K-State volleyball swept by Rice in invitational final

The Wildcats were limited to .079 hitting on 35 kills and 24 errors.

Senior Aliyah Carter led K-State with 11 kills, six digs and four block followed by Sydney Bolding, who had a team-best five blocks, and Shaylee Myers, who had seven kills on a team-high .261 hitting percentage.

Junior setter Izzi Szulczewski put up her third double-double of the season with 23 assists and 12 digs.

In the first set, Rice pulled away on an 11-0 run after the score was tied at eight. The Owls had 14 kills on 39 swings with just three errors for a match-best .282 hitting percentage.

The Wildcats acquitted themselves much better in the final two sets, losing both by just two points.

In Set 2, K-State fought its way back from a six-point deficit to tie things up at 10. The Wildcats pulled ahead, 18-16, on back-to-back kills and a solo stop from Carter. With the set tied at 23, Rice finished it off with a kill and a block.

In the third and final set, Rice opened with an 8-0 run before K-State responded with a 7-1 run of its own to get within two, 10-8. The Wildcats got within one, 14-13, on kills from Kadye Fernholz and Carter, but a 5-0 Owl run gave the visitors from Houston the distance needed for the set and match win.

With the loss, K-State has wrapped up the non-conference portion of the season under first-year head coach Jason Mansfield with a 6-3 record. The Wildcats open Big 12 play this week, hosting TCU on Thursday and Friday. Each match is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on Big 12 Now on ESPN+.

“(We’re) hopeful for sure,” Mansfield said in a written statement. “We have the people in this program and on the court that can be successful. We have players with good experience, playing college volleyball or certainly in (playing) the Big 12. So I think that’s a good place to be. We just have to make plays. We’ve got to make more plays more often in order to give us ourselves the best chance to win.”