When Arizona plays with confidence, the Wildcats can make wins look effortless, and that showed in their victory over the University of Utah on Friday. However, if that confidence falters, easy feats become difficult. Such was the case in their win against University of Colorado on Saturday.
In the Wildcats’ 3-0 win over the Utes, the Wildcats (25-23, 25-23, 25-23) were down 16-11 in the third set and came back with a 6-1 run to take a 21-20 lead.
The Utes tied it at 23-23, but freshman Madison Kingdon hammered out a kill and senior Cursty Jackson roofed a Ute to close out the game and take the match.
Not once did the Wildcats look like they were going to give up.
“It was some of our best volleyball against Utah,” head coach Dave Rubio said.
Senior Courtney Karst led the team in hitting with 16 kills, while both Kingdon and Jackson contributed 11 kills in the team’s feat.
But on Saturday, it was a different story.
Arizona almost gave the Buffaloes their first conference win, going to five games in the 3-2 match (25-15, 21-25, 25-14, 18-25, 15-12).
“We found a way to get it done,” Rubio said. “I thought Colorado really hung in there and that’s the best winless team you’ve ever seen.”
Arizona came out strong in the start, but when freshman starter Taylor Arizobal turned her ankle in the bottom of the first set, the team’s stability turned around as well.
“It certainly took us out of our comfort zone,” Rubio said. “We haven’t practiced without her being in the gym all season long.”
The Wildcats stayed focused and took the first set, but came out discombobulated in the second. It went back and forth in games for the rest of the match.
Each loss for the Wildcats could be contributed to errors. The Wildcats had 24 hitting errors, nine service errors, five receiving errors and four blocking errors.
“We were making too many unforced errors in the games that we lost,” Rubio said. “50 percent of the points they scored were from us just giving them away. In the games we won, we were pretty efficient, so it was evident what we needed to do, but it was a struggle for us.”
Jackson recorded six blocks and freshman Rachel Rhoades tallied five, contributing to a total of 15 team blocks.
And Karst led the team again in hitting with 20 kills.
Both Kingdon and fellow freshman Chloe Mathis had double-doubles in the match.
For Kingdon it was her seventh of the season with 14 kills and 13 digs. And for Mathis, she tallied 12 digs and 48 assists.
“I still think we’ve got another level to go and we could play a lot better,” Rubio said. “The question now is whether Taylor is going to be healthy. When she’s got a boot on and she’s walking with crutches, it’s not really encouraging to me.”
