Matthew Difonzo

OU volleyball: Megan Wilson leads Sooners to sweep of West Virginia, 1st Big 12 win of season

With the Sooners looking for their first conference win of the season after back-to-back losses against Texas and Kansas, sophomore outside hitter Megan Wilson decided to take the game into her own hands.

She gave the Sooners momentum from start to finish putting up three straight aces in the first set and tying a season high five to help the Sooners (11-4, 1-2 Big 12) sweep West Virginia (6-9, 0-3) 3-0 on Saturday in Norman.

“You have to get momentum early in the game,” Wilson said. “Especially coming off the last game, I knew I needed to kick us off to the best of my ability to help my team win, so that was my mindset coming into the game.”

The Sooners had control early on in the first set with a quick 10-0 highlighted by Wilson’s three straight aces and a kill. However, the Mountaineers weren’t ready to just give up the set to the Sooners, as they went on a 9-1 run of their own, causing the Sooners to take a timeout.

“We didn’t love that 9-1 point run obviously,” head coach Lindsey Gray-Walton said. “But I feel like we responded differently than we have responded before in other games coming out of timeout after runs like that.”

That way of responding came from Wilson herself. She sensed that the momentum was starting to favor the Mountaineers. So when the ball came to her out of that timeout, she delivered one of her 19 kills of the afternoon and the Sooners held on to take the set 25-20.

“I can’t rave enough about Megan’s focus and her attention to every part of her game,” Gray-Walton said. “It’s really easy for her to be an attacker that leads us in kills, which we really value.”

While tying her season high with the five aces, Wilson also moved into third in program history for a single season with 35 aces in 2022 and will look to add to that tally as the Big 12 slate continues.

“I wasn’t aware of that”, Wilson said. “That is cool, but I’m coming for that number one spot, so I’ll be back soon.”

In the second set, Wilson kept up her dominance with back-to-back kills late in the set to take a 18-11 lead and forcing West Virginia to take a timeout. The Mountaineers couldn’t regroup before OU took the set 25-18.

“I think my scouting scattered really well”, said Wilson. “They had some really big scenes open on the court and I just simply hit where I could see it open.”

The third and final set challenged OU most, as West Virginia started out leading 8-3. But, the Sooners went on a 4-0 run capped by their ninth ace of the night, delivered by graduate student outside hitter Savannah Davidson.

Then Wilson again notched back-to-back kills to give OU a 22-19 lead that it rode into a 25-20 set victory.

Wilson and the Sooners will next hit the road to face Baylor at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 5 in Waco.

“Aces were the cherry on top tonight,” Gray-Walton said. “We value winning highly, so being able to get win No. 11 today and the way we performed to get it, we are gonna enjoy it.”

difonzo

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *