Tulane University
UAB
Volleyball's Five Sets Thriller Goes Blazers Way
Sep 30, 2011 | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 30, 2011
Box Score (PDF) | Season Statistics (PDF)
Video Interview with Anna Wruck
NEW ORLEANS - You would not have felt more ups, downs, twists or turns on a roller coaster than you got on Friday evening at Fogelman Arena. The Tulane volleyball team dropped their first two sets against UAB, claimed the next two to tie things up, and sat tied at 11-11 before the Blazers rallied to claim the match with a 15-12 fifth set win.
"Obviously we (got our offense) started late (in the match)," said Tulane head coach Sinisa Momic. "One of our goals was to have everybody playing well at the same time, which has been our problem. The reason why we won games three and four is because our middle (hitters) started finally playing and that was a huge difference. We can't start matches against a good opponent (down two sets) and have a huge part of our offense not working. Once our middles started working, it got us into game five and then it's a lottery: game to fifteen."
"I told the team I'm very proud of the way we came back, but we still need to figure out how to have everybody running at the same time," said Momic. "We were close the first three conference matches this season, we were close, but those small differences of having everybody playing at the same time consistently, we're still not there."
UAB (14-2, 4-0 C-USA) trailed only twice in the opening set, with Tulane owning a 7-6 and 8-7, but Tulane would keep things close throughout. The Blazers never led by more than two in the early going, and Tulane knotted the set at 15-15 on an Izabela Grot kill. An Ally Slaughter service rotation produced six points for the Blazers and Tulane couldn't recover after the 21-15 lead. The two teams traded points the rest of the way and UAB struck first with a 25-20 opening set win.
In the second set, the Blazers raced out to a 13-6 lead Slaughter and Kate Morrell. The Green Wave would chip away at that lead and eventually tied the match at 22-22, but a trifecta of kills of the Blazers potent attack closed out the match and gave the visitors a commanding 2-0 lead entering the break.
It looked as though the Green Wave (5-9, 0-3 C-USA) would go quietly in the third set, trailing 11-7, but that would not be the case as they scored four straight points during a Mel Mandelbaum service rotation and tied the set at 11 on a Cori Martone kills. The two squads traded service errors and a rare UAB attacking error gave Tulane a lead they would not relinquish. Anna Wruck and Martone provided most of the offense in the later stages of the third set and Milica Jovic ended things at 25-22 with a kill of her own.
Tulane again trailed in the early portions of the four stanza, but four kills from Wruck and one from Martone erased an early four point deficit and gave Tulane a 7-6 lead. Lilly Wolfe began the run of scoring for Tulane as the server and served for nine straight Tulane points to give the Green Wave at 13-6 advantage. The Olive and Blue would not allow the Blazers to get closer than five points the rest of the match and coast to a 25-16 set win to knot the match at 2-2.
In the fifth frame, UAB got out to an early 9-4 advantage just to see Tulane pull within one on an Azarri Badawi service ace at 11-10. The edge was too much, however, for Tulane and after trading points the next few service rotations, UAB eventually claimed the set, 15-12, and the match.
"We know they're running the same system like us and they're relying on a big block, that's what 6-2 system is about," said Momic. "We were trying to coach our hitters into how to hit against the big block and tell them that you can't (hit into) the block. You have to hit around them and make them play defense and at certain points we managed to do it."
"Overall, we showed we're capable of scoring a lot of kills, but we're also capable of making a lot of mistakes, still, and that's why we have more kills and worse hitting percentage. Another big difference is if we would be consistent, I mean our serve receive is on and off, we're looking to pass at 75-percent, we are at 50-percent right now and we still managed to play game five, so that is something we're working on every day."
The stat sheet was dominated by Tulane, except for two, hitting percentage and blocks. Tulane held the edge in kills (72-60), digs (85-71), assists (69-57) and service aces (10-3). The Blazers committed only 16 attacking errors in the match, compared to 30 for TU, and held a 14-8 advantage in blocks. Tulane owned a .220 attacking percentage and UAB belted out a .243 hitting clip.
On an individual level, Martone and Wruck tied for match-high with 18 kills, followed by 14 from Grot and 11 from Jovic. Wolfe tallied a double-double with 34 assists and five digs, while Grace Weaver recorded eight kills and 24 digs for the Olive and Blue. Nikki Osuna owned the match-high in digs - for the third straight match - with 27.
The Green Wave will host the Tigers at Fogelman Arena on 1:00 on Sunday, October 2.
Single game tickets are also being sold and can be purchased by contacting the Tulane Ticket Office at 504-861-WAVE or visiting the Tulane Team Shop inside the James Wilson, Jr. Center between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday.
--www.TulaneGreenWave.com--
