After returning home from perhaps its best match of the season — a sweep last Saturday at Texas A&M — the Kansas State volleyball team stumbled, and dropped a straight-set match to Oklahoma on Wednesday night 22-25, 23-25 and 21-25.
While they handled the Wildcats, it wasn't a match that the Sooners necessarily ran away with.
Yes, Oklahoma walked out of Ahearn Field House with the win, but by all measure, this was still a close match.
"That's just the game of volleyball," K-State sophomore outside hitter Kathleen Ludwig said.
With the loss, the Wildcats (9-8, 3-3 Big 12) fell out of a heavily-congested second-place spot in the Big 12 standings and now find themselves tied with the Aggies in third place.
It was a frustrating night, one in which the Wildcats tried, but just couldn't string together quite enough rallies to separate from the stingy Oklahoma squad.
The Wildcats saw a match with seven lead changes and 22 tied scores slip out of their hands in three quick sets.
"I felt like we were in it," K-State coach Suzie Fritz said. "But we weren't playing well. So, I kept thinking that things could turn for us, if we could just get a little bit of a break...
"I was feeling optimistic. I felt like we could still work our way back into the match."
But the Wildcats never did fully pull away from the Sooners Wednesday night in a match televised by FSN-Kansas?City.
After falling to the Sooners in a close 25-22 first set, Fritz's squad started to find some of the momentum it desperately needed before heading into intermission.
The Cats strung together a 6-1 run early in the set to take an 11-6 lead, highlighted by kills from Ludwig, Alex Muff and Kaitlynn Pelger.
But just as they did all match, the Sooners had an immediate answer.
"(Oklahoma) is good," Fritz said. "We didn't give them our best. They're very frustrating and very unassuming. They dig balls and turn balls and we just couldn't gain any momentum. They don't let you get in any kind of rhythm."
After the K-State run in the second set, OU stormed back with a 7-2 run of its own, eventually closing the gap and tying the game at 16, forcing K-State into a timeout.
After the timeout, the Sooners and Cats traded leads three times before OU sealed the win with a kill by Morgan Reynolds.
"We were just struggling to play how we play and be who we are," Ludwig said.
In what seemed to be a carbon copy of the first two sets, the Sooners tamed the Wildcats just enough to secure the sweep with a 25-21 win in the third set.
"We were right there," KSU freshman middle blocker Kaitlynn Pelger said. "Just the frustration, I think, got us."
However, the Wildcats don't have long to analyze what happened Wednesday. K-State has a quick turnaround before hosting a
No. 11-ranked Texas on Saturday. First set for the weekend showdown is scheduled for 7 p.m.
"We definitely made a point to just let it go," Ludwig said after the match. "We can't hang on to wins or losses, so we are just back to the board and back to thinking about tomorrow and that is all you can do."
Photo- The Manhattan Mercury
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