It wasn’t a match that could do a lot to help Arizona, but it was one that could hurt a lot if the Wildcats lost. To make matters worse, their best offensive player was on the sidelines in street clothes.
Arizona lost to Texas Tech in straight sets when the two teams met in Lubbock on Oct. 29. With an RPI hovering in the 150 area, it was damaging to the Wildcats’ NCAA Tournament hopes. A bounce back that included back-to-back wins over ranked teams put them on the right track again, but a second loss to TTU could wipe out all that work by the Wildcats. They kept their momentum with a 3-1 (25-14, 20-25, 25-23, 25-17) victory over the Red Raiders.
Senior outside hitter Jordan Wilson did not play. Her 4.45 kills per set lead the team and are fourth in the Big 12. It’s a lot to lose from a lineup, but everyone stepped up to fill the gap. Fortunately for the Wildcats, it’s not a long-term situation, either.
“Jordan is just resting her body a little bit type thing, and so it was not to make a big deal about it, because as soon as you start asking questions and moving things around and try to do too much in that situation,” said Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs.
The absence of Wilson meant the first career start for freshman Paige Thies. The team prepared on Thursday for the possibility that Wilson would be out on Friday, but the rookie didn’t know for sure until the morning of the match.
It also made the entire starting lineup very young. Arizona started one junior, four sophomores, and two freshmen. Middle blocker Journey Tucker was the veteran of the group in age, but sophomores Brenna Ginder, Carlie Cisneros, and Avery Scoggins have been starters since they stepped on campus. This year, fellow sophomore Adrianna Bridges joined them. Thies and fellow freshman Renee Jones rounded out the group.
“I said to Brenna at the beginning of the match, I was like, ‘Hey, this is what it would look like next year,’” Stubbs said. “You know, how do we handle that? How do we work with it? I’m a firm believer, everything happens for a reason. So it was good.”
The first set couldn’t have gone any better for the Wildcats. Arizona hit .467 on the way to a 25-14 win.
Everyone got involved. Tucker led the team with five kills on .625 hitting in the opening set, but Arizona had five players get at least one kill.
“The passing felt really good, passing next to Brenna and Paige, new passing rotation that we hadn’t really practiced,” Cisneros said. “We talked a lot during that. And then Avery moving the ball around today was super helpful, and that was because everyone stepped up to do their part. So teamwork is the reason we won today.”
Cisneros led the team with 18 kills, tying her season high set against San Diego during the third week of the season. It was one shy of her career high. She did it while hitting .289, her highest hitting percentage in Big 12 play this season. She added a block and an ace for 19.5 points.
“I thought Carlie was really aggressive today,” Stubbs said. “We were walking down here and she goes, ‘I felt like I got a lot of in-system balls and I got to show what I’m capable of.‘”
As for the teamwork aspect and everyone doing her job, the Wildcats had three players with double-digit kills and another just one short. Thies had 10 on .348 hitting. She also had an ace and two blocks for 12 points. She and Cisneros both had six digs.
Both of Arizona’s starting middles got into the offensive flow. Bridges was second on the team with 12 kills. She has just one hitting error and hit .500. She tied Tucker for the match high in blocks with six and ended with 15 points.
In addition to her six total blocks, Tucker ended with nine kills on .389 hitting. She contributed 12 points, tying Thies for third on the team.
The defense also stepped up. At the net, the Wildcats had their second straight match with double-digit blocks. The team had 13.0 as a group, one more than they did against BYU on Wednesday. In the back row, Ginder set a career mark with 23 digs.
As someone who shared libero duties with fifth-year player Haven Wray last year, the sophomore has shown a marked improvement in her defense as the sole libero this year. Stubbs thinks the fact that Ginder is no longer subbing in just for serve receive has made an impact and she is getting to balls that she might have considered outside her range before. Ginder credits both personal and team development for the improvements.
“I think I’ve definitely gotten better on the defensive side, and I’ve just continued to push my range,” Ginder said. “And I mean, our block is getting better too, so it makes my job back there a lot easier, too.”
Texas Tech didn’t go away after the lopsided first set. The Red Raiders called a late timeout with set one out of reach, but those can often help to jumpstart the next set. If that’s why it was called, it worked.
The Raiders never trailed in the second set. The final tie came at 4-4. Arizona got as close as one point at 20-19, but Texas Tech closed out the set on a 5-1 run to even the match.
Arizona regrouped for set three. The Wildcats started pulling away after a 5-5 tie. The home team kept the lead around three points until putting some space between them and TTU at 23-16.
The Raiders fought back again when UA hit set point at 24-19. Texas Tech saved four set points to get the deficit down to 24-23. Arizona finally took the set on Sydnie Vanek’s block to go up 2-1 in the match.
The Wildcats used a 6-0 run early in the fourth set to take a 9-4 lead. From there, they didn’t need to do much beyond trading points. That’s how most of the set went until UA went up 21-17. A 4-0 run closed out the match and put a bow on a three-match winning streak. It improved Arizona’s record to 14-9 overall and 8-5 in Big 12 play.
It was a very different match than the one between the two teams on Oct. 29.
“We didn’t do anything right last time, to be honest,” Stubbs said.
She didn’t want her players to go into this one looking for revenge after that loss, but the players had something else in mind.
“Revenge is always fun,” Cisneros said. “I mean, I don’t think it’s proving anything, but it’s like, All right, let’s come out there and show out today, because last time, it really wasn’t our best performance, and today we just, we definitely made up for it.”
The Wildcats now get to take some time off since they only play once next week. It’s needed after a season spent mostly on the road and an especially tough few weeks of traveling back and forth across the country with short turnarounds.
Arizona gets several extra hours of rest because the game was played at 11 a.m. MST. Local schoolchildren were in the stands for Field Trip Day. Despite the early hour, the Wildcats played in front of 2,237 fans.
