The Colorado Buffaloes (13-16, 6-11 Big 12) beat the Kansas State Wildcats (10-15, 8-8 Big 12) in a 3-0 sweep on senior day Wednesday afternoon. The day before Thanksgiving, the Buffs sent the seniors and their fans home with much to be thankful for.
An emotional senior day ceremony preceded the game as the Buffaloes prepared to say goodbye to five seniors on this year’s roster: Taylor Simpson, Bella Simkus, Emilea Stepaniuk, Jahara Campbell, and Emma Torstenson. All five came in with the same class as freshmen and remained with the team for all four years together.
“I think it’s really special that we started with us all in our freshman year and we’re all finishing together,” Torstenson said post-game. “I think that’s pretty rare nowadays with the transfer portal and everything.”
Once the game started, it was all business. Colorado struck first, forcing an attack error to open the match. For the rest of the set, the Buffs kept a small lead over the Wildcats that culminated in an Ana Burilović point to seal it 25-21. With minimal mistakes, a handful of service aces, and a failed Kansas State challenge, the Buffs had the perfect start to their senior day match.
The second set started off with a bang. Campbell had a big five-point run that forced a Wildcat timeout. Coming out of the timeout, Kansas State scored to end the run but the Buffs quickly responded and got back on track. The lead was stretched to as much as eight when Colorado led 14-6, but Kansas State pulled themselves back into it.
After closing it down to three at 23-20, the Wildcats were hoping to play spoiler. But Colorado remained focused and finished the set with a Cayla Payne hit, 25-21.
With a 2-0 lead and a strong finish to a set that seemed to be falling apart, the black and gold knew they had to stay focused to close out the sweep for their seniors.
“[Head coach] Jesse [Mahoney] always tells us that being up 2-0 can be one of the worst places to be, just because you can get so confident in yourselves and lose focus,” Simpson said post-game.
Set three started just as the previous two, with a Buffs point. Similarly to the first set, the Buffs maintained a lead but could never quite pull away throughout the set. Some small mistakes like a Stepaniuk error at 9-8 kept Kansas State in it, but overall the Buffs just never relented.
The Wildcats were briefly able to tie it at 21-21 following a three-point run, but they never scored again as the Buffs went to close it out. At 24-21, Simpson had the ball in her hands for the last point of her collegiate career. After a quite good serve that she wished would have been an ace, the Buffs ended up getting the point off of a Burilović hit.
“I was about to cry, and I really wanted to get an ace,” Simpson said post-game. “It was just super special to close out my career here with the ball in my hand.”
Defensively, the Buffs had one of their best performances of the season. They held Kansas State to a .190 hitting percentage and took advantage of 20 Wildcat errors.
“We only had six blocks but I thought our block setup created a lot of hitting errors,” Mahoney said after the game. “We were in the right spots, we had the right gameplan, and we executed. It was fun to watch.”
The Colorado Buffaloes look to close out the season with a victory on the road versus the Houston Cougars (11-15, 6-10 Big 12) on November 30 at 1 p.m. MT on ESPN+.
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