It feels a bit fitting North Dakota State was the team standing in Arizona Volleyball’s way, as with a bit of a rebirth in the Wildcats program that is reminiscent of two football seasons ago, which started in earnest with a victory over…the Bison.
Thursday night was a reminder that veteran leadership is key in powering a bounce-back season. Jaelyn Hodge stepped up in a massive way powering the Wildcats with 17 kills on an eye-popping .485 hitting percentage. The Wildcats largely followed suit, as they managed to care for North Dakota State in yet another sweep 25-19, 25-20, 25-22 sweep.
With Hodge pacing the attack, it was Avery Scoggins directing things with 38 assists while chipping in 10 digs to pace the Wildcats defensively and collecting the double-double. Carlie Cisneros added 10 kills of her own to go along with a team-high 3 aces, and Kiari Robey notched a pair of blocks. As a team, Arizona outhit the Bison .361-.213 with 51 kills as a team on 108 attempts.
Service Errors Nearly Became a Problem
The biggest thing for Arizona Volleyball is to celebrate their first 10-game win streak in 15 years. The match was not without things needing to be cleaned up. For a team with a largely float-based serving profile as the Wildcats, with only Ana Heath sporting a jump serve, 14 service errors over three sets are not very good at all and can cost a team a match.
Heath for her part in the match had just two errors to go along with an ace, and by and large, while you’d like it to be at worst a 50/50 ace-to-error ratio you can easily deal with her being slightly off. You can surely expect that after tonight serving will likely be a strong part of upcoming practices to ensure that serving remains aggressive though with a bigger focus on landing in play.
How Long Can Win Streak Continue
With Southern Utah up next for the Wildcats in a match that one could surely expect to see Arizona win on Sunday, attention will likely turn to the start of Big XII Conference play. Arizona has a pair of tough road matchups as a welcome to the Big XII at Baylor, and TCU.
With the match against Baylor looking to be a match to tie the program record of 12 wins, we will get to see our first true test for the Wildcats.
Up Next: 9/21 vs. Southern Utah Noon MST on ESPN+