KU Volleyball Suffers Road Loss at Oklahoma

NORMAN, Okla. – After winning three-straight Big 12 Conference road matches, the Kansas volleyball team suffered a 3-0 setback (25-17, 25-16, 25-13) at Oklahoma Saturday afternoon.

KU dropped to 13-11 overall and 5-9 in the conference, while hitting .097 on offense, its worst attack percentage since recording a .079 clip versus FIU on Sept. 4.

Oklahoma improved to 17-7 on the season and 10-5 in Big 12 action behind a .341 attack.

Kansas sophomore Allison Mayfield was the only player in double digit on offense for both teams collecting 12 kills for her fourth-straight contest of 10-plus kills. Junior Jenna Kaiser was next with five kills for the Jayhawks.

A balanced OU offense featured four players with at least seven kills, led by Francie Ekwerekwu with nine.

Kansas and Oklahoma stayed close in the opening set, which featured many long rallies. At 12-12 though, the Sooners went on a 13-5 run to close the set for a 25-17 win.

Both teams featured a solid defensive effort but KU committed two more hitting errors than OU and struggled from the service line with three serving errors.

Senior Melissa Grieb tallied eight of her team-high 14 digs in set one.

The Jayhawks got off to a slow start in the second set and quickly found themselves trailing 17-8. From there, things started to fall into place for the Jayhawks as Kaiser connected for a pair of kills, and Nicole Tate and Mayfield chipped in one a piece. Kansas also got help from three Oklahoma service errors to out-score the Sooners 6-4 over the next 10 points. Down the stretch, KU could not quiet the OU offense as Oklahoma won set two 25-16 behind a .424 attack percentage.

Kansas recorded just one more hitting error than the Sooners in the second set but only connected on 10 kills, compared to 16 for the Sooners.

In the third set, KU used an early 4-0 run to take a 5-3 lead. A few points later, an OU service error followed by an ace from Mayfield kept the Jayhawks ahead at 7-6. The lead would not hold however as Oklahoma began to pull away and proceeded to score 18 of the final 23 points to earn a 25-13 victory.

The Jayhawks return to the friendly confines of the Horejsi Family Athletics Center in the first of two-straight home matches on Wednesday, Nov. 11 to host in-state rival Kansas State. First serve is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.