Ty Russell / OU Athletics
OU locks down first volleyball win
The Sooner volleyball swept Kansas in two matches this weekend to get its first two wins of the season.
The Jayhawks took the first two sets of Friday’s match 13-25 and 23-25, respectively. With their backs against the wall, Oklahoma buckled down and won three straight sets to secure its first match of the year.
"That's a heartbreaker or a momentum builder,” head coach Lindsey Gray-Walton said. “We needed that. We so needed that. Our kids are resilient. Gritted through. A young team — you've just got to keep coaching them. I'm really proud of their effort from every point tonight.”
The momentum carried over into Saturday’s competition where the Sooners dominated the Jayhawks in three straight sets to improve to 2-4 on the season.
Freshman Guewe Diouf led the way for the Sooners in kills over the weekend notching 15 on Friday and 14 on Saturday. Defensively it was Keyton Kinley getting the job done for OU, amassing a total of 28 digs for the weekend.
OU wanted to avoid putting themselves in a position where they needed to make a big comeback like Friday night. Saturday’s dominant performance was exactly what they needed to build momentum for the rest of the season.
“That was our focus today — could we clean up a couple of defensive positional errors and where we needed to be and make plays easier, quite honestly, and we did that (Saturday),” Gray-Walton said. “That's a call to respond and that's awesome."
The Sooners hope to respond again this weekend as they travel to Manhattan, KS, to take on Kansas State Friday and Saturday.
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