The 16th-ranked Kansas volleyball team rebounded from a pair of losses at Texas last weekend and beat a fellow departing member of the Big 12 Conference, Oklahoma, in a 3-0 sweep (25-20, 25-21, 25-18) Saturday afternoon.
Looking for their first league win of the year, on the road in Lawrence, the Sooners kept it close in each of their three sets with the Jayhawks but couldn’t pull through.
Reagan Cooper and Ayah Elnady paced KU with 15 kills apiece, on hitting percentages of .406 and .560, respectively. The Jayhawks hit .371 for the match, led by 40 assists from setter Camryn Turner. Defensively, freshman libero Raegan Burns posted eight digs.
OU’s Alexis Shelton and Taylor Preston weren’t far behind offensively with 14 kills each, but the Sooners struggled to side-out and the Jayhawks went on several key runs.
A 9-2 stretch, primarily with Turner serving, gave KU its first separation in the opening set, aided by a pair of OU attack errors (one on a block by London Davis and Mykayla Myers). Elnady had two late kills, of five overall in the set, to help the Jayhawks keep their distance.
KU held a lead throughout the second game, but Oklahoma drew as close as 18-17 on a Preston kill. The Jayhawks scored four straight points and eventually closed out the set on a Davis kill.
KU ran up its widest margin in the third frame at 25-18. Kills by Cooper accounted for five of the team’s final 11 points.
The Jayhawks improved to 13-4, 4-3 in conference, and after a short break will travel to TCU on Oct. 22.
Chance Parker/Journal-World photo
