The Mountaineers’ three-match road trip got off to a disappointing start on Thursday, with a loss to the Big 12’s seventh-best team, the Kansas State Wildcats.
West Virginia struggled to handle Kansas State’s aggressive hitting early, allowing 16 kills in set one. The Mountaineers’ serve receive was rattled as well, allowing three aces in the first.
Sophomore middle Maddy McGath and graduate student setter Lauren DeLo did cover some damage in the first set, tallying three blocks together while middle Laila Ibrahim and pin hitter Hailey Green each made a solo block of their own. Kansas State had no blocks at the net in the first set.
In the second set, the Mountaineers controlled the offensive pace, racking up 10 kills and an ace in their first 15 points to go up one. With this newfound control, WVU won the set 25-22, finishing with 11 more attacks and five more kills with the same amount of errors in set two.
West Virginia never hit more attacks than Kansas State in another set in the match. In the third set, Kansas State hit one more attack than WVU with four more kills and one more error to take it 25-20.
The Wildcats once again hit one more attack than the Mountaineers in set four but did so at a much less efficient clip, hitting negative with six kills and eight errors. WVU hit at its best rate of any set, with 12 kills and six errors in 27 attacks, to take the greatest point differential of the match, 25-14.
WVU kept the momentum to start the final set, gaining five of its first six points through kills to lead 6-4. After a Cassidy Tanton kill, though, the Mountaineers allowed four consecutive points, coming in the form of two kills, a block, and an ace. Kansas State made an error to break its run but then scored six more points in a row to go up 14-7.
After a final kill from Tanton and two Kansas State errors, WVU reached double digits in the set but then allowed a kill, targeted at freshman defensive specialist Eily Painter, to fall three sets to two.
Kansas State officially took the two-match season series over WVU with the win, as the Wildcats took the first match in five sets as well in Morgantown.
West Virginia will continue its road trip in Lawrence, Kansas against the Jayhawks on Saturday at 2 p.m. The game will be available to stream on ESPN+.
Photo by Korey Moore, Blue Gold Sports
