MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The West Virginia volleyball team returns to the Coliseum on Saturday as the Mountaineers take on Big 12 foe Oklahoma in a 1 p.m.
The first 250 fans will receive a free WVU volleyball T-shirt. The Mountaineer Maniac students also will receive free food and a giveaway item. Additionally, Mountaineer Kids Club members can pick up their T-shirts, as the match features special appearances by Mr. Twister, the face-painting and balloon animal artist, and Musket, the Mountaineer Kids Club’s mascot. The Mountaineers also will sign autographs following the match.
Fans can purchase tickets by visiting wvugame.com, calling 1-800-988-4263 or at the Mountaineer Ticket Office, located at the Gold Gate of the Coliseum. All tickets are general admission.
When purchasing online, tickets are $5 each and $3 for groups of 10 or more. At the WVU Coliseum ticket window, tickets will be $7 for adults, $5 for youth and seniors and $3 for groups. The discounted online pricing will be available until first serve on game day.
The Mountaineers (8-5, 0-1) and the Sooners (9-3, 1-0) meet for the 16th time overall Saturday and the 15th time in league play since WVU joined the Big 12 in 2012. The two squads met once as nonconference opponents back in 1999, with O.U. claiming the 3-0 win in a neutral-site match. The Sooners own a 14-1 lead in the all-time series, though, the two teams split the home-and-away series back in 2017. WVU picked up its first-ever win over O.U. in four sets on Oct. 13, 2017.
Most recently, West Virginia dropped a four-set match at Texas Tech in its Big 12 opener Wednesday, taking the loss in set scores of 25-23, 25-20, 23-25 and 25-19. The Mountaineers finished the match hitting .163 with 52 kills and nine team blocks, as sophomore middle blocker/outside hitter Kristina Jordan registered a team-high 20 kills and hit .333. Additionally, sophomore setter Lacey Zerwas collected her fourth double-double of the season, recording 40 assists and a career high 19 digs in the loss.
“Oklahoma is playing well right now, so we have to play a lot better than we did on Wednesday,” fifth-year coach Reed Sunahara said. “We are getting better, but we still have a long way to go. We are going to use this match as a good stepping stone, and hopefully, we’ll come out on top.”
Jordan leads the team with 3.38 kills per set to rank sixth in the Big 12. The San Diego native also has served up a team-high 45 aces this season, ranking third in the league with 0.38 aces per set.
Additionally, junior defensive specialist Alexa Hasting anchors WVU’s floor defense with 4.28 digs per set to rank second behind Oklahoma’s Keyton Kinley (5.33 d/s). Hasting’s average of 4.28 digs per set would rank No. 3 all-time by a Mountaineer junior. She currently boasts 885 digs in her career, 115 shy of 1,000. The last Mountaineer to reach 1,000 digs was Anna Panagiotakopoulous in 2014.
Oklahoma is coming off a 3-0 win over TCU on Wednesday night at McCasland Field House in Norman, Okla. The Sooners ousted the Horned Frogs in set scores of 25-17, 25-17 and 25-23. O.U. posted a .248 hitting efficiency in the match, while holding TCU to a 0.73 clip, its lowest opponent hitting percentage of the season.
Oklahoma’s defense leads the league with 16.26 digs per set and is second in opponent hitting percentage, holding other teams to .170. Kinley, the 2018 Big 12 Libero of the Year, is the current conference leader in digs with 224 to her name. She also leads the league in digs per set with 5.33. At the net, Brianna Kadiku is first in the Big 12 in blocks with 47 and a 1.36 blocks per set average.
Looking ahead, West Virginia will take on Iowa State at 11 a.m. Oct. 5 at the Coliseum. During the match, Mountaineer fans will receive an opportunity to win a pair of tickets to the West Virginia vs. Texas football game set for 3:30 p.m. The match is free to the public and will feature a “Beat Texas” T-shirt to the first 500 fans.
