After dropping a nail-biter to No. 3 Texas on Wednesday, TCU volleyball recovered Saturday to defeat Texas Tech 3-1 (25-22, 22-25, 25-22, 25-19), breaking the Red Raiders’ nine-match win streak.
“One of our goals was to outwork them,” said head coach Jill Kramer. “I think our effort was great.”
TCU struggled early on defense, allowing Texas Tech to have 15 kills in the first set. Five of those were from outside hitter Emily Hill alone, who also posted a .625 hitting clip in the set.
The Frogs were able to edge out the Red Raiders in the first set, 25-22. Despite the victory, Kramer knew that her team needed to put up a better effort if they were going to beat the Big 12-leading Red Raiders two more times.
“I still think in the first set we didn’t come out as sharp as we would like and had a lot of miscues in the beginning,” she said. “We need to get a little bit better at that.”
The sharper start Kramer was looking for wouldn’t come in the second set, as Texas Tech scored first and didn’t look back. The Frogs dropped the second set 25-22.
A bright spot to the set was first-year middle blocker Katie Clark, who had six kills in the second set to go with a .857 hitting percentage.
Clark would finish the match with a career-high 20 kills and .359 hitting clip. This was her second-straight game to post career-high kills after reaching that mark with 17 Wednesday against Texas.
“It’s been nice to see [Clark] start to really work into our offense and be a priority for us on the right side,” Kramer said. “You can see some of her high school volleyball pay off a lot when we have the opportunity to set her on the go.”
TCU countered another slow start in the third set with an offensive outburst late in the set. The Frogs had 18 kills in the set, seven of which came from first-year outside hitter Élan McCall.
McCall would finish the match with 21 kills and 17 digs for her 16th straight game with double-digit kills. Saturday’s match also marked her tenth double-double of the season.
The Horned Frog volleyball team extended their lead by as much as six in the fourth set and controlled the entire way.
Late in the set, after the Red Raiders had blocked four previous spike attempts, McCall found a hole in the defense put the Frogs up 21-17 and set the tone that TCU had set their sights on victory.
The Frogs would end up winning the set 25-19.
“I would just have to say that it gives us the confidence that we can outwork [other teams] if we try our hardest,” said Clark. “If we put our max effort out there, we can do whatever we want to do.”
After two games at home, TCU will head on the road for two straight matches to play Baylor and Iowa State. First serve against Baylor is set for 6 p.m. on Oct. 10 in Waco, Texas.
