MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Looking to shake off a three-match skid, the West Virginia University volleyball team will host Big 12 foe Texas Tech on Saturday afternoon. First serve is set for 3:30 p.m. inside the WVU Coliseum.
This weekend’s contest marks the second meeting of the season between the Mountaineers (11-12, 2-7) and the Red Raiders (10-14, 0-9). WVU hit .361 behind 14 kills from Payton Caffrey in taking a 3-0 sweep of TTU in Lubbock, Texas, on Sept. 24. The win was the first Big 12 victory for coach Reed Sunahara.
“I thought we did some nice things last week,” said Sunahara, who is in his second season in Morgantown. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the results we were looking for. We just need to keep getting better every day and put things together.”
Saturday’s match will be Fan Appreciation Day. Each fan attending the match will receive three raffle tickets upon entry and can enter their tickets to win a pair of Beats by Dre headphones, a Fitbit Alta or a $100 Netflix gift card. Admission is free to the public.
The Mountaineers are coming off a pair of tough losses in Kansas, falling to No. 6 Kansas on Thursday, 3-0, before dropping a 3-2 match at K-State on Saturday. One of the highlight’s of WVU’s five-set loss to the Wildcats was the Mountaineers’ blocking effort. Erin Slinde played a role in that, registering a career-high 10 blocks on the night. The freshman setter also had 27 assists - just two shy of her career high - to record her first-ever double-double.
With her 15th kill of Thursday’s match at Kansas, Payton Caffrey set a new WVU freshman record for kills with 401 at that time. She added another to end the match then 14 more against K-State to bring her record to 416. That total puts her in seventh place on WVU’s single-season kills list. The single-season kills record is 547, set by Beth Hoffman in 1985.
For the second time this season, Mia Swanegan was tabbed the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week on Oct. 24. The junior middle blocker had a career-best 13 blocks against K-State and led the league with 1.75 blocks per set on the week. She totaled 15 kills and 14 blocks on the weekend. Swanegan previously earned the award on Sept. 19.
Caffrey and Swanegan, who have combined for seven Big 12 weekly awards this year, are among not only the best in the conference, but the nation. Both rank inside the top-20 of the nation kills and blocking, respectively. In addition to ranking second in the league in kills per set with 4.78, the freshman outside hitter ranks seventh in the nation and is six in total kills. Swanegan leads the Big 12 in blocking and is 17th nationally with 1.43 per set. She is also 14th with 117 total blocks on the season.
After registering 32 digs last week, Gianna Gotterba has come even closer to hitting a career milestone. The junior libero now has a total of 980 career digs, leaving her just 20 shy of 1,000. A total of 1,118 would tie for 10th on the school’s all-time digs list.
The return to Morgantown will be brief for the Mountaineers, who hit the road for Iowa next week. The team will travel to Ames on Wednesday to face Iowa State on in a 7:30 p.m. ET match at Hilton Coliseum.
