The Kansas volleyball team suffered a blow to its postseason positioning on Wednesday night when it endured a sweep on the road at Utah.
The Utes, who came into their matchup against KU sporting a losing record and a 4-10 mark in league play but having just beaten rival BYU, had the upper hand throughout against the 13th-ranked Jayhawks and pulled off the 3-0 (25-20, 25-21, 25-22) in three closely contested sets.
KU entered Salt Lake City ranked 13th in the country in both the RPI and the American Volleyball Coaches Association polls, but those numbers will certainly dip. Just three regular-season matches remain for thejayhawks, beginning Friday at BYU. The top 16 teams in the eventual NCAA Tournament seeding get to host two matches apiece to open postseason play.
KU hit .188 as a team and did not have a single player reach double-digit kills, while Utah hit .252 despite the Jayhawks’ eight blocks and got 18 kills from Kamryn Gibadlo and 13 more from Emrie Moea’i. KU coach Matt Ulmer made some choice substitutions midway through the match, including swapping setters from Katie Dalton to Cristin Cline. Cline ended up with 17 assists to Dalton’s 12.
Arguably the Jayhawks’ most effective attacker in the match, one who has received more playing time of late, was junior middle blocker Aisha Aiono, who recorded seven kills on 11 total attacks. But her lone attack error went down as the match point. KU led 22-21 in the third set, conceded consecutive kills to Gibadlo and then, after a timeout, committed consecutive attack errors with Rhian Swanson and Aiono.
The Jayhawks spent a lot of time playing from behind on Wednesday. They were trailing 10-9 when Moea’i sent three straight kills to the floor as part of a 5-0 run. The Jayhawks fought back to within a point on a solo block by Reese Ptacek that made it 20-19, but a pair of blocks by the Utes killed the momentum and Moea’i eventually finished off the 25-20 score.
The second set followed a similar trajectory, with Utah leaping from 6-5 to 10-5. The Jayhawks crept back in with back-to-back attack errors by Levani Key-Powell but did not threaten as late in the set as they had in the first game. A 6-1 run led by Gibadlo made sure of that. KU staved off a pair of set points before Moea’i concluded the action again.
