Arizona volleyball head coach Rita Stubbs may not have loved the difficult travel schedule for the Wildcats over the past week, but she didn’t want her team to use it as an excuse. They haven’t.
Arizona (17-9, 6-9) kept its winning streak rolling with a straight-set road win at Colorado (12-15, 5-10). The Wildcats took care of the Buffaloes by the scores of 25-20, 25-21, 25-18.
The victory extended Arizona’s winning streak to four straight matches. The run started at home with a huge upset of then-No. 8 Kansas. It has continued over three road matches at Cincinnati, West Virginia, and Colorado.
It marked just the third time in the past 15 years that the Wildcats have put together a four-match conference winning streak.
They beat Colorado twice and California twice during the shortened, modified 2020 season held in the spring of 2021. In 2010, they went on a run against Washington State, Arizona State, Oregon, and Oregon State. Like this year, that run included a ranked win, although the victory over No. 20 Oregon wasn’t quite as huge as this year’s win over the top 10 Jayhawks.
“Oh, wow,” Stubbs said. “So, okay, I knew how we should look at stats more and all that data more. I don’t, and so when I hear it, it just always takes me aback to say, wow. So, really proud of the players.”
They needed to keep it short, too. In order to get back to Tucson in time for Friday classes and to prepare for Saturday’s 2 p.m. match against Iowa State, the Wildcats had to catch a commercial flight at 10:25 p.m. MST. The match didn’t start until 6 p.m. They were back on the bus heading toward the airport before 8 p.m.
“Didn’t tell the girls, but everyone on the staff knew about it,” Stubbs said. “We get back in the same wee hours of the morning. Probably get home about one o’clock, and then they’ll have class. We’re not doing anything in the morning, but we will watch film, and put ourselves in a good position. I don’t want to fatigue them…I predict they’ll play well (on Saturday) because it’s senior day, and that’s one of the things you don’t worry about as much.”
Arizona’s seniors were a huge reason the Wildcats were able to sweep the Buffaloes after losing to them in five sets in Tucson last month.
Fifth-year opposite Jaelyn Hodge led the team with 14 kills and 17.5 points. She also had an ace, seven digs, and five block assists.
While senior middle blocker Kiari Robey had a tough game offensively, she still accounted for three total blocks and a dig. She had just one kill on .111 hitting.
With Robey having difficulty with CU’s defense, fellow senior Alayna Johnson got onto the court in the final two sets. She made a big impact with four kills on four swings for a 1.000 hitting percentage. She also had the service ace that closed out the match.
THIRD STRAIGHT ROAD W FOR @ArizonaVBall! pic.twitter.com/7GQ0t0QSB1
— Arizona Athletics (@AZATHLETICS) November 22, 2024
Stubbs was happy with the effort from both of her senior middle blockers.
“For (Johnson), it started in practice, putting herself in a position to be competitive and going after the balls that she knew that she was capable of going for,” Stubbs said. “Ki was going up, picking the right lines, but they’re all on her. That was the first team that we played, the first time where they stayed deep on her and on defense, and so it takes a minute to kind of get adapted to it. But I thought that she still did a good job of blocking and serving, as well. So, AJ going in and providing the offensive threat and then putting herself in a position to serve and still be competitive was really important.”
It wasn’t all about seniors and fifth-year players, though. Junior outside hitter Jordan Wilson had 12 kills on .308 hitting. She added four digs and two total blocks.
Sophomore middle blocker Journey Tucker accounted for four kills on seven swings without an error. That worked out to a .571 hitting percentage. She added a match-high six total blocks, including one solo.
Freshman outside hitter Carlie Cisneros also had some problems offensively with four kills on .067, but kills aren’t the reason Cisneros is the only Wildcat who regularly plays every single point of a match. She had four assists, which trailed only setter Avery Scoggins. She added four digs and two total blocks, including one solo block.
Cisneros was especially important at the service line. She had two of Arizona’s six aces without contributing any of the Wildcats’ seven service errors. She served five straight points in the second set when Arizona started putting distance between themselves and CU. She repeated it with three straight points as Arizona started taking control of the final set.
Scoggins, who has already won four Big 12 Rookie of the Week awards, was on top of things again. Not only did she have two kills on two attacks, 27 assists, and eight digs, but she also served tough. She had a three-point serving streak in the first set and a six-point streak in the third.
The serving by the Wildcats had the Buffaloes passing a 1.86 well into the third set, according to the Colorado play-by-play announcer. Arizona wasn’t passing much better with a 1.87 passing grade at the same point, but it was dominant enough in the other aspects of the match that it didn’t matter as much.
The Wildcats had 41 kills compared to the Buffaloes’ 30. They outhit the home team .275 to .099. They had 33 assists to 25 for the Buffs. Their six aces slightly outpaced the five from their hosts. On defense, they won the dig category 33-25 and outblocked CU 10 to 5.
Arizona got off to a good start. It never trailed in the first set and the final tie came at 2-2. Its largest lead came amid a Scoggins serving run when it went up 14-6. CU closed the gap to one point at 19-18, but UA pulled away again by winning six of the final eight points of the set to take a 1-0 lead.
In Tucson, Arizona dominated Colorado in the first set only to see the Buffaloes come back to take the next two sets on the way to a five-set victory. The Wildcats needed to avoid the letdown this time.
Arizona once again got the early upper hand in the second set, going out to a 6-2 lead. CU used the serving prowess of Taylor Simpson to get back into it. A four-point run that included three serves by Simpson gave the Buffaloes their first lead in the match at 9-8.
A five-point run that included four serves by Cisneros flipped the 12-11 CU lead to a 16-12 Arizona lead. Cisneros had a kill and an ace during that run.
CU got within two points a few times after that, but Arizona won four of the final six points to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
The Buffaloes knew they were on the brink of ending their two-match winning streak. They raised their game in the third set. Arizona had to find a way to respond.
“We talked about it in the third set,” Stubbs said. “We kind of, I don’t know that we relaxed, but they started playing better as well, which every team has the opportunity of doing that. But I thought that when we went back there and Avery started serving, she was able to calm things down for us and put us in a position to still be competitive. It was a good group effort, for sure.”
CU built its biggest lead of the match at 12-7. Arizona went on a 6-0 run behind the serve of Scoggins to take the 13-12 lead. The Wildcats never trailed again.
After the final tie at 13-13, Arizona won 10 of the next 13 points to go up 23-16. The seven-point margin was the Wildcats’ largest lead of the set. It was the final difference as they closed out the match on an ace by Johnson.
The win puts Arizona in a tie with Houston for 8th in the Big 12 standings. Both teams have 6-9 conference records, but the Wildcats won the only meeting with the Cougars this season. Overall, the Wildcats are 17-9. All nine losses came in conference play. Seven of them were against teams that are currently ranked in the AVCA poll.
“Every match is important because like I said, we’re still working hard to get ourselves to the tournament,” Stubbs said. “There’s no guarantees, and so it’s a matter of just putting ourselves in a position.”
Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics