Nu?u Paces Buffs Past K-State

Wednesday, November 1

Boulder, Colo.

7 p.m.

Colorado

Kansas State

Photo by: CUBuffs.com

November 01, 2006 | Volleyball

By: Linda Sprouse, Assistant SID

BOULDER ? Lauren Schaefer, Alex Buth, Mallori Gibson and Amber Sutherland notched double-figures in kills as the Buffs edged Kansas State 27-30, 37-35, 33-31, 23-30, 15-12 at the Coors Events Center on Wednesday night. Schaefer and Buth each recorded career highs. Schaefer notched a team-best 19 and Buth tacked on 17 kills.

“I just felt really confident tonight,” Buth said. “Everyone just played really well together. I have to give props to Ashley for getting the sets up there when she did and it was a great team effort.”

Mallori Gibson tied her career-high with 18 kills, while Amber Sutherland recorded her ninth double-double of the year with 18 kills and 15 digs.

Ashley Nu'u handed out a career-best 74 assists in the victory. The 74 assists performance by Nu'u is the 14^th-best in school history. Nu'u has recorded one other match in the 70-Assists Club on Oct. 5, 2005 in a five-game match against Baylor.

Colorado hit .230 and recorded 90 kills. The last time CU recorded 90 kills in a match was on Oct. 7, 2000 against Texas Tech (92). Four Buffs hit about .300 on the night. Schaefer hit .300, Buth hit .389; Nu'u hit .429 and Austin Zimmerman notched a .400 hitting percentage with four kills on 10 errorless attempts.

The Buffs improved to 13-8 overall and 9-5 in the Big 12. The Wildcats fell to 9-15 overall and 1-13 in the league. With the win and a loss by Missouri to Baylor on Wednesday night, the Buffs moved into sole possession of fourth-place in the conference standing.

“I stopped judging wins as good or bad a long time ago,” head coach Pi'i Aiu said. “That's a win and we needed a win down the stretch here and we got one. It's a great job by us. We battled it out and we won all of the games we won by two points and they were all too close for comfort. But we won and that's what we needed.

“They (Kansas State) are a good team and there is really no bad team in the Big 12. The fact they are having trouble getting wins doesn't change the fact that they have great athletes and heart and have some great coaches. They are a good Big 12 team.”

Colorado had trouble holding onto leads in the match. There were 38 ties and 17 lead changes in the match. There were 15 ties and 11 in the second and third games, respectively.

“I think they (KSU) did some real patterned things and we had trouble stopping their slide,” Aiu said. “And when you have trouble stopping the slide, most of the good teams you face are going to run the slide at you.

“I don't know that they did anything tricky, but did things well. They passed pretty well and they played defense pretty well and they put slides on us pretty well.”

With the victory, Colorado swept the season series with the Wildcats for the first time since 1997. The Buffs defeated KSU 3-0 on Oct. 7 in Manhattan, Kansas.

The Buffs picked up 69 digs in the match and were led by Kristen Karlik with 2. Gibson added nine and Nu'u tallied eight. Callie Webster and Buth each recorded six.

Colorado put up 16.0 blocks. Schaefer, Lara Bossow and Sutherland each notched six. Buth added five and Nu'u put up four.

The Buffs dropped the first game, hitting just .162 in the frame. CU put up 6.0 blocks in the game, with four (one solo and three assists) coming from Sutherland. Sutherland added four kills for the Buffs; as did Schaefer. Schaefer hit a team-high .429 in the set.

Colorado hit a match-best .312 in the second game and won it 37-35. Gibson recorded 11 kills in the set and hit .529. Sutherland added six kills and Schaefer, Buth and Bossow each notched four. The Buffs tallied 30 kills in the game.

Alex Buth went off in the third game. She collected seven kills on nine errorless swings to hit .778. Schaefer added five kills of her own as CU hit .235. The Buffs help KSU to a .191 attack percentage with only 16 kills.

CU mustered 14 kills in the fourth frame and hit a match-low .150. Nu'u and Sutherland led CU with three kills a piece. The Wildcats hit a match-high .378 with 19 kills.

The final game started off in CU's favor as the Buffs finished the match and sealed the victory. Colorado recorded 10 kills and hit .240 while KSU hit .105 with six kills and four errors on 19 swings.

“We had to create our own fire and energy and it took a while to do that,” Nu'u said.

“Especially in the third game when we were down by seven; that was just all heart,” Buth said. “We had so much fire, heart and desire to win.”

Colorado will face the 21^st-ranked Missouri Tigers on Saturday, Nov. 4 in Columbia, Mo. The match is set for a 5:30 p.m. start at the Hearnes Center on the campus of the University of Missouri.