Kansas University’s volleyball team closed out its non-conference schedule with an emphatic sweep – 30-17, 30-24, 30-28 – over Morehead State on Saturday in Horejsi Center to claim the Jayhawk Invitational crown.

“We got done exactly what we needed to this afternoon,” Kansas coach Ray Bechard said. “It got a little bit more interesting in Game 3 than we wanted to. But when we needed to respond at 28-26, (we) got a big side-out play, and then (Melissa) Grieb served us out.”

Kansas senior Emily Brown earned the tournament’s most valuable player award, capping the weekend with five kills, a service ace and a team-high 23 assists.

“I think overall we had a good tournament,” said Brown, a Baldwin High graduate. “I just felt like we played well today : and we took care of what we needed to take care of: another Jayhawk Classic win.”

Fellow senior Caitlin Mahoney was named to the all-tournament team with seven kills and an ace. Mahoney also led the squad with two solo blocks against the Eagles.

“I knew that I had to just go up and swing hard,” Mahoney said. “Sometimes you know you can hit your spots when you tip, but I just knew I had to be aggressive, and I guess that was my mind-set.”

Junior Savannah Noyes also earned a spot on the all-tournament team. Like Mahoney, Noyes had seven kills against Morehead State.

Freshman Jenna Kaiser led Kansas in kills with eight, but also had a team-high six attacking errors.

“We’d obviously like to have a player you think can get 20 kills any night,” Bechard said. “We think we have that when we’re a healthy team. But we do have good balance.”

A key to the sweep was the Jayhawks’ ability to limit attacking errors.

Kansas had just 18 attacking errors and was able to take advantage of 34 errors by the Eagles.

“That’s awesome, because it’s usually us,” Brown said. “We’re usually the ones with a lot of errors. We had a lot of blocking errors – at least I did, anyway. But it’s kind of nice when the other teams get the errors. But the Big 12 is totally different, and we’ll have to continue keeping our errors low.”

The Jayhawks will take a five-game winning streak into Big 12 Conference play.

Kansas will kick off its conference schedule at home against Kansas State at 7 p.m. Wednesday before traveling to Norman, Okla., to face Oklahoma on Saturday.

“We’ll see a whole different level of physicalness now over the next 20 matches,” said Bechard, whose squad went 3-17 against conference opponents last year. “That’s what we’ll have to deal with more than anything. There will be more balls blocked and more aggressive attacks, so we’ll try to get a little bit more with some of the help we have. : I told them physically and mentally we’ve got to get rested up and cleared away.”