The 13th-ranked Kansas volleyball team earned a much-needed road victory at No. 22 Iowa State on Wednesday night, taking down the Cyclones 3-1 (25-23, 25-16, 15-25, 26-24) at Hilton Coliseum.
The Jayhawks bounced back after a pair of demoralizing losses in Utah and concluded their road slate for the regular season.
KU (21-10, 12-5 Big 12), which entered the match 14th in RPI to ISU’s No. 20, is looking to obtain a top-16 seed for the NCAA Tournament in order to host the first two rounds of postseason matches. The Jayhawks have one more opponent left on their schedule: UCF (17-11, 8-9 Big 12), which they will host at Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena for senior day on Saturday afternoon.
They got past the Cyclones with the help of sophomore middle blocker Reese Ptacek’s 13 kills on .407 hitting, and outside hitters Grace Nelson and Rhian Swanson added nine apiece. Multiple players saw renewed playing time for KU, none more significant than setter Cristin Cline, who stepped into the starting role and dished out 44 assists.
Cline completed a double-double with 16 digs as one of four players in double digits, led by libero Ryan White, who had 20.
Tierney Jackson had a dozen kills for Iowa State, and Nayeli Ti’a added 11 with 15 digs for a double-double of her own. The Cyclones hit just .181 but committed six fewer service errors than the Jayhawks.
KU won two of its sets by two points each. The first was the first set, in which the Jayhawks led 18-11 on an attack by Lilly Wachholz but allowed ISU to make things vastly closer late with an 8-2 run. Middle blocker Aisha Aiono provided a much-needed kill to conclude that stretch, but the Cyclones and Jayhawks continued to trade points until a service error by Ava Martin put KU at set point. ISU managed one last change on a kill by Ti’a, but Maya Duckworth committed an attack error as the Jayhawks escaped.
The next two sets were not especially competitive, with one going either team’s way. KU forced an early timeout by ISU on back-to-back aces by Jovana Zelenović, went up double digits at 19-9 and never really allowed a significant challenge in the second.
The Cyclones flipped the script in the third set to make the match a bit more challenging for the Jayhawks. A stretch of five straight featuring two kills by Alea Goolsby put ISU ahead 15-8, and Ti’a recorded three kills in the span of four points late as the Cyclones dominated, 25-15.
The decisive fourth set was a battle. ISU led early at 8-4 on a service ace by Rachel Van Gorp and kept KU at arm’s length until kills by Ptacek and Swanson and two attack errors by Goolsby erased the four-point margin and tied the game at 19. The Cyclones reached 23 points first, but KU got four of the final five: kills by Aiono and Selena Leban, a block by Ptacek and Leban and the decisive kill, again from the freshman Leban.
