Arkansas Volleyball splits with 8th ranked Huskies in Barnhill

Fayetteville -

Arkansas hosted the highest ranked opponent since 2007 when they defeated 5th ranked Florida and the Razorbacks didn’t disappoint the nearly 1,500 in attendance on opening night as they upset the 8th ranked Washington Huskies in 4 sets 3-1 in game 1 on Friday night in Barnhill Arena.

Junior Taylor Head recorded her first double double of the season as she recorded 16 kills and 10 digs in the victory. Maggie Cartwright and Jill Gillen had 14 kills a piece. Gillen added 9 digs on the evening.

Arkansas used two setters for the match and it proved to be a huge difference maker in the outcome. Gracie Ryan had 23 assists and 10 digs and Hannah Hogue set a career high 31 assists as well as 10 digs.

Coach Watson said after the game “Initially when we came in, we were a little concerned that we didn’t have the time that we needed to prep,” head coach Jason Watson said. “Proud of our team, I thought they played well and composed themselves, especially in that fourth set when they were making a run at us, it was a little bit of a challenge there, but I thought that was really mature volleyball at the end of the match.”

Game 2

In game 2 Arkansas got off to a hot start taking the first set 27-25 but Washington rallied to take the next 3 sets giving them the match 3-1 splitting the series with the Razorbacks. Claire Hoffman led the was for the Huskies with a double racking up 22 kills and 10 digs.

For Arkansas Junior Taylor Head once again had 16 kills to go along with 15 digs and has a double double in as many games. Sophomore Courtney Jackson had 18 digs for Arkansas and set a new career high with 5 service aces.

Arkansas will travel to Fort Collins, Colorado for their only road non conference matches. The matches will start on Thursday where Arkansas will play host Colorado State at 7 p.m., Alabama State at 4:30 p.m. the following day , and they will wrap things up with Florida Gulf Coast on Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m. You can stream all matches on Colorado States website via the Mountain West Network.