Updated 3:36 p.m. Monday, Dec. 2:
After waiting seven years between opportunities to host NCAA Tournament matches, then losing its second-round tilt with Penn State in agonizing fashion last year, the Kansas volleyball team will welcome postseason competition back to Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena this week.
KU, which earned a No. 3 seed in the tournament, will take on the unseeded Patriot League champion Colgate at 6:30 p.m. on Friday at Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena. The Jayhawks previously swept the Raiders 25-19, 25-17, 25-15 in Durham, North Carolina, on Sept. 1, in what was the third match of the season for both teams.
“Even though it seems like a long time ago, we’re a very different team and they’re a very different team,” KU coach Ray Bechard said on Monday. “We’ll do a thorough scout and we’ll be ready to go. We’ll have a good week of prep, I’m sure.”
Since then, KU tore through much of the rest of its schedule, opening the season 20-1 with a lone loss to Creighton before sustaining three losses — at eventual Big 12 champion Arizona State, at Arizona and at home against BYU on Wednesday’s senior night — in the month of November. The Jayhawks closed the year with a road victory at Iowa State and a 24-4 record, a slight improvement on last year, when they were a No. 4 seed.
“The Arizona trip where we lost a couple really, really difficult matches, (for) a lot of teams, that might have had a really long-lasting effect,” Bechard said. “That got us refocused.”
Topeka native Camryn Turner has continued to cement herself as one of the nation’s top setters with 11.40 assists per set, feeding a quartet of fellow seniors in outside hitters Ayah Elnady (3.24 kills per set) and Caroline Bien (2.54), right-side hitter London Davis (2.69) and middle blocker Toyosi Onabanjo (2.58 on .399 hitting). The team also features younger talent like fellow middle Reese Ptacek and libero Raegan Burns.
Colgate (19-10) was just 2-7 when it entered its conference slate but emerged from its league nearly unscathed outside of tough four- and five-set road losses to Army and American. The Raiders eventually got revenge on the Black Knights with a five-set win for the league title on Nov. 24. Colgate is led by outside hitter Abby Shadwick (3.51 kills on .273 hitting) and Milan Bayless (3.26, 2.50).
The other half of the Lawrence-based bracket consists of sixth-seeded Florida (21-7, 11-5 SEC) taking on N.C. State (16-12, 11-9 ACC), an at-large team that closed the season with a five-set victory over a top-10 SMU squad. The Gators and Wolfpack will play immediately before KU and Colgate at 4 p.m., and the winners of the two matches will face off on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
Last year, KU polished off Omaha in three sets before its hard-fought loss to Penn State.
“We’re comfortable playing at home,” Bechard said, “but we don’t want to get too comfortable knowing we still have to play very, very well.”
The Jayhawks are looking to make it back to the Sweet 16 after two straight second-round losses; the 2021 season marks their only appearance in the Sweet 16 since 2015, the best season in program history in which they reached the Final Four.
KU’s likely foe if it made it out of Lawrence would be Stanford, and both teams are in No. 1 seed Louisville’s quarter of the bracket.
Chance Parker/Special to the Journal-World
