After three big wins last week at the Kansas State Invitational, the Wildcats headed to Springfield, Missouri for the Missouri State University Fall Invitational.
For the opening match, Thursday night, K-State faced Missouri State. The Wildcats fell short even with the help of sophomore opposite hitter Gloria Mutiri’s career-high 18 kills in the five-set battle.
Along with Mutiri, freshman outside hitter Anna Dixon and redshirt middle-blocker Peyton Williams, turned in double-digit kills, both with 13. Despite the team hitting an average of .265, the Wildcats were unable to clinch the win Thursday night.
K-State and Missouri State split the first two sets, K-State taking the third set and Missouri State rallying to claim wins in the fourth and fifth sets.
The second match of the weekend for the Wildcats was against Weber State. Williams led the Wildcats with 14 kills, 48 assists from redshirt senior setter Sarah Dixon and 20 digs from freshman libero Dru Kuck, making this her fourth match in a row of a 20-dig performance this season. The Wildcats had a hitting average of .259 which could not withstand the .298 hitting average of Weber State.
K-State started off strong with a 25-21 first set win. The second set was a tough fought battle, with Weber State coming up with the 2-point win, 28-26. The Wildcats fell short again in the third and fourth sets. With a loss of 21-25 set three and 20-25 set four.
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The last matchup for K-State was against the Dayton Flyers. For the second time over the weekend the Wildcats took a match to 5 sets.
With help from Anna Dixon, Mutiri and redshirt sophomore outside hitter Holly Bonde each had 13 kills each. K-State only had 5 ace and Dayton came up with 11. As K-State started strong with a .343 hitting average in the first set, it dwindled down to .202 for the match.
In the fifth set of the night, K-State went back and forth with Dayton up 8-7 at the mid-set switch. The Wildcats were unable to answer the 8-4 point run by Dayton at the end of the set.
The loss made K-State 0-3 this week and 4-5 overall this season.
Now finished with the non-conference season, the Wildcats will compete in the North Texas Challenge where they’ll face North Texas on Thursday eventing at 7 p.m.
