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September 29, 2006 > Sports > Sluggish starts lead to costly conference losses for volleyball

Sluggish starts lead to costly conference losses for volleyball

By Dylan Farmer | Thresher Editorial Staff

The volleyball team’s bid for the Conference USA title took an early-season hit last weekend, as the Owls dropped their first two C-USA matches to the University of Alabama-Birmingham and Memphis University. They recovered on Wednesday with a convincing sweep of Lamar University in Beaumont, Tex., and will resume conference play this weekend at Autry Court, facing Tulane at 7 p.m. tonight and the University of Texas-El Paso on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Tulane (6-5, 2-0 C-USA), which had lost five of its last six matches heading into last weekend, opened its C-USA season with a sweep of East Carolina University last Friday and a close 3-2 victory over defending conference champion Marshall University. The Green Wave are no strangers to playing on the road. Since Aug. 26, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans’ evacuation, Tulane played 29 straight away matches, a streak including all but the first match of the 2005 season and its first nine matches this season.

UTEP (5-10, 1-1 C-USA) is in its first year under new head coach Ken Murphy, and although the Miners lost their first six matches of the year, they have since improved, winning four of their last six. In their C-USA opening weekend, UTEP dropped its first match to Marshall in four games, but they came back with a three game sweep of East Carolina two days later.

Last weekend, lengthy matches proved detrimental for the Owls, as they struggled once again to overcome early deficits. Of the eight matches Rice has played this year that have gone to five sets, the Owls have only won three of them, which highlights the team’s difficulty in battling from behind.

Head coach Genny Volpe said the team’s errors were a crippling factor in the losses, but but she also said the team has the potential to fix the problem.

“We had critical errors at critical times, ” she said. “Now we just have to work on old-fashioned execution instead of allowing ourselves to make mistakes so often.”

Against UAB, the Owls took a 1-1 game tie into the mid-match break after surging from five points back to take a 30-28 game two victory. In game three, Rice resumed its aggressive play, its defense holding the Blazers to a -0.33 hitting percentage and its offense responding with a .370 hitting percentage of its own. The Owls took the lead early and built on it for a runaway 30-15 win. Games four and five saw the team’s hopes lost, however, as Rice succumbed in both games to massive UAB rallies. Despite a season-high 20 kills from senior middle blocker Tessa Kuykendall and 11 from freshman middle blocker Natalie Bogan, the comeback attempt fell short, and Rice lost its fourth match in a row.

Rice fell behind early to Memphis as well, dropping the first two games 30-25 and 30-26, respectively. Despite forcing a number of ties in game one, Rice’s offense went stagnant and the Tigers hung on for the close victory. Game two saw a complete Owl meltdown on both sides of the ball, as unforced errors and shaky defense let a 24-19 lead evaporate under an 11-2 game-winning run by Memphis. After the break, Rice broke an early point-for-point battle before Kuykendall and sophomore Karyn Morgan combined for five kills to spark a 7-0 run in game three, and the Owls continued to rally in game four, winning 30-18 and tying the match at two games apiece. The victory attempt sputtered in game five, as the Owls gave up eight points on errors and the Tigers rolled to a 15-10 victory.

Volpe said the team has to avoid its characteristic sluggish starts if it wants to have a successful conference season.

“We have yet to really come out and set the tone of the match,” Volpe said. “I liked the way we played games three and four [against Memphis] — we need to strive for playing that way the entire match.”

Rice displayed some of that initiative versus Lamar, taking the first and second sets by comfortable 30-22 and 30-19 wins. Lamar challenged the Owls in the third set, forcing the game into extra points before Rice took the game 33-31. Junior setter Rachel Lopez led the Owls with 36 assists, and freshman outside hitter Jennifer McClean had 11 kills. Defensively, Rice had 9 team blocks and held the Cardinals to a .089 hitting percentage.

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