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WVU Heads to Kansas for Pair of Matches
October 19, 2016 06:54 PM | Volleyball
LAWRENCE, Kan. – The West Virginia University volleyball team travels to Kansas this week for a pair of Big 12 matches in the Sunflower State. The Mountaineers will take on the No. 6 Kansas Jayhawks on Thursday in a 7:30 p.m. ET match at the Horejsi Family Athletics Center in Lawrence before heading to Manhattan on Saturday for a 7 p.m. ET tilt with Kansas State at Ahearn Field House.
Thursday’s match up with the Jayhawks will be available online through ESPN3 and through the Watch ESPN app.
The Mountaineers (11-10, 2-5) will look to end a four-match Big 12 losing streak. The Jayhawks enter the match up ranked sixth in the nation with a 17-2 overall mark and a 6-1 record in conference play. The Wildcats, who received votes in the most recent AVCA Coaches’ Poll, are 15-5 on the season and 4-3 in the Big 12.
“I think (the biggest change from the start of the season) is the work ethic and the way we’re competing,” said WVU coach Reed Sunahara. “I like what we’re doing, and I think we’re getting better every day. Maybe our record doesn’t show that, but we are getting better. We’re making progress, and it’s a process.”
WVU is 0-10 against Kansas, and 2-6 all-time against K-State. The Mountaineers took a 3-1 triumph of the Wildcats back in September of 2013 for their first-ever Big 12 win, and won a five-set thriller in November of 2014 for their first defeat of a top-25 RPI team.
Payton Caffrey was named the Big 12 Rookie of the Week for the fifth time this season as announced by the league on Monday. A native of Chuluota, Florida, Caffrey led all Big 12 freshman last week with 4.86 kills per set and 5.21 points per set. Her numbers put her second and third, respectively, amongst all league players for the week. Caffrey, who earned the accolade for the second straight week, is one award shy of tying the Big 12 record of six.
Junior libero Gianna Gotterba is nearing a career milestone. The native of Stockton, California, is 43 digs shy of her 1,000th career dig. Gotterba, who took over as WVU’s libero during her freshman season in 2014, has totaled 957 digs in her career and has averaged 3.45 digs per set through her first three years. That number would place her fifth on WVU’s career digs per set list.
With a pair of block assists against Baylor, senior Hannah Shreve has joined the program’s all-time top 10 list in the category. The middle blocker from Charleston, West Virginia, has a total of 243 career block assists and is tied with Alison Zemanski (2001-04) for ninth all-time. Jen McCuen owns the program record for block assists with 417 from 1988-92.
With 17 digs against the Bears, Caffrey has now totaled 386 kills on the season and is in third place for kills by a freshman. She needs 14 more to tie the program’s single-season record for kills by a freshman is 400, set in 1996 by Megan Porter. That number would also move her into WVU’s top-10 single season kills list.
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