While there was a lot of fight shown from Arizona, it was not enough to take down No. 14 BYU inside the McKale Center at ALKEME Arena. The Wildcats (6-12, 1-6 Big 12) dropped all three sets to the Cougars to extend their four-game losing streak.
Kennedy Osunsanmi led the way for Arizona with nine kills on the night on 21 attacks. Harmony Sample finished with 22 assists, and Carlie Cisneros led in digs with 11.
The Wildcats’ digging and overall defense was something that head coach Charita Stubbs was encouraged by. Despite the encouragement, Arizona still needs to find more offense.
“It was nice to see that we outdug a team,” said Stubbs. “We haven’t done that in Big 12 play. As well as out blocked them, I think that was good. We just have to continue to work to find ways to score, just putting together points.”
The Wildcats kept contact with the Cougars for all of set one, led by Destiny Ndam-Simpson and Cisneros with three kills each. Arizona had the set tied at various points and even had the lead late in the set.
Arizona was also helped out by nine attacking errors by the Cougars. However, three-straight kills for BYU closed it out and it took a 1-0 set lead. The largest lead BYU had in the set was three and late in the set Arizona had leads of 18-16 as well as 21-19.
Stubbs continued with the 5-1 offense to start the match, and while it did always look pretty there was definitely a noticeable difference in Sample’s connection with her attackers. The Arizona block forced the Cougars into eight attacking errors.
“I think that kind of just goes into us staying consistent and sustaining throughout the match because we’re right there with these really good teams, but it’s just not quite enough every single time,” said Osunsanmi. “We’re falling just a little bit short.”
A 4-0 deficit for Arizona did not start the second set off on a good note, but Arizona kept in contact with BYU once again. However, down the stretch of the set the Wildcats lost control and could not recover.
It was a one-point game at 20-19 but a serving error allowed the Cougars to close it out. Similar to the first set, Arizona did not allow BYU to put the game too far out of reach but 4-0 and 5-0 runs at the beginning and end of set two were the difference.
“We’ve been doing well starting out, and building the lead, getting ourselves in position, and then we struggle closing out the sets,” said Stubbs. “Part of that is opponents get better. Part of that is we get lax and make an error, and unfortunately we string together errors at the wrong time. We have to be better competitors for longer periods of time.”
The duo of Ndam-Simpson and Cisneros moved up to five kills on the night with Osunsanmiand Journey Tucker joining the party with four kills each. Ndam-Simpson, Tucker, and Kristen Dear each had two blocks each at that point.
“I feel like, especially in the first two sets, we sided out pretty fast,” said Sample. “I thought they didn’t go on too many runs, which was good, like serving runs. So I thought that was an improvement.”
To start the third set, Stubbs decided to go back to the 6-2 offense to throw a different look to BYU as well as give the offense another attacking option. The Wildcats got off to a good start but the Cougars quickly took control.
What was once a 6-6 tie quickly ballooned to a 9-6 lead then a 12-7 lead for BYU. Arizona cut it down to three at different points but the Cougars showed why they are ranked 14 in the country and finished the match for a clean sweep of the Wildcats.
“I feel like we made a lot of great plays this match, and we had a lot of fight,” said Osunsanmi. “I think where we need to improve is just our consistency and basically like sustaining that fight throughout the entire match.”
Arizona has dropped 12 of its last 13 sets and has not won a road game since September 22. With a trip to Morgantown on the horizon, Stubbs needs to see more consistency and attention to detail next week during practice.
“I want to see us be able to work hard and practice for multiple days in a row in terms of getting better at the little things,” said Stubbs. “Us finding a way to score is something that we will continue to work at. We knew coming into the season that was going to be probably our achilles heel, but also to be able to stop runs. So we have to design practice to put them in situations where they have to fight through and try to get out of it faster versus making it linger on.”