Bears trounce K-State volleyball with top defense

The second-best defense in the country proved too much for the Wildcats on Wednesday night.

Playing in Waco, Texas, the K-State volleyball team (9-12, 3-7 Big 12 Conference) lost in three games to Baylor University (11-10, 4-6), which had not won at home in the last four matches.

Libero Lauren Mathewson took the Player of the Match award for another solid performance in the back row. With 16 digs in only three games, Mathewson played well and got within 18 digs of second place on K-State's career chart. However, the front row was stifled offensively by Baylor's No. 2 defense, as shown in K-State's .095 team-hitting percentage, but the Wildcats' defensive effort had a nice night with 13 block assists.

The first game stayed a bit steady for a while, then Baylor pushed ahead 15-10. K-State pulled together four to move closer, but the Bears hit a large stride to win 25-18. The defense on Baylor's side of the net proved too formidable for K-State to handle, as the Wildcats managed to hit only eight kills this game, with almost as many errors.

Baylor took a five-point run in the opening of game two, but K-State narrowed the gap some to 6-8 following back-to-back service aces from freshman middle blocker Kaitlynn Pelger. The Wildcats put a few more points on the board, but Baylor snatched up yet another run, and, despite K-State's last-minute battle to prevent a second loss, the Bears took the game, 25-20.

K-State had a limited offense again, recording just more than a .000 hitting percentage, and the most effective player, senior outside hitter JuliAnne Chisholm, hit .125 with four kills. In the defensive statistics, K-State and Baylor were actually very close, with the former finding more blocks and the latter, digs. Interestingly, Pelger was just behind senior libero Lauren Mathewson in total digs.

As was seemingly the norm for this match, Baylor took the lead to kick off the third game, and K-State could not counter for the rest of it. The Wildcats took five straight to tie the game at 11-all, but the advantage stayed on Baylor's side. K-State kept bumping right up to the Bears, but could not hang in long enough or follow through with the pressure to halt Baylor's effort, and the latter won the match, 25-19.

This game showed the ebbs and flows that K-State head coach Suzie Fritz mentions; instead of one consistent drive to the finish, there were leads by many points, ties and every possibility in between. Even so, the tide did not shift over in K-State's favor, and the team dropped the third game for its fifth consecutive sweep.

The team returns to action Friday when it takes on Texas in another road match. First serve is set for 6:30 p.m. at Gregory Gymnasium.