No. 13 Arizona State shows resilience in road victory over rival Arizona

(Sammy Nute/WCSN)

Coming into Arizona State’s Thursday night matchup on the road against its biggest rival, Arizona, The Sun Devils had won 14 straight sets spanning five match wins. ASU’s last set loss came on October 9. That night was the first meeting of the season between the two rival schools this year. ASU dropped a hard-fought second set that night after winning the first. Luckily for the Sun Devils, they were able to bounce right back and win the next two to win the match.

History looked like it was going to repeat itself Thursday night, but perhaps with a twist.

When the Wildcats emerged victorious after the second set to tie the match it was by a wide margin. Arizona had soundly beat Arizona State 25-15 and the Sun Devils simply looked lost.

A .132 hitting percentage and a .263 kill percentage highlighted the team’s struggles in the set. A 6-0 Wildcat run to gain separation from Arizona State and a 6-1 run at the end of the set to put it away did the damage.

After the second set, the Sun Devils falling to a 4-3 record on the road seemed like a real possibility. The Sun Devils have been lights out at home with a 9-0 record. Whether it be at Desert Financial Arena or Mullett Arena, Arizona State always seems to come out on top in Tempe.

On the road though, the Sun Devils got swept No. 2 Nebraska (then No.5) on September 13, and fell to No. 23 Baylor (then No. 19) in four sets. Playing on the road is inherently more difficult than at home but the Sun Devils showed resilience by bouncing back in the third set before parlaying that into a commanding set four victory where they flipped the script of set two, winning 25-15.

For No. 13 Arizona State (20-2, 8-1) the victory in four sets over Arizona (13-6, 2-6) in enemy territory showcased the fight of the team as well as it’s depth as head coach JJ Van Niel had to call upon his bench during the match.

“Any road wins a good win and especially when they had a big crowd out here, they tried to get a bunch of people out here,” Van Niel said. “We had a bunch of people down here, 942 came down in force which was great. I think we were louder than them. But I think any time you get a road win it’s a good win and I’m really proud of how we kind of battled through some adversity. It wasn’t looking pretty for a while and (we) finally got it going.”

For the Sun Devils having a short-term memory has been key all season. Never getting too high or too low has kept the team in many games this year. Van Niel kept his head after his team’s bad second set and his team didn’t dwell, instead, they focused on what was to come.

“It was more like, ‘Alright, we got that out of our system, let’s come out and just play our game,’” Van Niel said. “We had a couple small adjustments, we made the lineup change. It was really just like ‘let’s just reset’ and I thought we did a nice job.”

Graduate outside hitter Roberta Rabelo was a major part of Van Niel’s adjustments. After coming in during the second set Rabelo started the third. Her five kills in the third set led all Sun Devils making it two games in a row where the veteran has made a huge impact coming in off the bench.

“It seems like every match we have someone different stepping up and (Rabelo) came in and just was lights out, so I’m really proud of her,” Van Niel said. “She’s been kind of doing that the whole time, it’s been great. We have a bench and they’re all coming off and contributing which is really fun.”

Another player who stepped up was graduate setter Argentina Ung. Ung has been an amazing player all year for the Sun Devils, but usually she is more confined to setting up her teammates and playing good defense.

That definitely continued on Thursday as she had 38 assists and 13 digs but she also contributed by racking up kills herself.

Ung’s season-high eight kills on the night tied her for second most on the team with Rabelo and graduate middle blocker Claire Jeter.

“She did a really good job dumping,” Van Niel said of Ung. “We always want her to attack, she’s very, very crafty. So we want her attacking when she can.”

Ung also had three service aces, including back-to-back aces which completed the 25-19 third-set win. On top of that, she had two assisted blocks on the night.

Blocking was a major part of ASU’s strong fourth set to finish off the Wildcats. The Sun Devils racked up six blocks in that set, going a long way to helping the team win the set by 10 points.

The blocks were a factor of ASU playing a better brand of Volleyball late in the game, a complete turnaround from the second set. It all started with quality serving according to Van Niel.

“I thought, especially in the last couple sets, that when we had opportunities we got them out of system a little more, we were serving a little better and our middles were closing, we were putting up a big block, so it was kind of a function of our serving,” Van Niel said. “Had some nice opportunities there.”