Arizona volleyball struggles with inconsistency in 5-set loss to Colorado

Consistency is a major ingredient in the formula for success. Enormous performance highs countered by equally enormous lows have been a sticking point for Arizona volleyball head coach Rita Stubbs all season.

Both individual players and the team as a whole have battled those “woes and flows,” as Stubbs called them. The Wildcats dealt with them again on Wednesday evening in a 3-2 (15-25, 25-17, 25-21, 25-27, 18-16) loss to Colorado. It marked Arizona’s third straight loss, two of which have come at home.

“It absolutely sucks,” Stubbs said. “Two matches at home that we should not have lost.”

Stubbs was also right about her pre-match assessment of the Buffaloes. She told the media in her weekly press conference that Colorado was a team that would continue to fight no matter what. After all, it was the ninth five-set match for CU this season. The Buffs were 5-3 in the previous eight.

The Arizona head coach was visibly frustrated with the result and the way the match unfolded.

“We just didn’t listen,” Stubbs said. “Every team that we play against, all they do is sit in front of (Kiari Robey), and so she gets frustrated. And you know that now there’s nothing there for her offensively. And then others are still trying to do things they have no business trying to do. They gotta live in the world that we’re in, and I’m telling them that we have to do a better job of coming in and doing what we’re asking them to do, not the what-if thing.”

Stubbs was especially frustrated with the three pins. She felt that Jaelyn Hodge, Jordan Wilson, and Carlie Cisneros all went their own way at times. She has been insistent all season that the pins need to avoid hitting down the line or trying to go around the blockers because it either means hitting into the defense or hitting out of bounds. She wants them to use the block more.

“Blockers were already on the line, yet they’re still hitting down the line,” Stubbs said. “That was one of the main things.”

She also felt that the inconsistency came back to haunt them in the crucial second and third sets that gave the Buffaloes the lead.

“Jae didn’t show up at all in the second and third sets,” Stubbs said. “She got better, but she didn’t show up in two sets offensively, defensively, blocking. Jordan was in and out. Carlie was hitting where she shouldn’t be hitting.”

Those two sets turned the tide in the match.

Arizona came out hot. The only lead Colorado had in the first set came at 3-2. From there, the Wildcats won six of seven points to take an 8-4 advantage. They had seven runs of at least two points including two different 4-0 runs to keep control of the set and win decisively.

As positive as the opening set was for Arizona, the second frame was just as disappointing. The score was tight until 8-8 then Colorado started stringing runs together while the Wildcats didn’t. UA had just four runs of two or more points. It didn’t put more than three points together all set.

It was more of the same in the third set. Arizona scored more than one point in a row just four times. It didn’t score more than two in a row at all.

Colorado wasn’t going on huge runs, but it had enough two- and three-point runs that it could afford to trade points with the Wildcats late in the set. The visitors did just enough to take the 2-1 lead.

The Wildcats woke up again in the fourth. With their backs against the wall, they ran out to a 6-1 lead. They led by as many as seven points, but the Buffs started chipping away at 18-11.

Arizona stalled at 20-15. CU went on a 6-0 run to take a 21-20 lead. Things looked to be over.

UA fought back to go up by two points again at 23-21. Colorado countered with a 3-0 run to give it match point, but the Wildcats responded with two straight points to garner a set point.

CU saved the first set point, but couldn’t save the second and Arizona had new life. The 15-point final set would decide it.

The Wildcats took an 11-7 lead in the fifth. They just needed four points before the Buffaloes got eight.

Instead, they stalled again, and Colorado came back to tie it at 12 points apiece. Arizona fought back to earn the first match point in the final frame. It came at 14-13.

While service errors weren’t a huge problem in the match—at least not when compared to the 2.86 per set that the Wildcats average—that old nemesis rose its head at the worst possible time. Hodge’s service error wiped away the match point.

The fifth-year pin shook it off. On the next point, Hodge’s kill gave the Wildcats their second match point.

The Buffaloes responded with two straight points to get their own match point. The back-and-forth affair continued with Cisneros getting the kill to even it up again.

That only prolonged the agony. CU got another match point—its third of the match and second of the set—and this time Cisneros hit out for the final margin.

While Stubbs was frustrated with some of Wilson’s play, the junior outside hitter had her strongest match in Big 12 play. She had 16 kills on .324 hitting. She added three total blocks and two aces for a season-high 19.5 points. She got a double-double by throwing in 11 digs.

Wilson continued to have difficulties in the back row as she works to become a full-time player, but Stubbs has said all season that it’s to be expected when making this change. Wilson had four receiving errors, accounting for half of CU’s aces, but she was the most offensively efficient of Arizona’s three pins throughout the match.

Cisneros led the Wildcats with 19 kills, but she also had eight of their 27 hitting errors to drop her hitting percentage to .239. An ace and a block assist gave her 20.5 points. Like the other two pins, she ended with a double-double. She matched Wilson with 11 digs.

Hodge led the team with 21 points resulting from 17 kills, an ace, and six block assists. Her double-double included 13 digs.

As a team, Arizona ended with 65 kills to Colorado’s 62. The Wildcats won the digs category 65-60 and out-blocked the Buffaloes 12 to 7.

CU won in hitting percentage .252 to .228 largely because they won the attack error stat 22-27. The Buffaloes had eight aces to the Wildcats’ seven and 10 service errors compared to UA’s 11.

The difference came down to who was more consistent more often. The Buffs spread the good and the bad over four of the five sets, only failing to keep pace with Arizona in the opening frame. The Wildcats had one excellent set, then swung in the other direction for the next two, before stabilizing in the final two sets.

“We do tend to struggle with being a little bit of a rollercoaster with how we’re playing or not, and I think the moment that we start to get consistent, having a strong start, strong, middle, and strong finish I think we’ll be good,” Wilson said. “I think the up and down is what really kind of lost it today.”

Arizona gets another opportunity to protect its home court and find that consistency on Friday when Houston comes to town. The Cougars were swept by ASU on Wednesday evening.

Lead photo by Reagan Helfer / Arizona Athletics