Volleyball begins C-USA season at UAB tonight
The volleyball team fell flat in its attempt to beat a ranked team in two consecutive tournaments, losing all three matches it played last weekend at the University of Michigan/Nike Challenge in Ann Arbor, Mich. Rice lost in three sets to the 19th-ranked Michigan Wolverines Saturday afternoon, following defeats to both Indiana-Purdue University-Fort Wayne and the University of New Hampshire.
The Owls hope to regroup this weekend as they leave their early-season tournaments behind. They face the University of Alabama-Birmingham in Birmingham tonight at 7 p.m. to open Conference USA play and return home to face the University of Memphis on Sunday at 1 p.m.. Then they play Lamar University in Beaumont, Tex on Wednesday before settling in for a five-game conference home stand.
UAB (12-3), which was knocked out of last year’s C-USA tournament in the first round by Southern Methodist University, defeated Memphis on Tuesday in come-from-behind fashion and has won nine straight matches since falling to Texas Christian University on Sept. 2.
Rice will be hard-pressed to keep up with UAB’s fast pace — the Blazers have won the first game in 14 of their last 15 matches, and Rice has only won one of six matches in which it has lost the first game.
Memphis’ loss to UAB Tuesday was just its second of the season. Like UAB, the Tigers were also knocked out of last year’s C-USA tournament in the first round.
Lamar, the Owls’ midweek opponent, has a 4-7 season record, but they have already beaten C-USA opponent Tulane and are coming off a convincing win over the University of Louisiana-Lafayette on Tuesday. They face the University of Central Arkansas tonight and Northwestern State University Saturday before the Owls visit Wednesday.
Head coach Genny Volpe said the Owls need to worry about upcoming matches before looking too far into the season’s future.
“We need to get through this first round of conference play undefeated, which we believe we can achieve with a lot of determination and hard work,” she said.
Against New Hampshire last Friday, Rice’s offense sputtered to a low .046 hitting percentage, and the Owls fell 30-25, 30-22, 30-25. The Wildcats took advantage of several Rice errors to build a 13-9 lead in the first game and never let up, taking their momentum into the second and third sets to complete the sweep.
“I think that after we played Arizona … the team allowed themselves to get [complacent],” Volpe said. “They went out just to see how the match would go, and if you attack a match like that, you’re not going to win.”
Sophomore Karyn Morgan provided one of few bright spots for the Owls, recording 13 kills to reach double-digits in that category for the 10th match in a row.
Saturday morning, the Owls took the court against Indiana-Purdue, but again opened sluggishly. IPFW won the first two games by six and eight points, respectively, and despite 18 kills each from Morgan and senior Tessa Kuykendall that helped spark a two-game Rice comeback, the Owls could not hang on to win the fifth game.
In the finale versus Michigan, Rice came out with their best start of the weekend. Only after a 7-1 run in the middle of the first game did the Wolverines pull away, but the Owls came back to within two points before finally falling 30-25. Rice was tired in game two and couldn’t respond after another momentum-stealing Michigan rally. The Owls lost the second set by 11. The third set was the most heated of the match, highlighted by 15 ties. Rice battled to tie the game at 25 and then take a 27-25 lead, but the Wolverines composed themselves for a 5-1 run to take the set and the match.
Volpe said that the team had a lot to learn from their losing weekend.
“Hopefully it will be a blessing in disguise, and [the team will] understand that you can’t go into any competition the way that they did — with a lack of focus and a lack of respect for the other team,” she said.
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