Box Score WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Senior Kyra Holt's 18 kills led the Washington State volleyball team (2-1) to a 3-1 win over Wyoming (0-3) Saturday afternoon at the Purdue Mortar Board Premier tournament in Holloway Gymnasium at West Lafayette, Ind. Set scores in the Cougars victory were 25-16, 21-25, 25-14, and 25-20.
 
Later Saturday night, No. 24 Kentucky upset No. 20 Purdue with set scores of 25-20, 25-18, 24-26, 20-25, and 20-18. Since Kentucky, WSU and Purdue all ended with identical 2-1 records, the deciding factor for the championship trophy was the winning percentage among tied teams. Purdue finished second and Kentucky was third.
 
Holt, an outside hitter from Hercules, Calif., was named the tournament MVP with teammates Hailey Bethune and Taylor Mims named to the all-tournament team.
 
Against Wyoming, in addition to the 18 kills, Holt also tallied nine digs, one block and one ace. McKenna Woodford had nine kills, eight digs, two blocks and one ace. Mims added seven kills, two aces and three blocks. Bethune's six kills came with a .417 hitting percentage and she added three blocks. Claire Martin also had three blocks and five kills, hitting .556. Tani Stephens led the match with 18 digs and served three aces while Nicole Rigoni set up 24 assists and had a pair of aces.
 
"I'm proud of how our team responded to the level of competition in the tournament," Holt said. "All three opponents were tough and exposed areas that we are going to improve on in practice next week. I love playing with this team. Go Cougs!"
 
Wyoming was led by the 12 kills from Emily Lewis and Laura Beach added 10 kills. Lily Austin had 17 digs and Kayla Slofkiss had eight kills, 16 digs and three blocks. Reed Copeland added three more blocks.
 
The Cougars out-blocked the Cowgirls 9 to 5 and out-hit Wyoming 51 (.262) to 44 (.152). WSU hit .452 in the opening set with 16 kills and only two errors in 31 attacks.
 
"I was proud of the way we responded after the second set," WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny said. "Wyoming is a tough, tough team and they are going to have a lot of success this year. They were extremely scrappy defensively and sending everything back over the net. It was tough to get our block going but we definitely got it going at the end. Blocking is a key to our system and what we do really well. We don't want it to take so long to get going but we had some key blocks down the stretch. I'm just glad to get away with a victory."
 
"Kyra was steady all weekend and had great numbers again today and I'm really proud of that," Greeny said." She carried us emotionally too. We're tired, it's hot and sometimes it's tough to rebound after such a grind last night against Purdue, but she was talking the entire match and really leading the team."
 
The next contests for the Cougar volleyball team will be at the Long Beach State Mizuno Invitational, meeting Northeastern, UC Irvine and host Long Beach State Sept. 2-3 at the Walter Pyramid.