Tulane University
UCF
Volleyball Survives Halloween Scare To Down UCF, 3-0
Oct 31, 2008 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 31, 2008
ORLANDO, Fla. - Playing on Halloween night, Friday's Conference USA volleyball match between Tulane and UCF had all the points that one would look for in a classic horror movie - enough twists and turns to keep one on the edge of their seats, stretches that made one want to cover their eyes, and ultimately, an ending that sent the audience home feeling that they got their money's worth.
For the Green Wave, there were no hockey-masked slashers, deranged hotel owners or cannibalistic ex-psychiatrists across the net, but the Tulane team did its best Clarise Starling impersonation and solved the mystery to walk away from The Venue at UCF with a 25-21, 25-23, 25-17 victory.
The win was the eighth straight for Tulane as the Green Wave improved to 19-5 on the year and 10-1 in C-USA action. UCF, meanwhile, dropped its seventh consecutive contest to fall to 13-13 overall and 5-7 in league play.
"I expected a quality opponent tonight and that is exactly what we got," Tulane head coach Liz Kritza said. "I do not necessarily think that we responded as quickly before we realized what level we needed to play at. Because of that, we escaped with a narrow victory in the second set. We were tested at times tonight, more than I think we should have been. But credit the team for keeping it together. Any time we win, especially when we are on the road, we will take the win."
The Green Wave hit .255 for the match after posting 40 kills and 14 errors in 102 swings - their lowest attack percentage in a three-game set since hitting .245 against Houston on Sept. 28, but made up for it by totaling 12.0 blocks. The Tulane block total was the highest of the season in a three-set match and the third highest overall total of the season.
Junior middle blocker Jen Linder led the way defensively with seven block assists while senior right-side hitter Bridget Wells, sophomore middle blocker Stephanie Stromath and junior right-side hitter Ksenija Vlaskovic posted four block assists each.
Wells was the lone Green Wave player to post double-digit kills with a match-best 11 and hit .364 on the night with just three errors in 22 swings. Senior outside hitter Sara Radosevic narrowly missed a double-double with nine kills and nine digs, and freshman outside hitter Visnja Djurdjevic was next in kills with seven. Junior libero Jenn Miller led all players with 14 digs, while senior setter Luna Rebrovic tallied 21 of the Green Wave's 36 assists.
The Green Wave got off to a good start in the first set as Tulane jumped out to a 10-4 advantage to force UCF to call a timeout. The lead grew to as many as nine, but with the Wave leading 16-7, the Knights used a 12-5 rally cut the deficit to two at 21-19. UCF trailed by a pair on two more occasions, but that was as close as Tulane would allow it to get en route to a four-point win.
Tulane scored the first three points of the second stanza, but UCF came back with an 11-3 rally to take a six-point advantage. The Green Wave were able to keep the Knights within striking distance, but it did not look good for Tulane as UCF held five-point advantages at 12-9, 15-10 and 19-14. From there, however, Tulane rattled off four straight points to make it a one-point affair and rallied from a 23-20 deficit to score the final five points of the stanza and take a commanding 2-0 lead in the match.
"Obviously, I am looking for this team to improve whether we win or whether we lose," Kritza said. "Tonight, I do not think we necessarily improved in the areas that I wanted us to, but taking that second set away from them when we had to play hard and come back at the end, that is a sign of an experienced team and a team that knows they can play at a much higher level and can turn it on when they needed to.
"I will give credit to the older players on the court who finished out that second set. They really came up with some big plays when we needed it and that is a testament to the teams that we played earlier in the season and how tough our season has been. That is a definite positive that we saw tonight."
In what proved to be the final set, the Wave rolled out of the gates with a 4-0 and led by as many as five at 13-8. UCF, however, rallied to knot the set at 15-all did it again two serves later. With the score tied at 16-16, however, Tulane used a 4-0 run to create some breathing room and outscored UCF 5-1 the rest of the way to clinch the victory.
Janine Williams led UCF with 10 kills but the Green Wave defense held Williams to a .100 attack percentage and the Knights to a .129 clip (37-24-101). Kathleen Curry and Erin Campbell led the Knight defense with 12 and 10 digs, respectively, while Jenny Heppert posted five block assists. Lauren Rosenthal paced UCF with 20 of its 36 assists.
"It was not necessarily our best performance," Kritza said. "We were out of system quite a bit, and when we are out of system, our offense becomes very, very predictable and we are much easier to play against. If we stay in system and we are balanced, which we were not tonight, then we are a much tougher team to play. Our opponents know it. Our setters know it. I think we will look at this as another opportunity to learn and to improve.
"We will go back and work even harder to get to the point where we wanted to be at in November. We had a pretty good August, September and October so far this season, but this team knows that the most important time is November. They are going to get a little extra time off here, regroup, come back and go into this last phase of the season with great vigor and energy. We are looking to improve a great deal coming off of this win."
The Green Wave return to action on Tuesday, Nov. 4, when they travel to Hattiesburg, Miss., for a 7 p.m. showdown against C-USA rival Southern Miss at Reed Green Coliseum. From there, Tulane returns to Fogelman Arena on Friday, Nov. 7 against SMU and will host Tulsa on Nov. 9 before closing out the regular-season with a split weekend against UTEP in El Paso on Nov. 14 and at Fogelman Arena on Nov. 16. For ticket information, contact the Tulane University Athletics Ticket Office at 504-861-WAVE.
