(Photo: ASU Athletics)
In their final match of the Residence Inn Challenge, the No. 17 Arizona State Sun Devils improved to 6-0 after a challenging sweep of the Iowa Hawkeyes (25-21, 32-30, 25-23).
“It was an 11 a.m., Sunday win, and we don’t traditionally (have) very many of those,” ASU head coach Jason Watson said.
After a fairly even start, sophomore outside hitter Kizzy Willey helped the Sun Devils pull away midway through the first set with a three-kill, two-block effort. She would finish with six kills, four blocks and eight digs.
Iowa would make a late 6-1 run to pull within two before a service error from senior middle blocker Alessandra Dietz killed the Hawkeye momentum and allowed ASU to close out the set.
“I thought – in game one – we scored some pretty cheap points with our serve and their hitting errors,” Watson said. “They gave us eight (errors) and we gave them two (errors).”
The beginning of the second set was all Iowa, however, as their block forced ASU into various errors. The Hawkeyes picked up six blocks in the set and got their hands on the majority of ASU’s attack attempts as well.
Watson’s team committed nine attacking errors in the set alone.
“They came out and played pretty clean and put some pressure on us and we didn’t respond,” Watson said.
ASU would storm back with an 8-0 run to pull to 21-22 behind stellar play from sophomore opposite hitter BreElle Bailey, who was responsible for half of the points during ASU’s rally. She would lead the Sun Devils with 11 kills in the match.
“I think what we’re seeing is seeing her getting more and more comfortable in that, and she had four blocks,” Watson said. “That’s what we needed. That’s huge.”
Iowa would answer back with two straight points after taking a timeout. Sophomore outside hitter Lauren Brobst tallied three of her six kills for the match in the second set.
From there, both teams battled back in forth, with ASU fighting off four Hawkeye set points and Iowa staving off five Sun Devil set points before ASU completed the comeback win for the second set.
“It kind of felt like my role right there to kind of finish strong,” Bailey said.
Junior middle blocker Whitney Follette would rack up six of her eight kills in the set as well and finished with a .368 hitting percentage, but the 6-foot-2 Canadian still feels there is room for improvement on her part.
“I always think I can do better – always ‘perpetually dissatisfied’ as our coach says,” Follette said.
At one point, ASU trailed the Hawkeyes by nine in the second set.
“It doesn’t matter what the score is. If we’re down, it just means we have to win one point at a time, and it ended up where it was 20-12, 22-14,” junior outside hitter Macey Gardner said. “We were down by a lot, but that didn’t matter because we were just going to push one point at a time.”
ASU took control early in the third set, scoring nine unanswered points early.
Iowa would pull within one late before ASU closed the match out behind a kill from Gardner, her eighth of the match.
“It was a battle the whole game,” Bailey said. “I think that’s more rewarding to us than the actual win, so that just kind of shows us that we can do hard things, and that we can comeback from a long ways.”
Next up the Sun Devils will travel to Morehead, Kentucky to play No. 24 Louisville, Northern Illinois and Morehead State on September 12-13.
You can reach Zac Pacleb on Twitter @ZacPacleb or via email at zacpacleb@gmail.com
