No. 9 Sun Devils one winning weekend away from Big 12 Champions

(Photo: Aubrie McMillan/WCSN)

Arizona State Volleyball is coming off a successful road trip to West Virginia and Cincinnati last weekend that resulted in two victories, each in sweep fashion, for the Sun Devils. If ASU keeps the winning streak going through the end of the week, it will clinch the Big 12 Conference Championship with one game remaining.

Iowa State (10-14, 4-9 Big 12) is the first team in the way of No. 9 Arizona State (26-2, 14-1). The two teams will meet on November 21, at 6:30 p.m. for the Sun Devils penultimate home game. Then, Arizona State will travel for the last time during the regular season to play Colorado (12-14, 5-9) in Boulder on November 23, 12:00 p.m.

Arizona State has had an amazing season to this point in just the second season under head coach JJ Van Niel and first in the Big 12 Conference. The team currently sits on top of the Big 12, one game ahead of No. 11 Kansas.

The Big 12 doesn’t have a tournament to decide its conference champion for volleyball, so if ASU can defeat both of its upcoming opponents this week the team will be crowned the Big 12 Champions. Because Arizona State has the tiebreaker over Kansas, which it earned by beating the Jayhawks earlier this month, ASU can lose its final game of the season and Kansas can win its last three and both teams will end the season with identical records, resulting in ASU as champion.

The Sun Devils are entering this week’s slate of games with momentum firmly on its side of the net. The team has won 14 straight matches and has gone 15-2 in sets since the calendar turned to November. On the season, the Sun Devils lead the conference in kills, opponent kills, opponent hitting percentage and digs.

The team has still had to overcome some adversity recently. Senior outside hitter Geli Cyr, the team’s leader in kills, has missed the last two matches due to an injury. In her absence, sophomore outside hitter Jillian Neal has emerged as a kill threat. After recording just 11 kills on the season prior to the road trip she led the team with 22 kills, turning a potential problem into a great discovery for the Sun Devils and adding another layer to the attack.

Whether it be at Desert Financial Arena or Mullett Arena, where the team plays this Thursday, Arizona State hasn’t lost a game in Tempe all season. The Sun Devils are 11-0 at home, a much better record than Iowa State’s 2-8 mark as visitors.

Don’t let its record this year fool you, Iowa State is used to winning. Head coach Christy Johnson-Lynch is in her 20th season at the helm of the Cyclones and in that time has amassed a 380-215 record. She’s a former Big 12 Coach of the Year, winning the award in 2009 when her team went 17-3 in conference play to finish second in the Big 12 before going on to make the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. She has led the Cyclones to four second-place finishes and has made the Tournament 16 times, including last season.

This year has been an extremely uncharacteristic struggle during the Johnson-Lynch era. Iowa State ranks in the bottom half of the conference in digs per set, service aces per set, blocks per set, hitting percentage and opponent hitting percentage. Errors are a major problem for the team this season. The Cyclones’ 537 errors are the third worst in the conference and are 128 more than Arizona State’s 409, the third best in the conference.

Injuries can also be attributed to the disappointing season. Sophomore outside hitter Nayeli Gonzalez, who led the team in kills last year, injured her knee, requiring surgery, in the team’s third conference match of the year. Junior outside hitter Maya Duckworth also hasn’t been on the court in some time. She last played on November 6, and is also a major part of the offense, ranking third in kills per set.

Due to the injuries, redshirt sophomore right-side hitter Lilly Wachholz has had to step up. She leads the team in kills with 240 kills, her 2.64 kills per set also lead the team if you don’t include the injured Gonzalez. Wachholz will need to overcome an Arizona State defense that allows just 11.16 kills per set, the lowest in the Big 12, to give Iowa State a chance at an upset.

Sophomore middle blocker Pam McCune leads the Cyclones in blocks with 74 and her 1.10 blocks per set ranks ninth in the Big 12. She’s taken over the role of the main blocker on the team after the middle blocker duo of Jordan Hopp and Alexis Engelbrecht graduated after last season. Arizona State’s opponent blocks per set is just 1.78, third best in the conference, giving McCune a difficult task.

Senior libero Brooke Stonestreet leads the team in digs with 378. While her digs per set are down from 4.18 last year to 3.78 this year, that mark is still eighth best in the conference.

Arizona State can’t underestimate Iowa State. The team has struggled this year, but there are good players that could potentially take over the game. The Cyclones are coming off a sweep of Texas Tech on the road in Lubbock.

After Iowa State, the Sun Devils will travel to Colorado to take on head coach Jesse Mahoney and his Buffaloes.

Mahoney has been at the helm since 2016 and has led Colorado to the NCAA Tournament three times, accruing a 140-123 record. 2017 was the Buffaloes’ best trip to the tournament, the team made the Sweet 16 before being eliminated by Nebraska. In 2022, Colorado was eliminated in the first round and in 2023 the team missed the tournament after finishing the season 16-15.

One specific bright spot from Colorado’s 2023 season was then freshman outside hitter Ana Burilović from Split, Croatia. Now a sophomore, Burilović leads Colorado with 351 kills and 3.51 kills per set, which ties her for ninth in the conference in the latter category. She’s also a threat from the service line, her 35 service aces lead the team. One aspect of Burilović’s game that could betray her during the match is her .182 hitting percentage.

Senior setter Taylor Simpson is another player the Sun Devils will have to respect. Simpson and Burilović come as an offensive duo, as Simposon’s 9.26 assists per set is the eighth-best in the Big 12. She recorded a career-high 57 assists earlier this year against Georgia. Neither Simpson nor Burilović is afraid to put their body on the line for the team and both are dual threats that have recorded over 170 digs each.

While Burilović and Simpson find themselves on the right end of leaderboards, Colorado as a whole hasn’t. The rest of the team has largely struggled with getting points on the board this year; its 10.72 assists per set, 15.21 points per set and 11.78 kills per set are all the worst in the conference. It could be a tough matchup for Colorado as Arizona State is the hardest team to record kills against in the conference with an average of just 11.16 opponent kills per set.

On the defensive side, junior defensive specialist and libero Sarah Morton, a transfer from Auburn, leads the team with 313 digs. Sophomore middle blocker Cayla Payne, a member of the 2023 Pac-12 All-Freshman team, leads the team in blocks with 118 and her 1.12 blocks per set are good enough for tied sixth in the conference.

Much like on the offensive side of the ball, the team as a whole hasn’t performed at a close enough level to the team leader. Colorado ranks in the bottom five in the conference with just 1.97 blocks per set.

Entering Thursday, the Buffs have won two straight, one against Cincinnati (3-1) and one against Iowa State (3-0). Before they host the Sun Devils they host Arizona State’s rival, Arizona, on November 21. Colorado has struggled at home this year, the altitude seemingly not helping, as the team has a 6-8 record at the CU Events Center.

By the end of the week, the Sun Devils could become the Big-12 Conference Champions, but they can’t become complacent and overlook these two conference opponents.