Volleyball Heads to Baylor
October 21, 2014 10:02 AM | General
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| Jordan Anderson, Brittany Sample and Caleah Wells are all Texas natives who will play in front of the hometown crowd on Wednesday. |
| Photo courtesy of Dan Shreve |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For the first time in two weeks, the West Virginia University volleyball team will hit the road as the squad travels to Waco, Texas, for a Big 12 match at Baylor on Wednesday. The tilt is set for 7 p.m. ET.
The Mountaineers (12-8, 2-4) and the Bears (11-10, 1-5) will meet for the eighth time on Wednesday. The series originally kicked off in 1986, when Baylor took a 3-0 neutral site win in September. Eleven years later play resumed between the two, as the Bears grabbed a 3-1 win over the Mountaineers. WVU traveled to Waco in 2011 for the final nonconference meeting between the two and suffered a 3-0 loss. Baylor took the first three league matches after WVU joined the Big 12 in 2012, but the Mountaineers earned a 3-1 win in November of last season.
Wednesday’s contest will serve as a homecoming of sorts for a trio of Mountaineers. Caleah Wells (Red Oak), Brittany Sample (Lewisville) and Jordan Anderson (Flower Mound) all hail from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Coach Jill Kramer is also from the Lone Star state, hailing from San Antonio. WVU posted a good showing in their previous match in Texas, taking a 3-1 at Texas Tech in late September. The squad will make two more trips to Texas this season, facing TCU on October 29 and traveling to Austin on November 12 to play No. 2 Texas.
Like Sample, Baylor outside hitter Katie Staiger comes from Lewisville, Texas, though the two did not attend the same high school. However, Sample, Wells and Anderson will see plenty of familiar faces on the other side of the net tomorrow. The trio played for Dallas-area club TAV, where they were teammates with the Bears’ Adrien Richburg and Laura Jones. In addition to those five, at least eight more TAV alums are currently in the Big 12.
After posting a career-best 36 kills against TCU on October 11, Anderson is on pace to etch her name in the WVU record books. The sophomore outside hitter boasts 340 kills through 20 matches, ranking fourth in Mountaineer history in kills by a sophomore. She is 60 shy of setting a new single-season record in that category and is also 60 shy of entering the school’s all-time top-10 list for single-season kills. Freshman Lamprini Konstantinidou has also joined the record books, as her 664 assists this season rank fourth in program history in single-season assists by a freshman.
Despite missing the first 15 matches of the season with an injury, Hannah Shreve has picked up right where she left off from last season. The sophomore middle blocker has posted five or more blocks in the past four matches and tied her career high of six against both Oklahoma and TCU. She then went on to set a new personal best with eight blocks in the loss to Kansas, leading the Big 12 with 2.00 blocks per set last week.
The Mountaineers will return home on Saturday to host Kansas State in a 5 p.m. match at the WVU Coliseum.
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