Megan Farr and Kelsey Chipman added nine kills apiece while Rita Liliom and JuliAnne Chisholm each finished with eight, but K-State coach Suzie Fritz wasn't impressed.
"I didn't really like the way we played tonight," Fritz said with a straight face. "It was a lot of little things most people probably wouldn't notice, but I don't feel like we handled the details at all. We hit well as a team, and I should be happy we won 3-0, but we missed at least seven serves and we didn't handle the ball very well."
That being said, Liliom and junior Jenny Jantsch combined for seven straight kills early in the match to put the Cats up 10-5, and KSU stretched the lead to 18-9 midway through game one.
Texas Tech clawed back to within 22-17 before Kelsey Chipman banged out five straight KSU points to help the Cats close out the first game.
"We had a good match-up with Jenny that got our offense going early on," Fritz said of Jantsch, who made a killing in the first two games, spiking back Tech's weak service returns. "We're not a particularly deep team, but we got good contributions tonight from Jenny and JuliAnne Chisholm."
Angie Lastra served Kansas State to a 6-0 lead in game two, and Chipman later served the lead to 16-5 as the KSU lead never dipped below nine. Jantsch served the Cats' first ace of the night — and then four more points in a row — to push the lead to 27-12.
The Red Raiders jumped out to a promising 1-0 lead in game three, and they were still within 12-6 until Liliom served K-State on a 7-0 run that put things out of reach. The Wildcats broke serve late in the third game to take their biggest lead of the night at 26-9.
Texas Tech posted a .000 attack percentage through games two and three — matching their 13 kills with 13 errors in its ninth straight loss.
Kansas State — now 15-5 overall and 7-3 in the Big 12 — turns right around Friday for a trip to Oklahoma, where it will rematch the Sooners' five-set win in Ahearn from Sept. 19.
"I think we're better now than we were the first time we played OU," Fritz said. "We've had growth on offense and our defensive spontaneity is much better now. Our defensive effort let us down a little bit that night, but our defense might've been our biggest bright spot tonight."
