K-State continued their winning streak on Friday afternoon, defeating VCU by 3-1 in the first game of the Middle Tennessee Invitational.
The Wildcats played efficient in the first set, outscoring the Rams 25-17 in the first set and achieving a hitting percentage of .392.
Second set brought a laundry list of problems for K-State. The Wildcats produced eight errors in the second set along with being held to a .122 hitting percentage. Rallied by VCU’s strong .333 hitting percentage, the Rams were able to steal set two from the Wildcats to tie the match at 1-1 heading into the locker room.
““We were uncharacteristically high-error in the second,” head coach Suzie Fritz said. “We got caught up in the emotion – in my philosophy, high-emotional teams tend to be high-error teams, and that is exactly what we were.
With only one error in the third set, K-State dominated VCU in the third set 25-10, hitting the ball at a .520 percentage. The Wildcats were able to finish off the match with a 25-18 victory in set four.
“We found who we were, settled down a little bit,” said Fritz about K-State playing better in the third and fourth. “Hit-it-in, serve-it-in is kind of what we do, and once we were able to stabilize that, we were significantly better.”
Brooke Sassin lead the Wildcat’s with another double double of 19 kills and 12 digs. While Alyssa Schultejans marked her fourth game with 10 kills on Friday, Katie Reininger and Bryna Vogel added nine kills each in the victory.
Freshman Zsofia Gyimes had a career high of nine kills and four blocks with an attacking percentage of .432. Katie Brand produced 44 assists and nine digs in the Wildcat’s winning efforts.
K-State takes on Seattle University at 8:00 a.m. Saturday and finishes off the Middle Tennessee Invitational with a match against Middle Tennessee State with first serve starting at 7:30 p.m.
