LAWRENCE – Behind 16 kills from Caroline Bien and 11 apiece from Jenny Mosser and Anezka Szabo, the Kansas Jayhawks defeated TCU in five sets on Friday evening at the Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena.
The victory moves the Jayhawks to 13-11 on the year and 5-8 in Big 12 play while TCU falls to 8-15 on the year and 2-11 in conference.
“To get up 2-0, it’s disappointing when you can’t finish off the match but we responded really well in the fifth set,” Kansas Coach Ray Bechard said following the match. “We were nine-of-nine on sideout in the fifth and we blocked some balls, so there was a lot to be happy about. If we could bottle a little bit of that fifth set up and bring it tomorrow, that would be great.”
Friday was the ‘Salute to Service’ night for the Jayhawks. To honor those who have served or are currently serving in the United States Armed Forces, Kansas wore special warm up jerseys and thanked active and former service members in attendance.
After remaining close for the first few points of the first set, TCU went on a seven-point run to pull ahead 11-4. The TCU run was broken up by a Jenny Mosser kill. The Jayhawks continued to chip away at TCU’s lead and eventually tied the match at 15-all on a combo block by Caroline Crawford and Anezka Szabo. The two teams remained neck-and-neck until Kansas took the lead at 21-20 and held it for the remainder of the set.
The Jayhawks were off to a strong start in the second match, however TCU kept close. Kansas was able to force TCU to take an early timeout when they went up 5-2, but TCU came back from the pause and scored two. The score remained close for the entirety of the second set, as neither team led by more than three points.
By the end of the set, Kansas was up 24-21 before a pair of TCU kills and a block allowed the Horned Frogs to tie the score at 24-all and force the set into extra points. A pair of blocks were all it took for Kansas to tip the scale, first the Crawford and Camryn Turner duo to give Kansas a 25-24 lead and finished off with a solo block by Caroline Bien to secure the victory at 26-24.
TCU started the third set by going up 4-0, but a Crawford and Szabo block broke up the run. The teams continued to go back-and-forth, but the Jayhawks ate away at the TCU lead and eventually tied the set at 11-all. The set remained even until the Horned Frogs again pulled ahead, and went on to win the set 25-20.
TCU led for the majority of the fourth set, but the Jayhawks found some momentum after a long rally that ended in a Kansas point, cutting the deficit to three at 18-15. From there, Kansas had back-to-back kills to bring them within just one of the Horned Frogs. The teams went back and forth, but the Jayhawks were able to tie the score at 20 after a Rachel Langs kill. TCU pulled back ahead and held the lead for the rest of the match as they won 25-22.
Kansas took the lead early in the fifth set and they would not relinquish it. The Jayhawks hit .231 in the fifth and had a perfect sideout percentage while leading by at least two for the final 10 points of the match. KU finished things off with a block from Langs and Szabo, the teams 19th block of the night.
Bien led the Jayhawks with 16 kills while hitting .244 for the match. Szabo and Mosser had 11 apiece to help KU to 53 kills for the match, compared to 69 for TCU. The difference was made up in attack errors, where KU had 19 while forcing TCU into 33 hitting errors. Langs had 11 blocks (three solo, eight assist), while Szabo had nine and Crawford eight. Camryn Turner led the Jayhawks with 32 assists and Kennedy Farris recorded a team-leading 19 digs.
Kansas and TCU will conclude their weekend series on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. in Lawrence.