McGhee Lifts No. 21 Baylor Volleyball to 3-2 Win Over Oklahoma
WACO, Texas — No. 21 Baylor Volleyball improved to 13-9 (7-5) while halting a two-game skid by beating the Oklahoma Sooners 3-2 on Wednesday night.
Junior outside hitter Elise McGhee led the way for the Bears with 21 kills on a .486 hitting percentage. Sophomore opposite Riley Simpson also came up big for Baylor with 14 kills on the night.
After the game Baylor head coach Ryan McGuyre said that “Elise for sure carried us through [the game.” He highlighted how important her energy and execution were with regard to how the team was trying to grow from the losses at Texas last weekend.
As far as the course of events tonight was concerned, after jumping out to a quick two-set lead thanks to clean play and good hitting from McGhee, the Bears got sloppy and allowed the visiting Sooners to tie things up at two sets apiece.
Set one saw the Bears start a little slow before going on. A 9-2 run to take a 13-9 lead. A McGhee kill and a flurry of OU errors grew that lead to 19-12 and the Sooners tried to use a timeout to salvage the set. A doomed effort. The Bears took the set 25-14.
Set two saw a fast 4-0 start for the green and gold before more Sooner errors and McGhee kills put things out of reach at 19-9. The visitors from Norman fought back harder this time but fell short all the same. 25-18, Baylor up 2-0 in sets.
In the third set, the Bears got sloppy, committing seven errors. All seven errors occurred late in the set after the Sooners earned a 15-12 lead. 25-20 OU and 2-1 BU on sets.
It looked like the green and gold were going to find a way to scrap out a win in the fourth set, but a couple more late errors saw Oklahoma eke out a 25-23 win to tie the match at 2-2.
When asked about the team mentality after getting tied, Riley Simpson said, “It’s pretty frustrating but I think we did a pretty good job as a team remaining calm.”
Then in the decisive fifth set, Baylor built a 4-8 lead thanks to a 5-0 run. That run was mostly Oklahoma errors, but Elise McGhee punctuated it with an ace.
The Sooners returned fire with 4-0 run, but once the score was knotted at 10-10, Baylor closed things out with a 5-2 run. Once again, the exclamation mark on match point came courtesy of Elise McGhee.
After the game coach McGuyre said, “I thought Elise’s energy in the fifth set was huge.”
Up Next — at Texas Tech on Saturday, November 4 at 1 PM CST (ESPN+)