Baylor volleyball was unable to spoil the Jayhawks undefeated season at home Wednesday night, falling short in four sets (21-25, 25-13, 20-25,17-25).
Excitement filled the Ferrell Center as fans were encouraged to wear gold and yellow shirts to support the Bears.
Adding on the match’s excitement, the match was being broadcasted on FOX Sports Southwest.
The Bears went down early after the Jayhawks came out attacking. After battling to come back the Bears went down, losing the first set 25-21.
“We missed a lot of serves in that first set that cost us,” said head coach Ryan McGuyre.
The Bears looked to regroup in the second, and after some perfectly placed assists by senior setter Amy Rosenbaum, the Bears got off to a six point lead.
The Jayhawks never backed down, but the Bears offense was too strong for the Jayhawks to stop. With 18 kills and only two errors, the Bears took the set 25-13.
“We served everything in the second set, blew them away,” McGuyre said. “Our defense did some good things, had a lot of digs in there, took good swings.”
Coming back from the halftime break, both teams looked to get the momentum going their way in the third set.
After going back and forth early on, the Jayhawks took a six point lead, but the Bears never backed down.
After two blocks by freshman middle hitter Jordan Vail the Bears closed the lead to two. However, it was too little too late, the Jayhawks took the set 25-20.
“They were very aggressive and always pushing,” Vail said. “Sometimes we would take a step back. They never gave up.”
Although keeping it close, the Bears’ optimistic start to the fourth set added up to nothing. While never gaining control, the Bears lost the fourth 25-17.
“Third set and fourth and we again didn’t do well from the service line” McGuyre said. “Their passes need to stay down.”
“We’re getting better, but we’re in October and our identity needs to kick in a little bit more. It’s not being exciting about one set, we need to fight and be upset about the three sets we lost.”
The Bears plan on learning from their mistakes, but also put this match behind them, Vail said.
“The balls that we did shut down were good shutdowns, but there were ones that we were almost there or late that we could have got those.” Vail said. “We could have done better with our blocking, but our defense did good picking up the balls that we couldn’t get.
“We are just going to move forward and get ready for West Virginia this weekend.”
The Bears will be back on the road at 3:30 p.m. Saturday taking on the West Virginia Mountaineers (5-13, 0-5 Big 12).
Baylor and West Virginia hold the bottom two spots in the Big 12 standings just over the halfway mark through the conference season.
Both teams plan to redeem their otherwise unsuccessful conference campaigns. Baylor looks to regain its form from earlier in the season that saw the team go on a five-game winning streak.
