Red Raiders Fall to Mountaineers, 3-1

Friday, September 25

Lubbock, TX

6 PM

Texas Tech Athletics

1-1,1-1Big 12

West Virginia

1-1,1-1Big 12

West Virginia

Texas Tech

September 25, 2020 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

By: Wes Bloomquist

LUBBOCK, Texas – The Texas Tech volleyball team took its first loss of the year with a four-set defeat to West Virginia on Friday to split their pair of season-opening matches at the United Supermarkets Arena.

The Red Raiders (1-1) opened the Big 12 match with a win, but would fall 19-25, 25-21, 25-23, 27-25 to the Mountaineers (1-1) after Tech had swept the season-opener on Thursday. The Red Raiders are now 11-9 in the all-time series with the Mountaineers, including a 6-4 advantage in Lubbock.

Allison Bloss led the Red Raiders with 12 kills and six blocks, while Alex Kirby had 48 assists and 11 kills in the match. Reagan Cooper added 10 kills and Brooke Kanas had nine kills on a night where the Red Raiders had eight players record a kill. Defensively, Emerson Solano led the team with 17 digs while Lindsey Dodson added 16 and Katy Northcut had 10. Tech finished the match with a .275 hitting percentage.

Texas Tech started with a 1-0 lead by winning the first set 25-19 where the team hit .531 and had a 17-11 dig advantage. Six Red Raiders recorded a kill in the opening set led by Kanas, Dugan and Bloss who each had four kills and Kirby who distributed 15 assists. Solano led the defense with seven digs in a set where Tech didn't record a block. Tied at 6-6, the Red Raiders ran off three straight points that were capped by a Dodson service ace to take a three-point lead and were up 20-15 on a Kanas kill off a Kirby assist. WVU committed only three errors in the first set, but the final one would end the set with Tech taking four of the final six points.

The Red Raiders dropped their first set of the season in the second set, falling 25-21 after the Mountaineers hit .325 and had three blocks to even the match. Kanas led Tech with three kills in the set while Kirby had 10 assist and Solano contributed seven digs for the second straight set. Tech never led in the set with WVU closing it out with a kill from Kristin Lux. WVU took a 2-1 lead by winning the third set, 25-23, with the Red Raiders being limited to a .250 hitting percentage with six errors. Kirby added 12 assists to her total in the set and Cooper had three kills. Dugan would record her second block of the match to give the Red Raiders a 21-18 lead and then had a kill for a 22-21 advantage before West Virginia went on a 4-1 run and closed out the set with a Lynch kill.

WVU secured the win with a 27-25 fourth-set win that came after it was tied 20-20 on a Morgan kill before the Mountaineers took the next four points to set up match point. The Red Raiders would stay in the match with four straight points with kills from Kanas and Block followed by a block assist from Bloss and Cooper. A kill from Cooper tied the set at 24 but the Mountaineers closed it out with two straight kills from Emmy Ogogor.

Lynch led WVU with 15 kills and five blocks, while Ogogor had 14 kills and Lacey Zerwas contributed 50 assists from the setter position. The Mountaineers finished the match with a .273 hitting percentage and nine blocks.

Following the match, Tech honored seniors Solano, Haley Hartman and Bloss.

Texas Tech will now be on a two-week road trip, playing two matches at Iowa State next weekend (Oct. 2-3) and in Fort Worth against TCU on Oct. 8-9. The Red Raiders return to their home court on Friday, Oct. 16 and Saturday, Oct. 17 to host Baylor at the USA.