Karsta Lowe sees spike in career stats, leads Bruins to victory
In her UCLA career, outside hitter Karsta Lowe has gone from being a walk-on as a freshman in 2011 to one of the best players in the country in her senior season this year. (Aubrey Yeo/Daily Bruin senior staff)
By Erik Kaye
Oct. 7, 2014 12:00 a.m.
In the fourth set of Sunday’s win over Washington State, UCLA women’s volleyball team secured the second-to-last point of the match on a Karsta Lowe kill.
This kill was unique among the many others that the senior outside hitter has amassed in her three-plus years at UCLA: It was the 1,000th of Lowe’s career, placing her in a select group of UCLA women’s volleyball greats.
Entering the season, Lowe was 281 kills away from the 1,000 mark after a career-best 2013-2014 campaign, when she registered nearly half of her current 1,000-kill total with 496.
Lowe, who currently leads the entirety of Division-I women’s volleyball with 6.11 kills per set, is on pace to eclipse last season’s mark of 496 should the Bruins see a similar number of games in the remainder of their schedule.
A former walk-on to the Bruins’ eventual national-championship roster in 2011, Lowe holds a career hitting percentage of .306, meaning that about one in every three of her kill attempts has directly resulted in a point for the Bruins. To contextualize that stat, if Lowe’s career hitting percentage were compared with all Division-I teams’ kill percentages this season, her .306 average would place fourth in the country.
As an outside hitter, Lowe’s ability to play both sides of the net has been an integral part of UCLA’s game. In the first half of this season alone, Lowe’s digs already have reached a career-high mark of 100, with her digs-per-set rate (2.17) nearly tripled from last season’s (0.75).
Lowe’s ability to score points for the Bruins (11-4, 2-2 Pac-12) isn’t encompassed by her kill total alone, however. Ranked first in the nation with an average of 6.8 points per set, Lowe’s average contribution to a winning set amounts to nearly a fourth of the team’s total points in each set.
By ranking first on the team in kills and points, second in digs and the third in blocks, Lowe has helped carry the Bruins to 11 wins so far this season – just four shy of their overall win total at the end of last year.
While her senior season remains only half finished, the numbers Lowe has already posted remain an impressive standard, even in as notable a program as UCLA’s.
Compiled by Erik Kaye, Bruin Sports contributor.
