KU volleyball puts hurt on Frogs

By Gary Bedore     Nov 14, 2015

John Young
Kansas sophomore Kelsie Payne (8) powers the ball past TCU blockers Natalie Gower, left, and Ashleigh Martin during their volleyball match Saturday afternoon at the Horejsi Center.

Kansas University sophomore volleyball hitter Kelsie Payne on Saturday helped make sure there were no lingering effects from Wednesday’s five-set loss to powerful Texas.

The 6-foot-3 sophomore from Austin, Texas, who smashed 23 kills — three off a career high against her hometown rival Longhorns — blasted 21 more against just two errors in Saturday’s 25-17, 25-15, 25-20 victory over TCU in sold-out Horejsi Center.

The player whom coach Ray Bechard calls “as dynamic of an athlete as there is in the country” now has 20 or more kills in four of KU’s last five matches.

“Payne was just hard to stop,” Bechard said after the No. 10-ranked Jayhawks (23-2, 11-2) remained a game behind the Longhorns (22-2, 12-1), two games ahead of Iowa State (16-8, 9-4) and 21/2 ahead of Kansas State (16-8, 8-4) in the Big 12 race.

“Going against the Big 12’s best blocking team (17-8, 7-6 TCU) … we moved Kelsie around again tonight. She hit quick. She hit on the pin. She was kind of a difference-maker when we made runs. We’d go to her two to three times in a row,” Bechard added.

Of her play Saturday, Payne said: “I have a really, really really good setter and passers behind me. It feels good.”

The Jayhawks, who were helped by Cassie Wait’s 21-dig, 10-assist performance — “For a libero, that’s unheard of,” Bechard said — looked sharp against a TCU team that handed Texas its only league loss.

“Determined,” Payne said of KU’s attitude at practice Thursday after what Bechard called a “major disappointment Wednesday.”

“We all came in with a mind-set, ‘It happened. It sucked, but we have to move on from it. All we can do is move forward,'” Payne added.

“We came in and worked hard, got better from the last night (vs. Texas),” noted Fort Worth, Texas, sophomore Ainise Havili, who had 44 assists, 15 digs and five kills versus her hometown college team — one that didn’t recruit her.

“(Now) we can only control what we can control,” Havili added. “All we can do is win out. Whatever Texas is going to do … if they happen to lose, awesome. If not, it is what it is.”

Saturday’s only shaky moment came in the third set in which TCU led, 15-10. KU proceeded to close the set on a 15-5 run.

“We just woke up,” said Havili, who had some effective serves, along with Madison Rigdon (10 kills). “I think we came out here expecting them to roll over and just give it to us. They are a good team, so they are going to fight. We need to be prepared for that. So by 15-10, we were ready.”

“We made a conscious effort to pick up our game,” Payne said. “We started doing our jobs better and were able to finish it out.”

Tiana Dockery contributed 12 kills against three errors for the Jayhawks, who won’t play again until Saturday at West Virginia.

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