It definitely wasn’t the preparation you want when you’re facing a top 10 team. Arizona volleyball was in Ames playing Iowa State Thursday night and back in Tucson to play No. 6 ASU on Saturday evening. Meanwhile, the Sun Devils have been home practicing and resting in Tempe after having a week off. In the end, the Sun Devils were too much and took the match 3-1 (25-18, 22-25, 25-16, 25-16) largely based on their defensive performance.
“The positive is that that match is over and we get a chance to
rest,” said Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs. “I mean, our travel has been brutal. I was talking to [ASU head coach] JJ [Van Neil] ahead of the game, and he said he’s going into his crazy travel. And I told the players that it is not an excuse. No one has empathy for us, and we can have empathy for ourselves, and surely not gonna let someone have it for us. So we just got to learn how to grind and push through.”
Stubbs also didn’t think her players let it weigh on their minds.
“I think they felt fine,” she said. “You know, you ask them, they’re a little bit tired, but I don’t see that necessarily in the match, so my hat’s off to them for that and not ever using it as an excuse.”
It didn’t keep the Wildcats from fighting, and it didn’t keep a season-high 4,065 fans, including several members of the football and men’s basketball teams, from showing up.
“Have to give a shout out to our crowd,” Stubbs said. “I don’t know what [the final attendance] was, but everything about it was exciting.“
The Wildcats also got to play on their new Taraflex floors for the first time. The crew started setting up the floors after the women’s basketball game on Thursday night. They returned on Friday morning to finish the job of laying out the long strips that make up the volleyball court. They will have to remove them after Saturday’s match so the regular basketball court is available for the men’s basketball exhibition on Monday night.
The floors were made possible by major Arizona donors Cole and Jeannie Davis, and the court bears their names. Stubbs thinks it will make a difference in the long run for a number of reasons.
“It was absolutely amazing,” she said. “That right there helps in our recovery, being able to play on that floor versus the wood floor, and it looks good on television and media, and the gym was amazing.”
The players were just happy not to be one of the only teams in the Big 12 without the floors. Even out of conference, they rarely play anywhere that doesn’t have them available. This year, the only conference matches the team has played that weren’t on Taraflex were their home matches.
“It feels great that we’re not one of the only teams in the Big 12 without Taraflex,” said junior middle blocker Journey Tucker. “It’s very cool, and we’re all very thankful for it.”
Even out-of-conference, it was rare not to have the new floors.
“I think the only team that did not have Taraflex was Boise,” Tucker said.
ASU opened the match on a 4-0 run that included two Arizona errors only to have the Wildcats take the lead with a 6-0 run of their own. It stayed tight until the teams tied at 9-9, then the Sun Devils started to pull away.
Much of the issue for Arizona was simply the inability to terminate. That was partially due to the ASU defense and partially due to some tendencies of the Wildcats.
Arizona had just three hitting errors in the first set, but the dig disparity showed how many of the Wildcats’ attacks the Sun Devils were getting to. ASU had 24 digs in the first set alone. Arizona had 14 in the same frame.
“We weren’t necessarily picking the right lines of attack, and then we weren’t defending very well in the first set,” Stubbs said. “So it was a combination of things. I thought we did settle down and got better in the second set. And I don’t know, I don’t think that we ever got lax, but they did change what they were doing, and we didn’t make the changes that were necessary fast enough.”
As the match wore on, the Sun Devils’ block became more of an issue. ASU had four blocks in the first two sets, then blocked the Wildcats five times in the third. The Wildcats also began to have more trouble with their attacks going into the net. Whether that was about sets being in the wrong place or players’ legs getting tired, it became more of an issue as the match wore on.
The Wildcats rebounded in the second set. While their hitting percentage was actually lower and they had over twice as many hitting errors as they did in the first set, ASU did not have the huge disparity in digs. Arizona had 16 in the set to 12 for the Sun Devils. That led to more kills for Arizona.
Stubbs also made an adjustment in her lineup late in the first set that began to show dividends. She put freshman opposite Renee Jones in the game. Jones had only played two sets this season, and both came in the first two weeks of play. She has been out with an injury for most of the year.
“We told her earlier be ready to play,” Stubbs said. “I would never just bring that on her. And we kind of said it in the Iowa State game for her to be ready, because I think she’s doing the right things. And we have to have someone that is a presence there as a blocker.”
At 6-foot-5, Jones is a much bigger player than usual starting opposite Ana Heath. Heath was able to score, but ASU was going after her block early on. The switch was made with the Sun Devils leading 18-13 in the first set.
“I think having a bigger block up there definitely made a difference,” Tucker said. “I know, with Ana, she can get up there, but I mean, with any team, they’re going to go after the smaller blocker, whether that’s Avery [Scoggins] whether that’s Ana, so I think making that difference did make a change for them to try to hit around us, or try and hit high hands, so the defense behind us could pick those balls up.”
Jones started the final three sets and got her first collegiate kill to put Arizona up 1-0 in the second. She also got the kill that gave the Wildcats the win in the set. She ended her first conference match with five kills and three digs. Like the other two pins, she had problems with hitting errors, though. She ended with three on 16 swings.
“It was amazing,” Jones said. “I just wanted to have faith in my team and they had faith in me to go in and do what I needed to do. So it was great. I had a blast.”
After losing the second, ASU came back strong in the final two sets. The Sun Devils never trailed in set three. After 1-0, the closest Arizona got was down one point at 11-10 in the frame.
The fourth was more of the same. ASU started pulling away at 2-2 in the set. Arizona got within two points a couple of times early on, but the Wildcats stalled at nine points. It went from 11-9 to 17-10 fairly quickly and the match was essentially over.
Arizona was led in kills by Jordan Wilson. She had 19 kills, but she also had 13 hitting errors. She added nine digs.
No other Wildcat got double-digit kills despite the match going four sets. The closest was Carlie Cisneros, who ended with nine kills and eight hitting errors. She added two aces and one total block for 11.5 points. She also had an assist and five digs.
The Wildcats now get to rest for a while, but they have another difficult week coming up. It wasn’t the last time the Big 12 will have the Wildcats doing a quick turnaround before facing a top 10 team.
Next week, they will be in Lubbock on Wednesday to play Texas Tech. On Friday, they must be back in Tucson to play No. 10 TCU in McKale Center. Since the Horned Frogs will already be in the state to play ASU on Wednesday, Arizona will actually have to travel more between matches than the visiting team.
It might not be so bad if there was a major airport in Lubbock or Ames, but that’s not the case either place. It’s the price of the collapse of the old Pac-12, which at least had large airports if travel between states was required between matches.
