Boulder ? Senior outside hitter Nicole Carr recorded her 1,000th-career dig and senior right side hitter Allie Griffin notched her 1,000th-career kill in Colorado's 32-30, 29-31, 30-17, 32-34, 6-15 loss to Kansas (12-3, 4-2 Big 12). With the loss, the Buffs drop below .500 for the first time this season (5-6) and are 1-5 in the Big 12 Conference. This is the first time Colorado has started the Big 12 season with one win after six contests.
“I love the fact we got that (career milestones) in the same night,” Griffin said. “I think it's such a cool accomplishment. How cool for us to come in together and be one of the only two left that stayed from our freshman year on and to accomplish something together like that is really neat.”
“I think it (the career milestones) really shows what we add to the game too,” Carr added. “Allie is our offense and I help back up the defense. That was really cool.”
Kansas started the match off with a point, but Carr fired back to give the Buffs their first point of the match. The game went back and forth until the Jayhawks made it 29-26. Colorado fought off three game points to tie it up at 29. CU went up 31-30 on a Kansas serving error. Senior Kelly Masumiya went into the game to serve and the Buffs won the game 32-30 on a KU hitting error. Colorado hit .175 in the match and held the Jayhawks to .118.
The second game started with a 3-1 Kansas lead and increased to 11-6. Griffin got the Buffaloes within four points, but KU continued to add to its lead. A long rally in the middle of the second frame got the crowd of 904 going of the Buffs. CU feed off the crowd and came away with back-to-back kills from Griffin and junior Lara Bossow. Redshirt freshman Alex Buth came into serve for Griffin and tied the game up at 18. Colorado took a lead and extended it to 27-24, but Kansas scored two consecutive points, forcing a CU timeout. The Jayhawks came back and held off the Buffs on game point to eventually win the game 31-29. CU hit .289, just slightly above KU's .286 hitting percentage.
The third game was all Colorado. A kill by Carr made the score 21-14 and gave the Buffs their largest lead of the frame. After KU took a point, CU got the ball back and scored three points on Buth's serve, which included an ace (25-15). Sophomore Therese Vinal finished the game with an ace at 30-17 for the Buffs. Colorado hit a match-high .536 with 17 kills on 28 attempts and just two errors. The Buffs held KU to just .129.
Kansas wasn't finished and took a 4-1 lead, but CU tied things at 4. With the score in 8-9 in favor of the Jayhawks, Carr helped the Buffs get the ball back by picking up her 1,000th-career dig. The Buffs took a lead and held on until Kansas tied it at 21. Sophomore Amber Sutherland answered with a kill and a block to give CU a 23-21 advantage. KU tied things back up and took a lead at 29-28, but a kill from Bossow knotted things up yet again. The two exchanged points until Kansas collected two straight to win the game 34-32 and force a fifth game.
Griffin started the final game with her 1,000th-career kill to give CU its first point. Kansas went on a 4-0 run for a 5-1 lead. The Jayhawks took the set 15-6.
“There's a lot of positives we can take from this game I think; starting off slow isn't one of them,” Colorado Head Coach Pi'i Aiu said. “The fact that we battled ourselves into the first four games; we started down at least 3-1 in each of those four games. That's a positive. I'd rather battle from in front and in game four we did.”
“We played pretty well through that second game,” Aiu continued. “We just wanted to come out and continue to play that way in game three and we did. I think we got to them a little bit, but we came out in game four and were down 3-1, battled back and were up for a bit and I don't know where we give those up. It's frustrating the ways we're finding to loss matches right now.”
Griffin recorded 25 kills, three assists, eight digs and five blocks for 28 points in the effort. Carr hammered 13 kills and picked up 16 digs. Junior setter Ashley Nu'u dished out a career-high 68 assists and added 13 digs, six blocks and four kills for the Buffs. Bossow hit a team-best .400 with 10 kills and added three digs and three block assists. Sutherland tallied 18 kills, 14 digs and five blocks. Colorado hit .272 and held the Jayhawks to a .251 hitting percentage.
Colorado is back in action on Wednesday, Oct. 5, against Baylor at the Coors Events Center.
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