OMAHA, Neb. (Sept. 20, 2019) – The Wyoming volleyball squad responded with a big win Friday afternoon at the Creighton Classic as the Cowgirls notched a come-from-behind, 3-1 win over Wichita State. Set scores went 17-25, 25-20, 25-22 and 25-20.

After falling behind early and trailing all of set one, the Cowgirls (5-5) responded quickly in the second set, jumping out to an early 6-1 lead. Wyoming led the whole set, other than when it was 1-0 and built as much as a nine-point lead, at 20-11 in the set.

Sets three and four followed the same script for the Pokes, fall behind early and then rally late. In set three, Wyoming trailed 11-4, before surging later in the set to tie the score at 16-16. After falling behind again, the Cowgirls tied the score at 19-19, including scoring eight consecutive points to take a 24-19 lead. In the fourth set, UW jumped out to an early lead before falling behind 10-7. From there, the Pokes outscored the Shockers 9-3 and led 16-13.  The Cowgirls would not trail the rest of the match, even when Wichita State (3-7) tied the set at 19-19, Wyoming responded with a three-point run and scored five of the last six overall to secure the win.

Mackenzie Coates had a huge all-around match in the win as she tallied 37 assists, seven kills, nine digs and two service aces while hitting .545. The Cowgirls were extremely balanced offensively on the day as Jackie McBride and Tara Traphagan led the team with nine kills each while KC McMahon and Hailey Zuroske each had eight.

McBride didn't record a single attack error in the win and hit .500 for the match while recording a team-high six blocking assists. McMahon added three block assists defensively. Also defensively, Madi Fields led the back row with 19 digs to go along with five assists. Erika Jones chipped in with 10 digs of her own.

After the Shockers blistered the nets in set one, to the tune of a .500 hitting percentage, the Cowgirls out-hit Wichita State in the next three sets and hit .197 overall for the match while WSU hit .155.

Hitting proved to be the difference Friday as the Shockers had twice as many aces (8-4) as did the Pokes and also committed one fewer serving error, nine, as did UW, who had 10 service errors. The Shockers also out-blocked Wyoming 12-9. The Cowgirls did record five more digs in the match.

Next up for Wyoming is a showdown with 15^th-ranked Creighton Saturday at noon.