While Kansas was wondering how to combat Baylor’s intimidating defense during this past week, the Bears’ offense decided it would challenge the Jayhawks as well on Wednesday night.

Baylor swept Kansas 3-0 (25-17, 25-18, 27-25) at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas in a dominant offensive showing. The Bears hit for an eye-popping .427 percent in the three sets.

“We just could not stop them,” coach Ray Bechard said. “It gives you no chance to make things happen when they are hitting that high of an efficiency.”

Looking at the numbers does not make it any better. Baylor accumulated 59 total kills, which was 23 more than Kansas.

The Bears also finished with four players having double digits in kills. Sophomore outside hitter Ashlie Christenson led the way with a match high of 14 kills.

The lowest individual hitting percentage for a player that recorded at least one kill for Baylor was .308, by freshman middle blocker Briana Tolbert. That would have ranked fourth best for the Jayhawks.

“Our defense behind the block was just out of whack,” senior middle blocker Natalie Uhart said. “We weren’t coordinated together.”

The Jayhawks did hit for a respectable .245 percent and had 11 errors compared with the Bears’ 12.

Usually a .200 hitting percentage or higher will keep a game competitive for Kansas, but Wednesday night was not the case.

“That’s above our goal,” Bechard said of the .245 percent. “That’s good enough to win matches on the road, but you cannot allow a team to hit with the efficiency that they did.”

Kansas finished with only 35 digs, compared with Baylor’s 48.

After Kansas used 75 digs in four sets to beat Oklahoma on Saturday, the 35 digs was a big drop off.

“That was a surprise,” Bechard said of the defense. “But this Baylor team, I think they are a top 25 team.”

Baylor kept the pressure on all night. Kansas only held three leads for the entire match, each of them early one-point leads.

Except for the third set — which saw the Jayhawks try to win their way back before losing 27-25 — it was a seesaw match to see who could keep scoring points.

Eventually Kansas could not keep up, and Baylor ran away in sets one and two.

“I thought we battled pretty hard throughout set three.” Bechard said. “But once again on the road, we got to find a different level of defensive mindset to be successful.”

Even with Baylor playing at the top of its game offensively, Uhart said she knew things could have been done differently to stop the Bears aggressive attack.

“I’m not going to take away from what they did tonight because they hit their shots,” Uhart said. “It was our side that was the problem tonight.”

Kansas falls to 3-7 in conference while Baylor increases its lead of fourth place with its 6-4 conference record.

The Jayhawks are on the verge of running out of time this season.

With no Big 12 Tournament for volleyball, these are the only matches that Kansas has to prove itself worthy of a postseason bid.

“We can’t drop anymore,” Uhart said. “We are running out of games that we have to win, so that’s what we think about every day.”

NOTES:

While the offense was diverse as everyone contributed a solid hitting percentage, the number of actual attempts could have been better for Kansas. Freshman setter Nicole Tate had more kill attempts (15) than blockers Savannah Noyes and Brittany Williams.

“She’s (Tate) scrambling at the net trying to make something happen.” Bechard said. “That’s just an idea of not getting your setter as many options as you’d like to get her.”

For a team that has been struggling with errors, the Jayhawks only had 11 errors, which is their lowest number in conference play.

“Eleven in three sets is not a lot of errors at all,” Bechard said. “Anytime you error less than 15 percent that’s excellent.”

— - Edited by Jennifer Torline