Desert two-step: Houston volleyball splits its weekend in Arizona

Houston volleyball spent its Halloweekend on the road, where it went 1-1 in its matches, sweeping in one and getting swept in the next.

They swept Arizona in Tucson on Friday ( 25-23, 29-27, 25-19), and fell in a sweep to No.10 Arizona State on Sunday (19-25, 10-25, 16-25).

Defense leads to offense as Cougars sweep Wildcats

Houston started the road trip by playing the Arizona Wildcats, where individual defensive performances and a historic performance by freshman setter Shannon Dworaczyk pushed the Cougars to their third conference road win this year.

Dworaczyk put up 44 assists, which for a three-set match is tied for the fourth most by a Cougar in program history, and is the most in three sets by a player since 2015.

Sixteen of the assists came in the third and final set, where Houston’s offense had a hitting percentage of .367 and junior outside hitter Sydney Jones had 10 kills, the most by a single set by any Cougar this season.

The second set was tight throughout, with both teams still trying to find their rhythm on offense.

With the score at 16-15 in favor of the Cougars, back-to-back aces for junior outside hitter Kamille Gibson rallied the team to pick things up offensively, after a first set where the UH defense took the lead.

Sophomore libero Gillian Pitts was at the forefront for Houston’s defense, tallying up 18 digs in the three sets, giving her six digs a set, which is the highest that any Cougar has gotten this season.

Gibson herself had 10 digs to go with eight kills.

Houston offense dries up, gets swept by No. 10 Arizona State

The second stop on the Arizona road trip was a visit to Tempe to go up against conference giants, No. 10 Arizona State. A team that boasts one of the top defenses in all of the Big 12, leading the conference in opponent hitting percentage, opponent assists and opponent kills.

In a match where the Cougars needed to start hot to try to find an upset chance, it was yet again the defense that helped Houston go up 16-14 midway through the first set.

They handled things at the net until then, getting three blocks early and setting up an interesting contest in Tempe, including a solo block from Jones to keep Arizona State from taking the lead.

But the Sun Devils defense started to make an impact, limiting Houston to a season-low .033 hitting percentage and 45 combined points in the three sets played.

ASU junior outside hitter Una Vajagic led all players with 17 kills; no other player reached double digits, with sophomore outside hitter Noemi Despaigne for the Cougars with seven.

After splitting this road trip, UH is now 13-9 overall and 6-4 in Big 12 play, sitting at seventh in the conference with seven games remaining.

Up next for Houston will be a game at home against TCU on Friday, Nov.6 at 6 p.m., where it will debut its Houston blue jerseys.