By Dylan Fink | Sports Writer
Baylor exchanged green and gold for a flashy pink and white Friday evening for its breast cancer awareness matchup against Cincinnati.
The Bears (11-6, 6-3 Big 12) came into the matchup having only won one of their last four games and took some time to find their footing, alternating the first 18 points with Cincinnati (10-7, 2-5 Big 12) before head coach Ryan McGuyre called timeout.
“We just try to find the rhythm offensively,” redshirt sophomore setter Harley Kreck said. “Once we kind of see what’s working and who’s hot, then we can just continue to streak those hitters.”
Following the timeout, the Bears didn’t look back, winning the set 25-16.
Junior middle blocker Victoria Davis led the way, robbing the Bearcats of any momentum they had in the first set like a comic-book villain in a dark alley, tallying three kills and three blocks following McGuyre’s first timeout.
“She came out with a sense of purpose just from everything last week,” McGuyre said. “She’s a very important piece of the puzzle for us. We needed that out of her.”
The Bears found their way into the driver’s seat for the second set as the Bears controlled the pace of play. Kreck posted 14 assists in the second set alone.
The Bearcats gave up six points to the Bears through service errors in the set. Cheers rang through the Baylor student section as the home opponent service error tally spun to a total of 67 on the season.
“I love having the crowd behind us,” Kreck said. “It’s a lot of fun to see how many more fans are coming to games now. The growth of the sport, and specifically Baylor volleyball, is a lot of fun and the growth is exciting.”
The third set began the same as the first, as back-and-forth play kept the Bearcats neck-and-neck with the Bears. The action kept the pink-clad Ferrell Center crowd on the edge of its seat.
Following an electric battle that rolled into extras, Cincinnati rallied to stay alive and win a narrow third set 30-28.
“Cincinnati made great adjustments those last two sets, and our countermeasures were not as effective as we wanted,” McGuyre said. “There’s not much I have to do to motivate them out of that because they’re upset that they dropped [the set. I] had to let them know, ‘Hey, these are stupid plays,’ and show them that once we make this adjustment here is what we’re able to do.”
Baylor quickly overcome its third-set fumble to bring home the win, closing out the fourth set 25-20.
Bringing home their second win in a row, the Bears demonstrated a dominance that hadn’t been seen in the Ferrell Center since their three-set sweep of Houston on Oct. 1.
“As much as that skid we had stung, we might’ve needed it to light a fire under our butts,” Kreck said. “We had to learn the hard way, but that gave us a hunger in practice. There’s just more purpose now behind every single rep.”
Freshman outside hitter Ksenia Rakhmanchik shined for the Bears in the win, playing like a veteran. She led the team with 14 kills on the evening.
“She’s got an absolute cannon of an arm,” McGuyre said. “I don’t even think we’ve unlocked it to her full potential yet. She can hit harder much more often.”
The Bears’ next match will be against BYU at 7 p.m. Oct. 23 at the Ferrell Center.
