery Scoggins, outside hitter Carlie Cisneros, and libero Haven Wray.
Arizona had some difficulty passing and setting early in the match, but Scoggins shook that off for a double-double with 27 assists to go with 11 digs. She had five kills on six swings without an error, hitting .833. She added an ace for six points.
“I think we knew that we were going to work ourselves out over time, and it’s just about staying calm, taking a deep breath, and not trying to fall back into old patterns,” Scoggins said. “And I think we did a really good job of just controlling our mistakes. And then after that first few we, really settled down.”
Cisneros played her all-around role like she always does. The freshman had six kills, an assist, an ace, and a block to go with her 10 digs. She was third on the team with 7.5 points.
Pacific played an up-and-down match against Weber State on Friday afternoon, coming away with a five-set victory in the opening round. It started that way against Arizona.
The Tigers gave the Wildcats a run for their money in the first two sets. They ran out to a 5-0 lead to start the match. Arizona tied it at seven points each, but Pacific wouldn’t give in. Arizona didn’t take the lead until 17-16 in the opening set.
Stubbs didn’t panic.
“Just let them play through it,” she said. “We haven’t played this late in the year in—this group, never—so it was a matter of just letting them kind of work it out a little bit.”
The Tigers continued to fight, even taking the lead again at 23-22, but Arizona took four of the final five points to win the opening set.
“I thought we stayed down into what we were doing,” Stubbs said. “I thought sometimes we were just a little too aggressive, which is part of nerves and just being at this point in the season, not necessarily knowing what it is, what it’s like to be in that spot. So I like the fact that I didn’t have to lose my mind.”
It put Pacific on an uphill climb.
“We were talking as a staff and as a team, and we needed that first set, I think, in order to try and deflate Arizona a little bit because they are very physical,” said Pacific head coach Greg Gibbons.
The Tigers certainly didn’t give up. The Wildcats opened several early three-point leads in the second set, but Pacific fought back each time.
At 14-14, the Tigers finally ran into a bit of a buzzsaw. Arizona ran off five straight points to go up 19-14. Pacific could never get closer than three points after that.
Once they were up 2-0 in the match, the Wildcats put their collective foot down. Pacific won the first point of the third set, but Arizona responded with six straight to take control. UA kept at least a five-point lead for the rest of the match.
The lopsided third set allowed Stubbs to play almost her entire bench. She used all of her serve rotation, including sophomore Giorgia Mandotti. Fourteen of the fifteen active Wildcats got into the match.
Arizona will host the third round of the NIVC beginning on Wednesday, Dec. 11. The “Great 8” will feature Northern Colorado (27-7, 14-2 Big Sky) against Arkansas State (28-5, 14-2 Sun Belt) in McKale Center at 3 p.m. MST. Arizona will take on Wyoming at 6 p.m. MST. The winner of those two matches will play in the semifinals.
“You actually put in bids along the way, and you have to project what the crowd would look like, and you know what the revenue would look like, and all of those things,” Stubbs said. “And so Brooke (Paxton), my Director of Operations, has done a phenomenal job with that. She…literally got the call while we were on the bench to let us know that we were going to be able to host.”
Stubbs is looking at the positives of the NIVC, but she hasn’t stopped looking toward the future and where the program wants to be.
“I just can’t be sad about (not being in the NCAA Tournament) and be happy that we’re actually in this position,” she said. “So maybe after it’s all over and done with, I’ll sit back and waddle and cry. But what I can tell you that…I have a spreadsheet already going of every team that is was selected for the tournament with their RPI, KPI, Massey, and their where they rank in the conference so that we can schedule better, if you will, so that we’ll be more favorable in the committee’s eyes.”
Her players have their eyes on that future, too.
“We already know the next selection show date,” Scoggins said. “It’s November 30 of 2025. And really, at first, we were mad, disappointed. Everybody was. I mean, there’s no feeling to describe how it felt in that room. Especially, it was just kind of a shocker. So we talked about the future, talked about we’re going to work hard every single practice. We’re going to get so much better. We’re going to do the little things that no one sees, and then they’ll see it in the games. So that was our main focus. If we can just focus on those little things and take one day at a time, and we’re just going to remember that feeling that we had last year and really use that and put that into us…We need to remember and let it fuel our fire.”
First, there are things to accomplish in this tournament this season.
“I think it was really hard to see us not making the NCAA,” Wilson said. “I think everyone was really feeling it for that first couple of days, but I kind of just used that and flipped it and turned it into anger, but in a way that will push me to be better, rather than anger becoming blinded by red and then just making dumb mistakes. I really want to make it to the NCAA tournament next year. I’m sure Miss Scroggy over here does as well, but we really just used that as fuel for this tournament and to just prove everyone wrong. To show that we should be in that tournament. We want to keep playing. We want to be with those teams, and we want to be out there and compete. We want to be great.”
Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics